Scotland Road Trip: Grantown-on-Spey to Isle of Skye (Day 5)
UPDATED: 2/5/2023
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For the second morning, we awoke at Firhall Highland Bed & Breakfast (read our review here) and had a glorious start to the day with their amazing breakfast. Starting the meal with porridge, this morning I tried the option with yogurt, honey, and almonds, while my three traveling companions stuck with the more standard porridge. The addition of yogurt was really good and, as I mentioned on the prior day’s blog, when we came home we started replicating this recipe at home.
The food at Firhall was amazing and plentiful.
For our main courses, Dustin opted for the full Scottish breakfast and had his first and only taste of haggis on the trip. The rest of us had their special of the day which was sourdough bread topped with mashed avocado, salmon, and poached eggs. This is another recipe I have since replicated at home. That’s one of the fun things about travel for us - picking up new ideas for recipes to try at home!
We had a long drive ahead of us for the day that we knew would take longer than it looked on a map due to the slow-going country roads. On the agenda along the way: Clava Cairns, an ancient standing stone and burial ground site; Culloden Battlefield, an important spot in Scottish history; Urquhart Castle, on the banks of Loch Ness, home of the Loch Ness monster, of course; and then the beautiful drive out to the Isle of Skye, part of the Inner Hebrides archipelago.
Sheep and pasture land is a common sight along the roadways of Scotland.
Visiting Clava Cairns
The rear of the Northeast Cairn at Clava Cairns, Scotland.
Clava Cairns is one of many examples of standing stones and a historic burial ground in Scotland. This site was easy to find and get to off of main roads and has a convenient parking lot right next to the site. Within the site are four cairns, three stone circles, and a number of standing stones that are from the Bronze Age and date to various times between 2,000 BC and 1,000 BC. Interestingly, on the entrance gate to the site was a notice encouraging visitors to take filter-free photos and either email them, send them via WhatsApp, or share them on social media with certain hashtags as a “citizen scientist” effort to track the conservation efforts on the monument over time.
The site itself is quite small - from the entrance, you can easily see the entire space and then wander around and inside of the stone circles. There are placards stationed around providing information. Because there is no written record, it has been up to archaeologists to piece together information through their research and on-site studies. In 1882, this site became one of the first ancient monuments to be protected by the Scottish government.
The four cairns are named as follows: Northeast Cairn, Ring Cairn, Southwest Cairn, and Kreb Cairn.
The Northeast Cairn would have once had a stone roof that has since deteriorated and sunlight would have streamed in the door of it on the shortest day of the year. Placed inside would have been the remains of important members of the community, which are long since gone.
Nearby, the Ring Cairn is fully enclosed in a circle pattern with no entry way to the interior, which archaeologists believe means it was used as more of a temple. In its center is evidence of fire for purposes unknown but not believed to be due to cremation.
Lindsey inside the Northeast Cairn to help show the scale.
From the outside these cairns don’t look too big but upon entering the cairn you realize just how huge they are.
We overheard a tour guide telling a group that this split stone is apparently the inspiration for the stone in Outlander but we think that claim is quite dubious ourselves.
Lindsey next to one of the standing stones. Imagine the effort it would have taken to erect these structures.
The Southwest Cairn underwent substantial study in the mid 1990s and that research suggested the cairn was originally built in around the year 2,000 BC, used for about 200 years before falling into disuse, and then was reused again around the year 1,000 when the next cairn (Kreb) was built. Analysis of the stones in this cairn shows that while they have been weathered and appear gray now, the original color of the stones varied. Red and pink stones were used for the front of this cairn, which faced the midwinter sun, and paler stones were used around the other side of the monument. Neolithic flint was also found near this cairn, suggesting that long before the cairns were built, others used the site for other purposes.
Next on the site is the Kreb Cairn, which appears to have been built 1,000 years after the earlier cairns and dates to approximately 1,000 BC. Right near it is a spot used by the Picts for a cremation in about 500-600 AD, perhaps the latest usage of the site.
There is obviously so much left unknown about the people that created these time-intensive structures, so the visit lends itself to both some education based on what is known but also the ability to imagine the site and its potential uses and meaning over time. Dotting the entire area are a significant number of standing stones of various sizes and positioning. One that is split into essentially two stones is said to be the inspiration for the stone circle on Outlander, meaning that this site ends up on the list of places for fans of the show to visit even though nothing on the site was actually used in the show’s filming. I suspect that means that the site is getting more traffic, but it was not particularly crowded when we were there - there were just a handful of other visitors.
The Kreb Cairn is the smallest cairn and is also the youngest.
Looking at these neolithic monuments and witnessing the erosion of the stones really puts the passage of time into perspective.
Over time wind, temperature, and lichens have begun eroding these massive stone slabs.
The Southwest Cairn and neighboring pastures.
a murder mystery in the highlands
Yellow tape and a group of police draining water piqued our curiosity and lead us to investigate the way we know best - Google sleuthing!
On our drive to Clava Cairns, we passed a portion of the road that had a lot of police tape indicating a crime scene. There were a number of police vehicles pulled in on a gravel road that looked to be a quarry. I immediately started looking online to figure out what was going on and discovered a sad tale of a cold case that had recently gained some new leads.
In short, in 1976 a 36-year old mother and her 3-year old son left home after dropping off her older son with her husband. This case has been Britain’s longest missing person case after the mother and younger son disappeared.
Their burned out car was found in the vicinity. No trace of either has ever been found, though various quarries and spots have been searched over the years. Police began another push for information as the 40-year anniversary of their disappearance arrived and received some new tips. It was from those that they decided to drain the Leanach Quarry, which is the spot we had happened upon.
Apparently, the mother, Renee MacRae had been having an affair with a married man named William MacDowell, who it turned out had fathered her younger son, Andrew. In doing an updated search to write this blog, I discovered that in September 2019, while the bodies have not been recovered and searching at the quarry continues, the man Renee had been having the affair with has been charged with their murders. Here is the latest article on the story.
Just down the street was our next stop of Culloden Battlefield.
A visit to Culloden Battlefield
a brief history of culloden
For those unfamiliar with Scottish history, here is a very brief overview of the situation that led to the battle at Culloden. For hundreds of years, there were various incursions, battles, and sieges as the British and Scottish fought for control of the region. By the 1700s, there had been significant attempts through royal marriages and other efforts to merge the population, but there were still factions that desired a separate and free Scotland.
Those factions were known as Jacobites and had been responsible for a number of Jacobite Uprisings over the years. They sought to leverage the living claimants to the throne that descended from Mary, Queen of Scots. At the helm initially was James Francis Edward Stuart, Mary’s great-grandson, whose father was deposed during the Glorious Revolution when he was young. Known as the Old Pretender, his family line had a valid claim to the Scottish and British thrones. He was involved in some of the Jacobite Uprisings, and that baton passed to his son, Charles Edward Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie.
During a short 8-month, poorly-planned incursion into Scotland, Bonnie Prince Charlie raised the Jacobite cause and sought to take back the throne for his line of succession. After a number of battles throughout the country, where the Jacobites had some surprising successes for a time, the two sides met for a final battle at Culloden.
Reading about the lead-up to Culloden and the mistakes and errors made just beforehand, it was an error of comedies that in reality was nearly a suicide mission for those fighting on the Jacobite side. The Jacobites were slaughtered en masse with somewhere around 1,500 to 2,000 deaths out of a total fighting population of about 7,000. Many more were wounded and hunted down and killed in the days afterwards by British troops who wanted to leave a lasting memory to defer future uprisings. The battle was symbolically the final stand of the Jacobites, though the outcome was - in retrospect - a foregone conclusion.
From there, Bonnie Prince Charlie fled, a journey that has many interesting stories of its own, including that he dressed up as a woman to go undetected. He ended up making his way famously to the Isle of Skye, which was to be our final destination for the day as well.
Cows graze the now peaceful, windswept fields of Culloden.
Culloden battlefield and museum
When we turned into the Culloden Battlefield visitor’s center and museum, the day had become quite chilly, windy, and gray. Inside, we bought our tickets, which included audio guides.
This museum did an amazing job of including both the Scottish Jacobite and British perspectives of the timeline leading up to and following the Battle at Culloden. The entire exhibit was juxtaposed with one wall leading you through the British perspective - information they had, what they thought they knew through military intelligence but may have been mistaken, and the like - and the other wall followed the same timeline from the Scottish point of view. This was a fantastic way to show the complexity of history and the real-life timing of situations and reactions that lead to different outcomes. I wish more museums would take this approach to provide a more in-depth and more nuanced view of history.
When we got to the end of the exhibit, a staff member was about to start a talk on the outcomes of the Jacobites post-Culloden. We joined in and listened to that for about 20 minutes before exiting out of the back of the building and onto the battlefield itself.
The day we visited the battlefield was one of the worst weather days of our trip. It was quite cold and windy and a sprinkling rain had started with dark clouds in the distance promising worse.
There are a number of paths and walkways through the battlefield, and there is also a longer hike from the battlefield. Due to the weather, Dustin’s bit of a sprained ankle from the prior day, and the long drive ahead of us, we spent less time on the battlefield itself. Having just learned details of the battle, including watching an immersive video (the battle occurring on entire-wall screens on all 4-sides of the room), it was easy to visualize the battle on the moor around us.
There were markers scattered throughout the field indicating where certain clans had met their end and buried their dead. The markers were placed on the field in the 1880s in memory of the battle, which took place in 1745. A large cairn tower stands out on the field in memorial to the lives lost.
No surprise for fans of Outlander that the stone marker for Clan Fraser was festooned with flowers and momentos. People do realize that the show is not real, right?
On the Culloden moor stands a cottage that visitors can enter. During our visit, it had some information about local efforts to maintain the historic battlefield in light of encroaching development. But what was really interesting is that the cottage was there during the battle as well.
In total we spent about 2 to 2.5 hours at the museum and battlefield, and we could certainly have spent much longer on the battlefield itself or hiking around the area had the weather been better. This is a spot that you need to allow yourself enough time and can’t really be done as a short stop.
This monument was erected to honor the lives of those Scotsmen who died in the Battle of Culloden.
The Outlander Effect was in full display at Culloden Battlefield. Monuments to clans of characters in Outlander got far more attention than others.
The marker for clan MacGillray.
“Field of the English - They Were Buried Here”
By this point, it was mid-afternoon, we were famished, and the restaurant in the museum had run out of lunch food. Culloden is in a rural area, though on the outskirts of Inverness.
We located the closest option en route of our journey - a place just south of Inverness called The Three Witches (taking its name from Shakespeare’s MacBeth). While the restaurant fit our need (food en route) and appears to be a stand-alone establishment, it felt very much like a franchise restaurant in the US (an Applebees, Ruby Tuesday or the like). The food itself was just okay in spite of highly rated reviews online. Part of that might be our own tastes - we ordered burgers and the meat had an odd texture; it was much more emulsified than the ground beef that we are used to.
Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle
Enjoying the history and the views at Urquhart Castle. (Don’t you know by now? It’s ALWAYS selfie time!)
Shortly after our stop for lunch, our route began following the very long and famous Loch Ness. At 22 miles in length, this is one long lake! In addition to beautiful water views, this was a good way to keep an eye out for the Loch Ness Monster, who chose to be shy during our visit.
After about 30 minutes of driving, we arrived at our next stop - Urquhart Castle, which sits perched on the banks of Loch Ness. Given the kitschy interest of Loch Ness, we passed a number of Nessie-themed tours and stores, and Urquhart Castle was more crowded (though still not terribly) than some of our other stops.
At Urquhart Castle, visitors enter the visitor’s center and watch a 10-minute video about the history of the castle. In general, we had really impressive museum experiences in Scotland, but this was not one of them in that the video skipped through time and left out what I thought were important bits of history of the castle from my trip pre-reading. It felt like more of a cliff notes version, hopping through time to highlight specific events. But at the end of the video, the screen receded, and the curtains parted to show us the castle’s remains and grounds with the lake surrounding it, and that was a pretty well done spectacle!
The structure of the main castle as seen from the top of Urquhart’s keep.
Behold the fearsome trebuchet!
Through the keep window of Urquhart Castle.
This window (door?) has certainly seen better days.
Peaking through the trees and flowers is the keep of Urquhart Castle.
The walk out to the castle was a bit hilly - downhill in this direction. The castle’s remains are scattered over a reasonably large-sized area in various conditions with a lot of steps and stairs to climb. It is not an easily accessible site for those with mobility constraints. The most substantial part of the building still standing was the castle’s keep, and were were able to explore multiple stories of that, a tiny jail area, and other buildings that provided support to those living at the castle.
The most memorable aspects of the site are the views of the loch especially as dark clouds hung in the distance, being able to explore parts of the site, and seeing a recreated trebuchet (a type of catapult), which was significantly larger than I had imagined their size.
We spent about an hour at Urquhart before returning to the car. We soon peeled off from Loch Ness, which continued south, and headed west toward the Isle of Skye, which was about 2 hours more of driving.
Walking down the path leading to Urquhart Castle give you are great view!
The residential areas are some of the most intact areas Urquhart Castle.
Iron gates would have helped secure the castle against intruders.
High atop the keep, the remains of Urquhart Castle look out over Loch Ness.
Follow the trail to the location of where Urquhart Castle’s dock used to be.
Looking back at the castle from the path leading down to where the dock used to be.
While much of the ruins of Urquhart Castle have been destroyed beyond recognition some things, like this fireplace, are still recognizable.
Walls protect the castle from an attack by boat.
Seeing much of the Urquhart Castle in ruins and covered with soil and grass really made me wish I could see it at the height of it’s glory.
The sprawling ruins follow the topography along Loch Ness.
Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness is bordered on all sides by mountains.
The stones of Urquhart Castle have been standing guard over Loch Ness for centuries.
Wildflowers of many colors grew against Urquhart’’s ruined walls.
To the Isle of Skye
Sadly, by the time we stopped and got our camera out only one rainbow was easily distinguishable.
The scenery on the drive to Skye was different than where we had been previously in the Highlands. The area became more mountainous with various waterways dotting the landscape. It was absolutely gorgeous and I imagine there should be some good hikes in the area. We had rain showers off-and-on and at one point came across a double rainbow that we stopped to photograph. The ethereal image was gone just an instant later.
By the time we arrived in Portree, the main town on Skye, it was about 8:20pm but still light in mid-summer. Portree has become increasingly popular in recent years and so finding a spot to eat is not always easy. The check-in for our AirBnb was at the Portree Hotel so while picking up our keys there, we decided to eat dinner at their restaurant before finding our AirBnb.
Dustin had fish ‘n chips, I had their special of cod on a bed of cabbage and carrots with slices of potato, and our in-laws both had salmon. For dessert, Dustin had a brownie, and the other three of us ordered toffee pudding, which I had seen on many menus in Scotland. I fell in love with it, and so it became my go-to dessert choice the rest of the trip. The food was pretty good and certainly filled our hungry stomachs.
After dinner, we found our AirBnb, which was situated down a steep hill (with limited parking nearby) right along the harbor. Probably a mere 10 feet out of our front door and across the one-lane road was the water. There is a common photo of Portree that shows this street with colorful houses, and we stayed in one. There were a few boats in the harbor lit with soft, orange light from some street lights when we checked into the place around 10pm in a solid rain.
The following day we planned to spend touring the peninsula that loops up from Portree and includes some wonderful sites!
Our first look into Portree Harbor.
Late evening on the water of Portree Harbor.
Staying right next to the water was great, although finding parking is a bit of a pain.
The route we took for this day - while a long drive, the stops along the way helped to break it up:
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Check out our other posts about Scotland:
The Isle of Skye
Keep reading for our day touring the island, featuring two of our favorite hikes of the trip and beautiful scenery and sites!