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!