More Long Updates!

Edit: Finally home and catching up on all the pictures I owe you all!! -Becky

Find a cafe with wifi? Nothing doing. Although we drove all over Aberdeen, we couldn't find anything that was both open and had wifi. So we made up our minds to wing the day, having a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do anyway. On our way to the Strathisla distillery, we stopped at Morgan McVeigh's, a little restaurant and gift shop between Aberdeen and Inverness.

The food was delicious, and the staff, clearly composed of local high school aged kids, was very endearing. After finishing our late breakfast we lit out for Keith, finding the distillery with no problem.

Our tour guide's name was John, and he was the cutest old whisky-loving Scot you could imagine. The first thing he did when we came in and asked about the tour was start ribbing us, saying “Now you understand you're going to be sampling real whisky, not that funny stuff they make in Kentucky.” The tour was very long but excellent, one of if not the best distillery/brewery tours I've ever been on (And Becky and I have been on a few). Sadly pictures were not allowed inside the distillery, as the alcohol fumes and airborne flour are potentially highly explosive. But we got some great pictures of the outside, including the iconic pagoda rooftops, the well they draw their water from, and the buildings themselves.

Next we headed for the Glenlivet distillery, stopping on our way at Balvenie Castle. The castle was small, but in an enchanting state somewhere between ruined and intact.

Tower Roof

Possible Highland "Coo" sighting ... our first!

Inside the courtyard, looking back

Proof for everyone that it is, in fact, Becky who is the crazier McVey ;-)

On the road from the castle to the distillery, we chanced upon some excellent examples of highland wildlife.

A less-than Famous Grouse encountered on our Whisky Trail

First a grouse just chilling in the middle of the road, and next Becky finally got a chance to see some Highland Coo's up close and personal! Even a calf there to greet her at the fence. Needless to say she fell in love with the hairy little monster immediately.

Here's the cutest picture from the whole trip folks:

I was seriously this close. I cried from excitement and then hugged my camera when I got back in the car - again... weirder McVey, indeed.

Not sure if you can see, but there are tiny pink welts all over my chest (and neck and hairline and back ... ). Apparently we met another bit of Scottish Wildlife ... midges! Of course I didn't know until I got up the next morning! ;)

The Glenlivet tour was crowded and lackluster, and we endured it mostly for the free dram at the end. However, once we were chatting with our tour guide privately at the end, she was much more interesting.

I tried a dram of cask-strength whisky, and enjoyed it very much. You see, before whisky moves from the cask (The barrel it's aged in) to the bottle, water is added to dilute the whisky down, usually to around 45% alcohol or so, but never less than 40%. “Cask-strength” whisky is whisky that has not been diluted with water. It is single-malt whisky bottled straight out of the cask, and is higher in alcohol strength. I've explained this because the cask strength whisky was so good that we decided to get ourselves a bottle! It promises to be delicious, and we hope to invite some of our friends and family over to sample some with us sometime after we get back.

After Glenlivet we stopped quickly at a beautiful old bridge at Livet, which may date back as early as the 15^th century. It reminded me of some of the streams I used to swim in in the Smokey Mountains, and I hope the pictures can do it justice.

After a somewhat harrowing drive up to Forres, we located the Bed and Breakfast we were staying in for the evening.

Driving on mountainous single-track roads in the rain ...
on the left side of the road, at 50mph, in a car that isn't yours, in an area you don't know.

Oh, aren't road trips fun?

It was well after 10pm when I took this sunset shot ... amazing.

Becky and I hate Bed and Breakfasts in general, though we have enjoyed a few we have stayed in. They're just a little too intimate for our tastes. The only really bad part about this one (Aside from a wireless network we could see but couldn't QUITE connect to – ARGH!) was the HOSTESS! She was just miserable. Arriving late, we interrupted her dinner, which we apologized for, but she seemed to bear a grudge from then on. All she did was walk us to our room, point to the bathroom, and tell us that we could fill out our breakfast menu and leave it downstairs.

The next morning our breakfast was good and the couple we dined with entertaining – vacationers from southern England. But when it was time to leave, we found her in the hallway downstairs and she started acting almost as if we tried to run out without paying! Then after Becky paid her, she counted the money more than once, standing in front of us, the whole time acting as if she had done us a favor! Certainly not the picture of hospitality one would expect from a B&B owner.

First stop of Monday was Dallas Dhu distillery, the most intact Victorian-era distillery in Scotland. It shut down the 80s, and is now a Historic Scotland attraction thanks to the fact that it was never altered much after it opened. The tour was self-guided, with audio wands, so Becky and I got to mock it as we walked around, and had a pretty good time. Then we got to try a dram at 10am. Good times!

Uisge Betha!

7570 days without accident is pretty good. Except it stopped running in 1983 so that's cheating.

It was then history-o'clock, traveling backwards in time. Fort George first, the huge fortress built by military engineer William Skinner after the battle of Culloden, in order to house the troops seen fit to keep the Scots in line following the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Interestingly, it is both a modern military barracks and a museum.

I was bored here, but the view was nice!

It was a bit odd to see the British Army officers walking the same paths as the tourists. It's the regimental headquarters of the Black Watch at the very least, I don't know if other units are stationed there as well. It also houses the regimental museum of the Queen's Own Highlanders.

Next stop: Culloden battlefield itself, the site of the last battle on British soil, one of the greatest turning points in world history in the past five centuries or so.

It was enthralling. If you have ever been to Gettysburg or any other major battlefield, you may have some idea of the feeling you get walking the moor (in a steady rain, no less!), but nothing can really compare to treading the path from the treeline to the Royal battle lines (the red flags, below), following the route the Highland vanguard of the Jacobite army took in their notorious charge.

Our fantastic guide, Nicole who helped us experience the battle.

We took pictures of the grave markers for MacLean and Buchanan. I can't wait to show one of my fellow props on my Rugby team, Bill MacGillavary, that the MacLeans and MacGillavarys are buried in the same grave at Culloden. I'm sure he'll get a kick out of it. There's a third Scot on the team as well, Mike MacLean, so we'll have ourselves a little bonding moment looking over the pictures of where our ancestors are buried.

Next we headed the the Clava Cairns, our only planned visit to the many Bronze Age stone formations in Scotland. Seeing the stone rings and burial sites in the middle, circled by trees planted by a Victorian “benefactor” who decided they must be Druid Temples (Victorians ruin EVERYTHING!) was eerie and inspiring.

Black Isle Brewery on Black Isle, north of Inverness, was next. We almost didn't go, but decided since it was close it would be worth it. It turns out we were very correct! The tour was conducted by the owner and (presumably) head brewer, an Englishman, and was short but fun and funny. They still have to hand fill, cap and label EACH bottle, and are currently selling more than 20,000 bottles a year. It was easy to see why, as the beer was DELICIOUS. We bought 8 bottles to drink during the rest of our trip, as well as a pub glass to take home and a t-shirt for Becky! We had lunch in Inverness, having planned to go to Hootananny, a bar that served Black Isle as a Real Ale, but being turned off by their exclusively Thai menu. Prawns in EVERYTHING? No thanks. Instead we ate at a bar across the street.

I should note that we had no directions to the bar we were looking for. We just drove into Inverness and found it by sheer force of will. Becky and I have decided that we have what we're calling bardar. There is no other explanation for the fact that we decided to go find a specific bar in the biggest city of the Highlands, managed to park in the right area, then managed to walk a straight line to the bar, with no prior directions and without stopping to ask anyone even so much as where the street was. We are incredible.

Then we left for Loch Ness! I had promised a friend that I would stop and take pictures at the Clan MacBean monument on the east coast of the Loch, but sadly I couldn't find it despite my best efforts. And I'm talking about some serious efforts here. We spent an hour and a half driving on the coast of the loch, parking anywhere there was parking, and walking around in the woods. So I was pretty bummed about that, but nothing I can do to fix it now.

Oh, and Dave's back in the running for strangest McVey after this ... which I notice he failed to write about. Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.

The drive was pretty, as were the views of the loch from the shore. We drove down to our room for the night, at a lodge complex just south of Fort William, near Ben Nevis, the absolutely towering mountain that is the tallest in Great Britain.

The room is nice, though it only has a pair of twin beds! We're in the bar now, using their wifi for updates and all. So cheers to everyone back in the states, we're having a blast even if the internet is hard to come by!

View from the room

- no great pics of Ben Nevis - it was hard to get the scale of it from so close!

Dave updating with a real ale in one hand and thumbs-up-dram in the other!

Tomorrow we'll be heading to Skye, and we have no real agenda. Hopefully it will be a slower, more peaceful day. We'll relax and then head for Oban, where we'll sleep, then the next morning take the ferry to Mull, kick around the island for a while, then take a personal tour of Duart Castle conducted by Chief Lachlan MacLean! We'l stay on the island, then take the ferry back to the mainland, drive to Glasgow, and stay there one night before heading back to the states.