Highland Adventure Day 2: Loch Ness, Culloden, Dunrobin Castle & John O’Groats
Day 1: Culross & Inverness
The second day of our trip began with a drive to the tip of Loch Ness. Like Inverness, everyone I know told me that Loch Ness is not really worth the trip... and they were right. My advice would be to skip Loch Ness and go instead to Loch Lomand in the Trossachs, honestly! But because we were north and because we felt like we had to, we took a few obligatory pics of the lake, my dad was disappointed that we didn’t see Nessie (I sincerely hope he was joking but to this day am not sure), and that was that. Oh and in hindsight the pics I took are pretty terrible so I won’t even share them here 😂
Embarrassingly, I had NO idea that Culloden was near Inverness... I’m not sure why I didn’t know that/why I don’t pay attention to anything, but we decided to go even though it wasn’t in our original plan. And let me tell you, it was SO WORTH IT! The museum is very interesting, the battlefield eerily beautiful... if you have any interest in Scottish history, this is a MUST! And yes, of course, there is an Outlander connection here, and like a nerd fan I took a photo of the Clan Fraser stone. #sorrynotsorry...
Clearly I wasn't the only Outlander fan here...
...which Culloden’s gift shop capitalizes on
From Culloden we drove on to Dunrobin Castle in Sutherland. Or that was the plan, until my dad got sidetracked by Balblair distillery and decided we had to stop. We didn’t take a tour or anything, but we did a tasting- or more accurately my dad and brother did a tasting and I had a single sip of the whisky my dad ended up buying. Needless to say, I drove after that, lol. I’m not a whisky fan but even I have to admit that this was excellent, and it’s not owned by one of the big corporate stooges so win-win!
Dunrobin looks like an actual Disney princess castle, absolutely beautiful. The gardens are exquisite and the castle is situated on the water. Just breathtaking. While touring the grounds, we saw a fantastic presentation of some of the birds that are kept on the estate. The trainer showed us how he trains and rehabilitated a peregrine falcon along with two other birds. Not usually my thing but it was fascinating!
Me in my Cait jeans, gazing longingly at the castle...
...and posing in front of it pretending to be royalty. My brother was so embarrassed taking these pictures of me (also please note how quickly the sky went from blue to grey)
But let me give you a fair warning: DO NOT VISIT THE VICTORIAN MUSEUM ON THE CASTLE GROUNDS. There is a sign on the door that says something like “Warning: Large animal heads, some visitors may be offended”, but idiot me thought large animal heads meant, like, really huge deer heads or something. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Because what greets you as you walk through the front door is the neck and head of a fucking giraffe, with an elephant head on the wall just behind (the rest of the walls are filled with any number of deer, fish, moose, etc. etc.). I’m not a vegetarian or anything but I found it EXTREMELY upsetting and was disturbed for the rest of the visit. And other than that sign you get zero warning or indication of what’s inside, which I think is a huge failing on their part.
We then drove the rest of the way to John O’Groats, one of the northernmost points on mainland UK. This area of Scotland was pretty much all of our favorite from the entire trip... we spent two nights at the most AMAZING self-catering apartment, I cannot recommend this place enough, it’s pricey but 150% worth it. I’m already dream planning another visit here...
We stayed in the white building but each of the six structures has flats you can rent!
Apologies, it got dark out for this one. But as you can see, the buildings are directly at the John O’Groats sign, and on the water.
