It was formerly the home of Alastair MacLean, who wrote the novel The Guns of Navarone, which was also made into a movie with Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn.
In addition to renting out rooms, they raise poultry. They even have a goose, of the non-edible variety (ie, a pet).
After we downed another giant, hot breakfast, we hopped in the rental car and headed out into the Highlands. First stop: Culloden Battlefield. This is the location of the last major battle on British soil. Ever heard of Bonnie Prince Charlie? He and a few supporters thought he should be the kind of Scotland and England, but the English and quite a few other Scots thought otherwise (he was Catholic), and this is where they fought it out. It was actually over in about 45 minutes, with most of Charlie’s forces slaughtered and Charlie himself on the run.
Here Hannah reenacts the command to charge.
At the next stop, we were dumb and left our camera in the car, which in turn means that I am dumb and forgot to mention in the earlier draft of this post our visit to Cawdor Castle, which was totally wonderful. We couldn't have taken photos inside anyway, but the grounds were beautiful, and I am glad I picked up the full guide with photos since I wasn't able to take any of my own. The house itself is the actual home of the Earl of Cawdor during the off-season; it felt weird walking through rooms that real people live in. Of course, I wouldn't mind being one of those people--the rooms looked comfortable and interesting, not just opulent like some of the places we've visited. The signs for the rooms were often hilarious, and I found out in the gift shop that they were actually written by the 6th Earl of Cawdor himself. An excerpt from "The Modern Kitchen": "This was once a dark and dreary place known as the School Room and may have been responsible for turning some of the Campbell ladies into confirmed spinsters and professional invalids." *hee!*
While planning the trip, John promised to find something that Hannah would find fun. So after the battlefield (what kid doesn’t like a battlefield?), we headed to Carrbridge and the Landmark Forest Theme Park. (I don’t know the purpose of all the extra dots on the letters on their written materials, but it is very annoying.) We had a nice time, but Hannah was in a bit of a snit because it turned out that the two things she wanted to do—the Ropeworx and the Skydive—required you to be 1.5 meters tall to do them. I don’t really blame her, since she had been looking forward to them. But we rode the water slide with her, all three slides.
And then she was made queen of the forest (at least in her mind).
The park is set in a forest, and John spent his time grazing the blueberries and cowberries there. It didn’t seem to worry him that people brought their dogs there, and that dogs occasionally need to pee, and that they seem to prefer bushes... It was kind of a game, harassing him about it.
Hannah didn’t want to try sawing wood, and she was too unhappy about not being able to climb on the rope things, so we spent a lot of time on the Tree Top Trail, a wooden, elevated trail through one corner of the woods. We only saw one squirrel up there, but then when we got to the feeding area, we saw several. Look at the red eye—evil, I tell you!
On the way out of town, John stopped to take some photos of the Old Bridge of Carr (hence the town’s name, Carrbridge).
To round out the day, we drove into Inverness. John was the trip researcher, and he hadn’t found out anything that made him want to invest a lot of our time in Inverness, so we bought a few groceries and ate a quick picnic dinner next to the River Ness. Hannah entertained herself flinging crumbs to some enormous seagulls until we were ready to take a stroll along the River.
John thinks that a day of vacation in which we aren't on the move from 8 am to 10 pm is a day wasted. Hannah and I are firm believers in relaxation being a part, however small, of the vacation experience, so when it gets dark, we retire to the safety and comfort of our hotel room. On this evening, John decided to find the River Nairn. In the dark. Alone. When he got back about an hour later, we found 2 ticks on him. Hannah named them Andy and Susan. We didn't have any alcohol or tweezers, so John pulled them out as best he could, then we daubed some of Hannah's purple nail polish on the spots. It works for chiggers... As far as I have been able to find out, Scottish ticks don't seem to carry any really nasty diseases, but that doesn't mean I wasn't a tad pissed at him for wading through shoulder-high weeds in the dark in a strange place near a river. grrr...
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