Scotland- Day 8: Glenmorangie, Dunrobin Castle, Thrumster and Thurso- June 21, 2019

It's the first day of summer! Out of curiosity, I looked up sunrise times, while checking the weather-49, feels like 45 this morning. Here in Inverness, the sun rose at 4:17 and will set at 10:19 tonight. You can tell that Thurso, where we'll spend the next two nights is further north, because sunrise there is 4:04 and sunset will be at 10:27. Back home in Central Florida, the sun won't rise until 6:27 and will set at 8:25. What a difference! Oh, and the high temperatures for each of the three are 60, 55 and 93, respectively.
We got up at 6:45 to stretch and pack up the last things. Luggage was due outside at 7:30, which was when breakfast was to start. That's when my husband K headed down. I wanted to take a photo out the window and had a major panic attack, when I couldn't find it. I even went out in the hall to check to see if it had fallen into the suitcase, only to have the door shut behind me, with the key card on the other side. Luckily, a painter came out of another room and I got him to let me back in. There, thank heavens, I found the phone in my purse, even though I don't remember putting it there. At least the photo was good.

When I got downstairs at 7:40, I found K with a full Scottish breakfast in front of him, including haggis! I went for porridge.

We boarded the bus at 8:40 and it departed at 8:45.  We were on the A9 as we had been on the way to Inverness. We hit a little rain, of course. We crossed between the Beauly Firth and the Moray Firth via the Kessock Bridge. Across the Cromarty Firth, we had these views toward Dingwall.

We continued northeast until we reached Glen Morangie, or rather, the Glenmorangie Distillery, at 9:34. A bit early in the morning to be contemplating Scotch, but there you are. The outside of the distillery was rather charming, complete with lovely flowers. There was even a view out to the Dornoch Firth. We were here for a tour and then a tasting. At the beginning of the tour, we could see where they were putting in an expansion. Amazing to think those pieces of machinery in plastic went in before the floor!

K and I had watched a video on the making of Scotch before we left home. It prepared us well, as we saw those same things here. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take pictures for safety reasons. We could take them at the tasting, though. I made sure to get a photo of K with his glass. I did taste mine and quickly passed it on to K. I was very disappointed that they did not give us tastes of the milder one they made, that they said was good for people who didn't like Scotch or were just getting introduced to it.

After the tasting, we looked around the shop. K didn't want to buy anything, since Scotch is readily available at home. I was happy to see that they had a gold pin with their symbol from a Pictish stone for Ł3.95. I bought it and headed for the line to the ladies room.
When I was coming out, I couldn't find the pin. One of the young women from South Dakota tried to help me, but it was in vain. My mood was not enhanced by the fact that there had been a lot of stairs on the tour and now I had to climb the wide stairs that had been cut into the ramp up to the parking lot.
We were on the road at 10:45. A few minutes later, I was digging in my purse, which has a lot of inside pockets, when I discovered the pin. That is the second time that purse swallowed something today! The next time I saw that girl (well, woman, she is a parole officer), I made sure to tell her.
We crossed the Dornoch Firth and you could see from the sandbar, that the tide was out.

We soon ran into rain again. It stopped, though, when we reached Dunrobin Castle at 11:18, where we were greeted by a bagpiper outside the door.

Roseanne went off to get tickets and when she got back, she told us to hurry down to the garden for the falconry show, that she was most anxious for us to see at 11:30. Across the foyer from the front door was the ladies room, which I thought it best to visit first. It turned out to be a pretty cool place and the stall/ little room I had had a chain toilet!
K was waiting for me and we went out the side door with others of our group, who'd also made a stop. When we reached the railing of the porch, the scene below was gorgeous- and terrifying. I honestly didn't know how my knees were going to handle this. I could probably force myself down, but feared getting back up. K assured me that he was there and we could do this.

The way down was not straight down, happily. But, then again, we'd missed the stairs that did go straight down. The ramp was a little easier to take.  However, there were still too many stairs and it was just a horrible experience. When we got down to the space for the show, there were just a few seats left in the very back. We took those. Bonnie from our group, whose knees are worse than mine, was in front of us and, when she realized it was us, she told me that Roseanne had been looking for me. She'd arranged for Bonnie to ride down to the show and had wanted me to do it, too. That was weird, as I had seen Roseanne up top, but, whatever. Bonnie and her friend were riding back up at the end and I was to ride with them, too. K thought it an excellent idea and would walk up and meet me at the café. Then, Roseanne came up to tell me the same thing Bonnie had said. Nice to be looked out for!
I realized that I would not have a chance to photograph the magnificent gardens. So, I slipped around the hedge behind us to get a few shots.

The falconry show was quite impressive. He had three birds that he showed one at a time- falcon, hawk ( not a native of Scotland, but rather from Arizona!), and a juvenile peregrine falcon. As it is not now hunting season, he uses these shows to train the birds and keep them in shape for hunting. Back in the day, the birds would have helped provide food for the castle through their hunting. They were quite beautiful and the turns they could make were stunning.

When the show ended about 12:10, Bonnie, her friend and I headed for a door in the garden wall. We waited outside the wall for the ride. The driver was the same one they'd had coming down. He used to be full-on manager of the place, he told us, but that meant living there and it was too far for his kids to see their friends. So, they'd moved to the village and he generally did a little of everything. He was quite chatty as he took us past the sea and up the other side of the castle. What an attractive ride and we were back up at the castle by 12:20.
While we're waiting for K to join me, I'll tell you a bit about the Clan Sutherland. The clan can trace itself back to the time of David I. By the 17th century, they were known as pious Protestants. During the Jacobite uprising, the clan supported the crown. When the 18th Earl of Sutherland died in 1766, he left only a daughter. It took five years, but the House of Lords finally decided that this daughter, Elizabeth,  would inherit the title. When she married, control of the estate passed to her husband, but she retained ownership. However, her husband, who would later be named Duke of Sutherland, wound up delegating overall control of the estate to Lady Sutherland. This would explain why she shares the blame for what happened on the estate and, in fact, deserves a lot of it.
The estate was populated by tenant farmers and that did not provide as much income as modern farming methods would with larger farms. The area was also supposedly prone to famine, and when that occurred, the estate had to feed the farmers. Roseanne told us, that Lady Sutherland decided that sheep farming would be better for the estate, since sheep provided income, whether alive or dead.To switch to that, the tenant farmers had to be moved out. This was called The  Highland Clearances, and that is a term that brings out unhappy memories in the Highlands. Tenants would be called in and told their leases weren't renewed. They had little time to clear out before their homes were burned down, so that the building would not be subject to tax. The tenants were expected to move to crofts, small farms, on the coast. Many could not make a go of it there or as fishermen or some other trade. Evidently, Lady Sutherland just could not understand, why these tenants did not see the logic and benevolence of being moved off their farms in the first place. She was distressed, when many decided to emigrate to the US, Canada (Nova Scotia means New Scotland), Australia and New Zealand. Other landlords followed the Sutherlands' lead and evicted their tenants and The Clearances continued in waves. This exacerbated the decline in the clan system since the Battle of Culloden.
So, with that in mind, you look at the gardens, and later the house, and realize the wealth that created it came from the misery of so, so many people. It's depressing and you don't want to like the place, but it is gorgeous.
K rejoined me and we got in line at the very busy café. I thought about getting a baked potato like we'd had in Edinburgh, but here it was with haggis. So, a hard no. To see their interpretation of it, I chose pulled pork on a bun, with salad slaw and chips, i.e., fries, for Ł7.50. The sandwich tasted rather like pulled pork we might buy in the grocery store refrigerated section. I happen to like that kind. K got a chicken BLT for Ł3.80 and honey mustard crisps (chips). We wound up saving the chips, but he liked his sandwich. I had a Diet Coke and he had coffee. For dessert, we shared an apple flan, which was really apple pie and pretty good. We got lucky and found a couple of seats at a table in the next room, when a couple from our tour got up. It was a nice room with a fire in the fireplace.

I didn't want to run out of time at the end, so we went in the crowded gift shop before go upstairs to tour the house. They had a lot of nice things in the shop.
Afterwards, we knew we had to make the tour quickly. Unfortunately, there was one of those grand staircases to climb first. At the top, we found a room with a pool table! Then, it was on to more formal rooms, that even had fancy ceilings. This was a self-guided tour with signs and, often, a guard/ docent you could query. Here is a bit of that staircase, a ceiling and the ornate dining room. (Remember: ground floor would have been kitchen area.)

Next, we visited the music room, which had one of those cases the Victorians liked for displaying their collections. Unfortunately, the bagpipes with the Sutherland tartan that I photographed in it didn't look great in the photo. Next is the family's breakfast room, a nice cozy affair.

Flowers! So many beautiful fresh flower arrangements! I really enjoyed photographing them. The drawing room came next and it was long and narrow. This photo is of just one end. There's also a nice view out the window.

Even alcoves had flowers.The library, which would thrill our older daughter, certain warrants three photos here. It's another large room.  I did try to remind myself, that the animal skin rugs on the floor came from a time before people knew better.

 

 The ladies sitting room came next and definitely had a feminine feel. Signage told us that this was meant to be "a quiet place for the ladies of the house to pursue such hobbies as embroidery, gros point, and petit point tapestry, and the free exchange of information". The tapestries were made for Queen Victoria's visit in 1872. The circular staircase that came next led to the 18th century part of the castle. So, more stairs. This part was built by the Countess of Sutherland in 1785. Its bedroom and dressing room are much smaller than the 19th century rooms you've just seen. Up there is the Green and Gold Room, whose decoration was done in 1921 by Sir Robert Lorimer. It's quite a room! Oh, and the bathroom up here was the first in the castle.

 

I was just bowled over by this table. Look at how it is made to fit that weirdly shaped space! Most of us would just get a table with a square or rectangular top that fit in there. Not the Sutherlands. This thing is custom made. The next wonderful room was the nursery. Great toys and books were in here, but the dollhouse really caught my eye, since I have belonged to a miniature club for years. It is a perfect example of a dollhouse built to be a plaything. It was here that I asked the docent, if Donald Sutherland, the Canadian actor, was related to the clan. She said, that he wasn't, but there was a picture of someone in the family, who he looked like. Then came the lovely night nursery with Sicilian painted wooden furniture, including two beds for children. Signage pointed out that "after the Duchess's bathroom was built, a method of having a lot of bathrooms was needed and they hit upon the idea of removing all the circular staircases and replacing them with round bathrooms with specially designed baths with very powerful taps and water pipes". Ingenious!

The nanny's room showed that her work was never done- she'd have had a child in a small bed and a baby as well. The seamstress's room displayed quite a variety of clothing. The Duke's library was not nearly as warm and inviting as the ladies' sitting room was, but look at those flowers on the table! I'll skip the photos of the military room, the ironing room and the cleaning room.  I do rather like the photos of the tower through the window and the flowers on the windowsill. You just have to see the call button box to appreciate it.

I will say, that the path is set up quite well for the self-guided tour. Also, the place evidently has a lot of paintings that are by notable artists, but I was far more interested in the furnishings, color schemes, etc.

Before leaving, I got to try out a different stall/small room in the restroom. Really rather roomy. Of course, there are only three!

When we went out to the bus at 1:55, it was sunny and windy. The bus headed out three minutes later. It wasn't long before we were driving along the North Sea. There was some rain, of course. We could see oil rigs and wind turbines offshore.

At about 2:25, we stopped to see a memorial to one of the results of The Clearances-the Emigrants Statue in Helmsdale. It beautifully overlooks the sea, where so many of the Highlanders headed off to find a better life. It depicts a family, the father and daughter in kilts and looking out, while the mother is looking back. The statue was erected in 2004 and there are also flagpoles with the flags of the destinations of the emigrants-the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Although I had to climb stairs to get to see it, it was worth it. It was sunny, windy and beautiful up there. Besides the sea, there was a lovely field and river, plus this great bridge over the river.

After about 10 minutes, we rolled on. Fields had sheep, Highland cattle, and wind turbines. You know, the normal stuff.

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When we drove into Thurso, the first thing I noticed was that the building were pretty much all the same grayish brown color. Maybe that comes from being at the top of Scotland. It is, in fact, the northernmost town on the British mainland. It's as far north as Juneau, but I seem to recall more color in Juneau. It could also be due to the stone they use for construction.

At 3:40, the bus pulled up outside the Hotel St. Clair on Sinclair Street, which is obviously a slurring of Saint Clair. Roseanne had a bit of trouble with the room list, because they gave her a list of all 34 rooms in the place. She got the correct one and read out the names. We had to pick up our keys at the desk, because they were those old style ones with the big fob. K and I were assigned room 108, which, unfortunately, was upstairs. It was not a large room. There was a double bed, a desk with its chair and that's about it. We couldn't even open both suitcases easily. I was grateful that there was an outlet by the bed for my CPAP machine. The bath was small, but the toiletries in the large bottles smelled good. The view was of the top of a roof.

At 4:40, we were back in the bus with most of the group for an optional excursion. We had to travel back from the Atlantic to the North Sea side of the country. We went along country roads and saw interesting fences of parallel rows made of wood and wire with slabs of slate standing up between them. Oh, and of course, we saw sheep and Highland cattle.

We were headed for the hamlet of Thrumster in Caithness near Wick. Wikipedia describes it as "a remote crofting township". It has a population of 250, Roseanne said. Here we would go to The Old Smiddy pub, which is a former blacksmith's shop, and enjoy a Ceilidh Evening. That's a traditional social evening. We arrived at 5:15 and I snapped a picture of some local homes, which looked newer than the ones in Thurso.

It was a bit of a scramble to find seats. K and I wound up at a table with another couple up in the corner, by the fireplace, and slightly behind the performance area. K went up to the bar to get the first of our two free drinks, an Ember Gold for him and a Blackthorn Cider for me. We both liked them. So, later, our other two free drinks were the same.

Our host for the evening was Raymond Bremner, a former champion Gaelic singer. He and Roseanne obviously went way back, but hadn't seen each other in a while. He is a Scots Nationalist and was less than happy to hear she'd taken us to Dunrobin. He asked if any of us were Outlander fans and said that they'd come to find Jamie, but Scots don't look like Jamie, they look like him! He sang and talked and told stories. He brought out a teenager from the area, who played bagpipes for us. What a wonderful evening! And you could tell everyone was enjoying themselves.

At 7:30, we had to load up the bus again and leave 5 minutes later. Here's an example of the roads Alistair had to navigate.

Getting back took less time and we arrived back at 8:07. We hurried upstairs to dispose of our coats. When we came down for dinner, we found seats with John and Helen from New Zealand and had a pleasant time talking to them. 

I had Feta Salad, Basil & Garlic Chicken, and Chocolate Fudge Cake, which wasn't as good as the waitress said. The rest of the meal was okay. K had the same salad, Fish Pie, and Lemon Tart.

After dinner, K and I knew that that room wouldn't be great to sit in, so we went off for a walk at 9:32. It was cold! We discovered there was a Hallmark, but it seemed to not be like the ones at home. After getting some photos of the nearby part of town, we hurried back to the hotel, arriving at 9:44. It was 51, feels like 49. No wonder we were cold!

 The phone says that I walked 5, 683 steps for 1.9 miles and climbed-get this-12 floors! There's no way that is right.