Day 6 - Of Whisky and Mystery
Sadly, after two nights at the Banchory Lodge Hotel, this was our day to take leave of this most lovely of hostels. So, with a hearty breakfast tucked away, we boarded the luxury coach once again to see new sights and new places. Our first destination this day would be the Glenlivet Distillery, the first licensed maker of that fine amber liquid known to the locals simply as “whisky”. But to get there, we had to first travel over the Grampian Hills through some of the most beautiful heather filled scenes and up through the Spey River valley. This would be our first real foray into “The Highlands” and we had much anticipated it. As we wound our way through the hills, the clouds dropped lower and lower. Though this added a bit of reality to the journey, it also impeded our view. At the crest of the Grampians we stopped for a photo opportunity at Corgarff Castle, another tower house castle.
We descended from the Grampians into the beautiful Spey River valley. This region of Scotland is known as Whisky Country and is the home to more than half of Scotland's distilleries. Our immediate destination was the Glenlivet Distillery where they make one of the best single malt whiskys in all of Scotland. We were treated to a guided tour of the entire process. I must say, my favorite stop along the way is the demonstration of malted barley. In the process of making whisky, the barley grain is “malted”, or let mature until it actually starts to ripen, thus developing the natural sugars of the grain. The result is a slightly sweet, nutty tasting mote that could easily pass for a breakfast cereal. I must say that I took a rather large portion of the sample and munched on it for several minutes. Our tour ended with a tasting of their various products. I went directly for the 18 year old and was delighted with its smoothness.
From Glenlivet, we proceeded onward to a beech grove along the River Nairn to explore the standing stones and stone mounds of Clava Cairns. This is a Neolithic period construct similar to those we saw in the Orkneys. I do want to add that one of the sites from “Tramps and Hawkers” speaks of “...places ill to ken” and if ever such a place qualifies, Clava Cairns is certainly “ill to ken” (loosely translated – strange).
From Clava Cairns, we made one final stop for the day. This was at the battlefield of Culloden on Drumossie Moor. Culloden was the site of the last battle fought on British soil, having taken place on April 16, 1746. I have related the history of the Jacobite uprisings on a previous visit to Scotland and will not do so again here. At Culloden, Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) with 5400 mostly Scots met the 8800 loyalists led by the Duke of Cumberland on the field of battle. Greatly outnumbered and out gunned, Prince Charlie went against the advice of his staff and arrayed his men across an open moorland. He withheld the order to charge for approximately a half an hour while his forces took heavy casualties from the loyalist artillery. Finally the right flank broke but was impeded by a stone fence. The left flank was ineffective due to the marshy ground. In only forty-five minutes, the Jacobites took over 1500 casualties and were in full retreat. The day was lost along with the Jacobite cause and, eventually, the clan way of life in the highlands. Cumberland not only had every wounded soldier on the field put to death but the spectators, including women and children, that had come down from Inverness to observe the battle. For this act, he earned the name “Butcher” Cumberland and is despised in most of Scotland even today. In the aftermath of the rebellion, a way of life was all but destroyed. I find a great deal of parallel with our own Civil War.
Humbled, we boarded the coach to continue on to our inn for this night, the Kingsmill Hotel in Inverness. Alex had us gather in the bar prior to dinner where we learned that he had engaged a piper and two dancers to entertain us before dinner. And thus ended another fine day in Scotland.
Day 7 - Of Lochs and Locks