Wednesday June 13th

We left Kinross and headed north for “The Hermitage” near Dunkeld which was originally an extension to the landscaped pleasure grounds of Dunkeld House, designed to contrast the wild gorge of the river Braan with the gentle banks of the river Tay.  Right from the start in 1757, successive Dukes of Atholl planted trees to enhance the landscape.  It was a curious little place, and within the Hermitage we visited Ossian's Hall which overlooked waterfalls.  This 18^th century hall once sat in the centre of a wild garden and was deliberately cited to give a dramatic view of the waterfall below, known as Black Linn Falls.  The Hall was being painted and it looked like it was becoming almost a little interpretive centre.  A workman was painting inside, where some large graphics had been put up, and we assumed that this may explain who Ossian was – especially as there was no other explanation about this character anywhere else.  We then continued up the River Braan to Ossian's Cave before returning to the car Totem Pole, carved by members of the Squamish Nation out of a Douglas Fir grown at the Hermitage.  According to our friend Wikipedia, “Ossian is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems which the Scottish poet James Macpherson published beginning around 1760.”

We continued on to Pitlochry, where we stopped of at Heather Gems, a place where they make gemstones and jewellery out of compressed dyed and lacquered heather stems.  VERY pretty!  I had forgotten all about this place – I had never visited it before, but my parents and my brother came here when they last visited and told me all about it.  I only remembered it when I saw some “Heather Gems” jewellery in the gift shop at the Wallace Monument in Stirling, and as we originally didn't have a great deal planned for today, we thought we'd visit, and Mathew was interested in finding out about the process by which this gemstone was made.  After watching the video and seeing the workshops, we spent some time in the shop where I bought myself a pendant – not a mounted one, just a nice chunk of it – and a bead which looks very much like a Pandora Bead.

Shopping done, we went on to the Pass of Killiecrankie, site of the Battle of Killiecrankie, for the scenic walks along the bank of the River Garry.  The battle took place in 1689 between government troops and Jacobites.  We visited Soldier's Leap – where government soldier Donald Macbane is said to have leapt 18 feet across the gorge to escape the Jacobite soldiers, losing a shoe in the process!

We then continued north into the Highlands and the landscape started to look very much like the Scotland I knew from family holidays here.  We visited Ruthven Barracks – built in 1721, one of 4 defensible barracks built by the government to police the highlands after the 1715 Jacobite rising (which finished in 1721).  As we walked around, we realised that the area seemed to have quite a lot of interesting birds calling and flying around, and I remembered seeing on the map that there was an RSPB reserve around here, although we were wondering if these barracks were actually in the middle of it.  Unfortunately we didn't have the binoculars with us, otherwise I would have suggested sitting down for a while to check out and watch the birds, especially as we were on a nice high hill.

Of course the Barracks had scaffolding on it (the story of our holidays...!) and it was surrounded with Highland Cattle – yes, the tan coloured long haired cows with massive horns!  Moo!  There were also some black ones with them as well, and we thought they were all cordoned off from the Barracks until upon our return to the car, we found a nice little calf on the pathway.  Then as we continued along the pathway, we saw the calf's mother approach and 'moo' at either him or us.  Hmm.  Not exactly the best position to be in.....but we just carried on slowly, watching mama cow watching us, and we returned safely past the gate unscathed.  Phew!!

We discovered that, not far from Ruthven Barracks, there WAS an RSPB reserve known as Insh Marsh, which we decided to visit in the hope of finding some interesting birds and wildlife, especially as it was later in the day than we would usually consider going somewhere like this, I thought the birds might be a little more active and doing interesting things, given that there seemed to be lots of noise and activity around the Barracks area. 

Unfortunately, we didn't really see much with the exception of a Roe Deer, some Mallards and a couple of Curlews!  Perhaps everyone was at the Barracks....!  After a short while, we went back to the car and continued on to our next B+B Glenavon House, which was very nice indeed – we even had a balcony!  A very comfortable room indeed, and after a shower we headed out for dinner before returning back to the B+B for the evening.