The Magic of Cairngorms Park

We arrived at the lovely Docharn Lodge (a B&B), located near Boat Of Garten, after a lovely drive from Edinburgh through the hills and dales of the Scottish Highlands. After a warm welcome from our hosts, we relaxed for a couple of hours before heading off to a local hotel and pub at nearby Carrbridge around 8pm. Carrbridge is a quaint little town, most famous for its lovely stone bridge over the river at one end of town that is the oldest stone bridge in the Highlands, having been built in 1717. While the bridge was damaged in the 19th century and is unusable for traffic today, it is quite lovely and worth a look if one is near Aviemore (the largest town nearby). Dinner of fish and chips for Christos and Ale Pie for Lisa was good and washed down by Guinness. On the drive back, we saw several deer in the local woods, a big thrill for city slickers like us! When we got back to Docharn Lodge, we snuggled in to our bed and watched the first episode of Game Of Thrones as well as the first episode of Outlander. While we love GOT, Outlander was in some ways more intriguing as it is set in the Highlands, near Inverness, and thus resonated with us. We finally drifted off to sleep around midnight with the blinds tightly drawn as even at night it is not completely dark at this time of year in the Highlands.

The next day we woke a little late due to jet lag, ate a lovely breakfast that appealed to our Canadian sensibilities (unlike most of Europe, the Scots know how to do breakfast; bacon, eggs, beans, sausage, black pudding and more!) and then off we went for our first full day of touring the highlands.

First we visited the Osprey Sanctuary nearby where we joined the RSPB (The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and saw Ospreys, Woodpeckers, other gorgeously coloured songbirds and rare Red Squirrels! Quite fun and they have done a great job with the centre as it allows visitors to see the Ospreys from a distance (via telescope/binoculars), thus not disturbing the wonderful birds of prey, while the closer by bird and squirrel feeders are overrun with other creatures and do not require the use of optical aides to view the animals.

After the Osprey Sanctaury, we headed to the nearby town of Aviemore for a quick bite before heading to Loch An Eilein for a wonderful hour and a bit stroll around the Loch complete with a view of the lovely ruined castle on an island in the Loch. Loch An Eilein was a bit more popular than we had thought and we encountered quite a few other walkers on the trail.

We got back to Docharn Lodge around 5pm and relaxed for a bit before heading to the "Winking Owl" for dinner around 8pm where Christos had the Cullen Skink and a meatie while Lisa enjoyed a burger, one of her preferred meals. Dinner was interrupted when a rush of people headed out to the entrance and we soon discovered why; a beautiful and strong rainbow was to be seen!

We drove back to our B&B after dinner but spent some extra time hunting deer and other forest beasties (with our eyes, not with guns) and we did in fact see a rabbit and several deer!

Scotland! The arrival.

While we usually travel to warm and sunny Mediterranean climes for holidays, this year we decided on something different, a trip to Lisa's ancestral homeland of Scotland! Sure it's a bit chillier than Canada but with the summer heat already hitting Toronto, cooler lands are not such a bad thing.

We arrived in Edinburgh after a sleepless flight from Toronto. The flight was not an easy one for either of us; Lisa was feeling sick from bad airport food (avoid Susur Lee's place at Pearson) and neither of us got much sleep on the way over. So we crashed for a few hours at the hotel before getting up in the late afternoon to explore Edinburgh. It was a bit rainy so our stroll was limited to the area around the "Royal Mile" of the city with the obligatory stop in a pub for pints of Guinness. Edinburgh (what we saw of it), is a lovely city with gorgeous buildings, windy roads and cool monuments (such as the one for Bobby the Dog). After a few hours out, we grabbed a quick bite and had planned to enjoy Friday night live music but we were so bagged it was back to the hotel for a night's rest. Being further north than Toronto, the light in Scotland during the summer lasts for quite some time; sunset at 10pm and darkness (well dark twilight anyway) at 11pm!

On Saturday we picked up our rental car and were on the road just after noon, heading north to our first country destination, Cairngorms national park!!! We arrived at the the lovely Docharn Lodge in the late afternoon after a three or so hour drive north ... With of course the obligatory stop at a whisky distillery on the way, in this case Dalwhinnie, where Christos enjoyed a wee dram and bought a bottle to take home.