Thermal

An amazing piece of luck saw us book this break about a month ago, and somehow pick 3 days in Northern Scotland in April, where a cloud wasn’t to be seen and we had weather you wouldn’t be upset with in August!

We headed north out of Aberdeenshire, into Moray and up the A85 via Aberlour and Grantown on Spey, before stopping in Aviemore. As we drove into town, there was a sign pointing to a ‘Stone Circle’, so we followed it and there was!

4000 years old, and it’s fate was to end up built into a housing estate. Oh well. It was still very complete, and the mountains that ring Aviemore gave you a chance to appreciate it some more.

Although it was lovely and warm, definitely T-shirt weather, the mountains surrounding the town were still well snow covered:

It’s a lovely setting, although the town pretty much consists of a railway station, and about 400 outdoor shops. Nothing wrong with that, as I could happily browse hiking gear for hours (and did) and we picked up the boys sleeping bags for our camping trip later in the year. Those who know him, won’t be surprised to learn that Patrick chose a pink one….

Following the minor road through the valleys and lochs, we made our way to Ruthven Barracks:

An amazing construction, built at the time of the Jacobite uprising to quell the unruly Scots it was burnt down by the survivors of Culloden. As is obvious, it was built on the site of a much earlier castle, and has tremendous views all around. Two RAF Tornado’s took the opportunity to fly around (not over) the barracks while we were inside, but I wasn’t fast enough with the camera….

A leisurely drive down the A9 towards Pitlochry, took us to Queens View at Loch Tummel, one of Queen Victoria’s favourite spots (hence the name). To see the view (and it is spectacular) you’ll have to visit Autofocused during the week, but I’ll finish with a picture of the monkeys mugging for the camera at the viewpoint:

Tom on the left!

With that we made our way to our hotel in Perth, ready for tomorrows trip to Pitlochry….

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 7th, 2007 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Life, Photos, Stones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.