Our next drive was north of Inverness, up to Dunrobin Castle in Golspie. This is another castle still owned by the original family, and it’s on an amazing patch of land right on the ocean. (The day we were there, there were fighter jet drills happening at the nearby base, so we had that sound constantly in the background.) The castle was remodeled in the 19th century, so it looks very modern, but the bones are a lot older. It’s another very interesting home to wander through, but per usual, I really loved the gardens.
They have a very random museum just to the side of the gardens that’s an homage to all things taxidermy, and also local archaeology. The archaeology was great – they had an amazing selection of decorated Pictish stones that were found in the area. The upper gallery in the back room had a general survey of the area’s archaeology going back to the Stone Age.
They also have a falconry demonstration twice a day, which was very interesting. He had out both hawks and a falcon (plus some owls hanging out, but not in the demo), and demonstrated the different hunting styles of both. He had the falcon in the right hand pictures below taking bait, and he would buzz the crowd very closely going after the food. It was pretty neat.
Another five minutes up the road, literally on the side of the road, is the Carn Liath broch. We plan to eventually go back and do the entire NC500 road (this is basically the opening part of that drive), and there are apparently brochs just littering the side of the road in this area. Brochs are only found in Scotland, and are the remains of Iron Age towers, so we’re just seeing the bases today. This was another super windy day, so it was actually hard to say upright after climbing up the top of the wall. It’s a very evocative location – I’d love to have seen it in its heyday.
We finished the day in Dornoch, which has a lovely cathedral that we arrived in time to have 15 minutes to poke around in. Even better, it had a combination yarn and woolen store, in which I found yarn, and we found hats. P always has trouble finding hats in his size, and they actually some in stock. They also stocked some fleece lined waxed canvas hats which I bought one for myself and used the next day, as well as some lovely tweed winter hats, one of which went home with me for my mother. That was a lucky stop.