Fairy tale castles

We woke to a nice breakfast and tried to get moving a little earlier today. I rested very well and was ready to take on the day. We drove into Inverness for a bit and got out to take some pictures. It's a cute little town. Last night we had walked downtown for dinner. There is a bridge that they have a light display on. It was neat. They also light up the castle. I didn't take my camera, so unfortunately I missed those shots.

Our goal was to drive to Wick and then stay in Durness. We happened upon a castle (Dunrobin) on the ocean front and decided to stop and check it out. It looked just like a fairy tale castle! The inside was done in four different phases over about 400 years, and it was interesting to see how they were tied together both inside and out.

There were beautiful gardens outside that we walked through, too. I find it amazing that they have colorful flowers that pretty much bloom all year long. And they are so meticulous in keeping them. It was very pretty to look down on them, and then once down there, gorgeous to look back up at the castle. A gorgeous wedding setting for anyone wanting to travel to Scotland to get married.

They had a guy on staff that did a falconry display. He had eagles, falcons, and owls. I was amazed at how well trained they were. He had them flying right at us as part of the presentation. One even landed on the head of this guy in the audience. Very cool.

The last part was a museum building that once we got into it, I wanted to leave immediately. It was an entire building of dead animals! Tony was in heaven. They were all the trophies that the 5 generations of dukes had killed over the years. There was a poor giraffes head and neck coming out of the floor. My girls would have died on the spot as they both love them. It was quite disturbing!!

We got back to the car and realized we just spent two hours on our folly. We made it to Wick and checked out the coast line. We tried to find some place to eat to no avail. They don't have a lot of signage here and everything is in extreme under tone. You won't see any flashing neon signs which is nice, but sure does make it difficult to find things.

It was on to Durness then. I ended up falling asleep in the car and the next thing I knew, Tony was pulling in to a hotel. Unfortunately they didn't have any vacancy. Nor did the next 5 places we stopped. Tony was getting in somewhat of a panic, which for those of you that know him is totally out of character. He falls asleep during MRIs if that gives you any clue. So, when he was driving like a bat out of hell between places, I just had to take deep breaths. I had resolved myself to staying in the car for the night if need be.

We went past a couple of hole in the wall places and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bed and breakfast sign. We turned up the road and started driving. First we saw sheep in the road. Next it was the cows with all the hair falling down in their eyes. The houses were less than appealing and we kept driving further and further. I told him I was hearing banjos and squealing pigs and it was time to turn around. He refused saying there had been a sign!

Fortunately his perseverance paid off. We are in a very nice place that is warm, has its own locked door and bathroom, and there are no children saying "redrum". It's the little things I'm learning to be grateful for on this trip! The woman sounds just like Mrs. Doubtfire, and I love listening to her talk. She does like penguins however and there are an abnormal amount of them throughout the house. Tony will just have to whip out his batman cape if a life sized penguin does show up, because I'm not getting back in the car to look anywhere else now that it's dark.

Tomorrow it's Durness and heading for Isle of Skye. We are starting to close in on the allotted time for Scotland and are falling behind on sights we've seen. It's amazing how even when you have two weeks to work with in planning a trip, the days fly by. But we're continuing to remind ourselves that it is vacation and there is no set agenda.

This morning I decided that we needed to call a truce. We've both been a little edgy, and I had had enough. However, as the day wore on, we realized we were not being very successful. I think it has to do with being in the car driving so much. At home I'm not a very good passenger with him as he has quite a few bad driving habits (as I mentioned in an earlier blog). Compound that by being in a country where everything is backwards and dwarfed in size compared to the US, and it makes for very testy relations. I guess we'll try again tomorrow to be nice.

The one nice thing about Tony's fear of not being able to find a room is that he starts looking relatively early in the day. That always means we're in early for the night. I'm liking this whole get to bed at a decent hour thing. Maybe, just maybe, I'm getting back on track in the sleep category. Hopefully that will help with the "make nice" effort as well.