Today was the last leg of our home journey and we had another easy run making it from Moffat to Cheadle Hulme in about two and a half hours to pick up the dogs. They and Lisa seemed to have survived being with each other for the week. We were back home and unpacked in…
There’s not a lot to report for today since this is the first leg of our trip home. We set off just before 11am and arrived in Moffat just before 4pm after a brief stop for a very tasty lunch at Dowally Craft Centre and Cafe. We checked into the Annondale Arms Hotel and then…
We had pre-booked the Keith and Dufftown railway for today and so drove to Keith. We arrived with around an hour to spare before the 12:15 train and so took a short detour to Strathisla distillery. We had a look around the shop and the small exhibitions of photos, wooden things and other random products.…
The day of the royal wedding (Kate and William). We couldn’t get anything but snow out of the TV at the cottage and so Nadine and Tim went down to the Aberlour Hotel to watch the wedding. Ady and I decided to go for a walk up Ben Rinnes (rin-knees). We took a packed lunch…
Today we were booked on the VIP shortbread factory tour and whisky tasting. The factory tour was very interesting because we were signed in as visitors and shown around the factory floor at Dean’s of Huntly. Dean’s pride themselves on the fact that a lot of the process is still manual – they employ around…
Ady and I were up reasonably early and walked up to Linn falls before going into the Aberlour distillery shop for a brief look and a taste of the 16 year old. We picked up a few supplies before joining Tim and Nadine back at the cottage for lunch. In the afternoon we went up…
Today we had booked a wildlife tour with the Gemini Explorer boat from Buckie and so we were up at a reasonable time and drove over to Buckie. We found that there was very little to see in the town and the drifter maritime heritage centre was up for sale! As such we drove on…
This morning we visited the cooperage just outside Craigallechie (cra-gell-a-key). There was a good description of the process of making and repairing casks as well a as a short video, but the highlight was watching the coopers at work on the casks. We also got to try our hand at assembling two mini casks-not easy!…
We all made up a packed lunch and headed out for the day. Ady and I took a walk for about six miles west along the Speyside way. We passed a processing plant for the waste water from one of the the distilleries in the area. Aside from that the main attractions were the river…
We were up reasonably early and headed straight for the castle. The queue for tickets wasn’t too bad and we had a good couple of hours looking around. Neither of us had a good night’s sleep so we struggled to keep up with the explanations of the history of Scotland. At least the crown jewels…