Scotland: On to Inverness

Now we were entering the Highlands. Our first stop and stretch break was at the town of Dunkeld, just off the main motorway by a bridge.

The premiere attraction here is the Dunkeld Cathedral; its site was used for religious buildings as early as 570 A.D., by Celtic missionaries.

It is still a functioning church, part of the Church of Scotland, although large parts of the Cathedral were destroyed during the Reformation (1560) and damaged during the Battle of Dunkeld, during the first Jacobite uprising (1689). We were to hear a lot about the various Jacobite uprisings over the next week.

As is so often the case with tours, the time available was sufficient for an introduction, but if you were a student of the era or the church, you would wish to return on your own for a deeper look.

Lunch was a few miles up the road at Pitlochry. The town is known for its various special events, such as Highland Games, and the Festival Theatre (a schedule of ongoing plays, not unlike those at Stratford, Ontario). Also, not far from Pitlochry is the site of the battle of Killiecrankie, the run-up to the battle at the Dunkeld cathedral. 

Our lunch was a thirty-second walk from the festival parking lot, and I'll include this so-so photograph of the restaurant in honor of my second encounter with sticky toffee pudding.

We ate at tables underneath the glass-roofed portion, so we could see it begin to rain and then cease raining while we ate. This inconstancy of the weather continued as the motor coach drove through the Grampian Mountains and then delivered us to Inverness, on the Moray Firth, and our ship, the Lord of the Glens. Most of the passengers were already there, having skipped the Edinburgh extension.

Our ship rested, moored, at the top of the locks that make the passage from Inverness to Loch Ness navigable. Here's a view from the bottom of the locks.

Inverness is at the northeastern end of the Caledonian Canal, which traverses Scotland along the geological feature of the Great Glen Fault. This cleft in the earth hosts four long and narrow lochs (lakes), the famous Loch Ness, and Loch Dochfour, Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy. The great bridge, canal, road, and aqueduct builder Thomas Telford took advantage of the geology to build the Caledonian Canal, from the North Sea at Inverness to the Atlantic at Fort William, with two-thirds of its length being the natural lochs. (It still went over budget.)

That night, after dinner, we were entertained by students of highland dancing who had already been exerting themselves that day in competitions at Inverness.


The dancing alternated between the two older girls and two true youngsters (who fit better into the confines of the gathering area).


A closeup of the wee ones. One of the older girls is the sister of the lass in the foreground.

Our cabin was spacious and comfortable for the first night's sleep aboard. The ship remained moored the next morning while our group, now fully assembled and 48 guests strong, visited the Culloden battlefield and Clava Cairns.

The battle at Culloden (1746) was the last gasp of the Jacobite rebellions of the previous fifty-odd years. The motivations behind the rebellions were a mixture of dynastic loyalty, religious conflict, English/French tensions and Scottish nationalism which I won't go into here. At Culloden Bonny Prince Charlie's last chance to unseat King George II was crushed.

The visitor's center is a wide, low building suited to the expanse of moor that is the battlefield.

The visitor's center is recently renovated and has engaging displays. One 360° theater provides a "you are there" experience, and the animated digital projection map, we were told, may be adopted by the visitor's center at Gettysburg.

The novel aspect of touring this battlefield is the GPS-activated audio device. These handheld units recognize, by embedded GPS, when they are at a particular location; they then beep and begin the commentary for that spot. You don't have to press a number, and you can cover the field in any order. Just don't keep walking while the unit is talking to you; it will get confused!

Here the line of red flags marks the line of the Duke of Cumberland's troops (the government troops).

It was an blustery day, and walking into the wind was an effort. The conditions were much better than during the actual battle, however, which saw sleet squalls. I can't imagine trying to charge the government line through the often-boggy moor, especially after an exhausting night march.

After our visit to Culloden we drove a short distance to the burial structures called Clava Cairns. 

Here our National Geographic Expert for the trip, Jim Russell, tries to explain some of the history of the structures to the group.

This cairn has no passageway.

There were some signs, however.

After our time in the great outdoors we were ready for lunch back at the Lord of the Glens. Then it was time to 'set sail' on the Caledonian Canal.