Scotland II

Yahoooooo! It is fantastic to be back in Bonnie, Bonnie, Scotland.

The flight was really good, it was a full plane from Toronto to London, but there were no screaming infants and nobody was obnoxious. We always take the crazy risk of booking seats in the 4-across in the vain hope of getting an empty seat or two next to us so we can sprawl, but the plane was full. The food on board is getting more spartan all the time, we had to opt for the chicken and that was all we ate, the chicken and a bit of limpish cucumber/tomato salad. But we have wised up and were armed with lots of snacks from home. Breakfast is down to a pre-packaged cake-looking muffin which we declined.

Driving through Glasgow from the airport was a bit of a trial as John had to immediately adjust to driving on the other side of the road and shifting with the left hand. Our rental car ended up being larger than we had booked, we like the micro-cars when driving on these narrow roads.

We are in Ayrshire, which is surprisingly very beautiful. My dad’s parents are from this part of Scotland. Ayrshire is more hilly than we anticipated and there are a good number of large trees which would be stunning when leafed out.

We drove to Maybole, a small town near our accommodation which is an old farm in the country, near the River Doon. Ayrshire, more specifically, Alloway was also the home of Scotland’s National Bard, Robbie Burns, more about Burns and the River Doon tomorrow.

While in Maybole we got a few groceries, changed some Euros for Sterling at a couple of Banks and went for tea at the Dairy Tea Shop - The Earl Grey Tea was extra good.

Then we drove to our small self-catering cottage which is run by the two most friendliest Scots in the world. The people of Ayrshire are friendly in the extreme.

Tonight we walked a couple of miles to Hollybush for dinner. The mist was rolling in on the way and we still had daylight. After a couple of Jura whisky, a steak and a cheese plate to die for, oh my was the cheese ever good, we weaved home in the dark and the mist down the country roads. Luckily I took my headlamp as it is pitch black.

Tomorrow we are heading for Culzean Castle (pronounced Kull-ANE if you can imagine that) oh we are really mangling the pronunciation of Scottish place names, we even had Isle of Arran (sounds more like Erren) totally wrong, the Scots are really good about correcting our manglings. May also visit a few harbour towns as recommended by our hosts and maybe the home of the Bard.

Click on pics to enlarge.