Whiskey and Haggis

Tuesday 27th to Thursday 29th September 2016

Dalwhinnie, Scottish Highlands

The last few days of our holiday have not been very eventful. I've not been feeling very well since about 1.30am on Tuesday morning so we didn't venture far from the van until I was feeling a bit better on Wednesday. The weather has been pretty shocking anyway, so I doubt we would have done much even if I'd been fighting fit.

We visited a seaside town called Nairn on Tuesday where we stayed overnight on a campsite and had some excellent fish and chips for dinner. Or a fish supper as they say up here.

On Wednesday we started making our way inland back through the Cairngorms. We stopped for lunch with The Birds at Loch Garten, who were even bolder than before. Claire managed to get a great tit and a coal tit on her hand both at the same time!

After lunch we headed over to Dalwhinnie distillery where Anne had arranged a free tour for us as part of their family and friends open day. So we went as guests of one of Anne's friends called Jane. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but thought we'd probably be tagging onto one of the regular tours and might get a quick taste of whiskey at the end.

The reality far exceeded our expectations. We were loitering in the shop 10 minutes before our allocated time when a lady (who turned out to be Jane) approached us and said "are you Hilary and Claire? Anne told me to look out for two tall girls".

It turned out to be just us on the tour, so we had Jane all to ourselves and were able to fire questions at her as much as we liked. To be fair, she answered most of our questions before we had a chance to ask them anyway.

We had to switch our phones and cameras off, so the photos below are courtesy of Google.

Neither of us have ever been to a distillery before. Dalwhinnie is the highest distillery in the country, and because of this it is colder, so the whiskey takes longer to mature than elsewhere. So Dalwhinnie single malt is always aged 15 years whereas others in warmer areas (e.g. Talisker on Skye) only need 10 or 12 years.

The distillery has been there since 1898, but had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1934 destroyed the building and blew up all the barrels. It's a nice looking building from the outside but even nicer inside. The first nice thing about it is the warmth and the smell, followed by the old fashioned tuns, stills and barrels.

Dalwhinnie Distillery

Jane explained to us that single malt whiskey is only made from three ingredients - barley, yeast and water. Dalwhinnie's barley comes pre germinated and dried out from the east coast, and the water comes from a Loch high above the distillery in the hills called Lochan an Doire Uaine (catchy name I know).

The first stage mixes the ground up barley with the water at a nice warm temperature (mashing). Sugary water is drained off and fermented with the yeast. The left over barley is used to make animal feed. Once fermentation is complete, a liquid called "wash" or "beer" is produced which is about 9% ABV. This is then distilled not once, but twice, to get a clear, colourless, oily liquid about 65% ABV.
This is then matured in oak barrels that were previously used for American bourbon, for about 15 years (or more for the expensive ones!). It is the oak barrels which give the whiskey it's colour.
The final product is made by adding some water to bring the alcohol level down to about 42% for the standard product.

The Wooden Tuns for fermenting

The copper Stills at Dalwhinnie

When we reached the warehouse at the end of the tour we were given a taste of a "single cask" whiskey - straight from the barrel at about 57% ABV. It was surprisingly smooth! I had nominated Claire as the driver, as previously she hasn't enjoyed scotch whiskey, but Jane offered to package Claire's sample up for her to try later. We weren't sure quite how she was going to do this, but happily agreed.

We then got roped into being photographed for the new website, and signed "modelling forms" which made us feel quite glamorous! I thought it was all over then, but just outside the warehouse there was another taster for us, and then once we were back in the shop area, another 6! And there were matching speciality chocolates to go with the 6!! At this point I took Jane up on her offer to package mine up too, and she returned a few minutes later with lots of little sealed plastic tubs, all labelled up.

We were quite overwhelmed with our tour and all the whiskey, chocolates, and glasses we were given. It was far more than we expected and we could not have been made to feel more welcome by Jane.

We parked George up high up in the hills above Newtonmore for the night, and set about sampling our tasters. Each one was paired with a particular chocolate, and had to be sampled in the order of whiskey-chocolate-whiskey. Claire has now decided that she likes Single Malt after all.

Claire didn't sleep well due to the 40+ mph winds that were rocking George all night. I however enjoyed a pleasant night's sleep. The following morning we popped into Kingussie to stock up on Haggis, then went back to the distillery to purchase some Dalwhinnie single malt to take home. Although we chose the second cheapest type (we couldn't afford the £750 bottle), it is still pretty posh for us and we have agreed that it is only for special occasions.

We spent the rest of the day travelling home (I would like to add that although it sounds like we must have been absolutely bladdered after our tasting session, they were only very small samples and we were perfectly alright to drive the following morning, which was about 10 hours later).

We're sad to leave Scotland behind, but are hopeful for better weather in Staffordshire, and guaranteed a nearby, indoor toilet.

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The Wildcat and Dolphin Trails

Saturday 24th to Monday 26th September 2016

Newtonmore and The Black Isle

We were literally up with the birds on Saturday morning, and after another feeding/bonding session we were on the road just after 9am on the way to Phil and Anne's house (my cousin and his wife) in Newtonmore.

The weather forecast was pretty poor for the weekend so we weren't sure what we were going to do, although mountains were out of the running due to low cloud, rain, hail/sleet, high winds, and thunder and lightning.

We started our day in Newtonmore quite sensibly with a cup of tea and a chat, and then a bowl of soup before venturing out for a walk. We were quite excited to finally do the Newtonmore Wildcat Trail, which we have seen advertised numerous time but never completed. The Wildcats are not actual Scottish Wildcats (which look like big fierce tabbies, and are seldom seen), but painted models of Wildcats, of which there are 131 in total around the 10km route. In fact, Anne has her own Wildcat in the front garden, which has been the subject of a police investigation when it went missing. Some particularly diligent local police officers solved the crime before its presence was even missed.

A Scottish Wildcat

A Newtonmore Wildcat

We completed the trail in a very non-competitive way, with none of us making any attempt to count or tick off the cats, and had two coffee and snack breaks along the way. Miraculously, the rain held off until about 5 minutes away from Phil and Anne's, at which point we were drenched.
We abused Phil and Anne's hospitality to the limit, with use of the bathroom, electric hook up for George, water refill, laundry, plus bed, breakfast and evening meal (and lunch and snacks). We did provide wine but I feel the debt has not been settled in spite of my offer to reciprocate at any time in Stoke.

Dinner was delicious - traditional Scottish Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, the Haggis being award winning from the local butcher. Plus homemade crumble with homegrown raspberries for pudding.
We slept well, and left Phil and Anne to getting on with normal life on the Sunday morning, while we set off for The Black Isle on Anne's recommendation, which is a peninsula near Inverness.

We spent a while at Chanonry Point, an allegedly popular spot for spotting dolphins from the shore. We spotted a couple of Westies on the beach, plus a load of other dogs and a really weird man in bare feet wearing tracksuit trousers and a sporran made out of a real badger's head. We failed to see any dolphins but did see a rainbow and some very black clouds before getting drenched.

We stopped for the night on the headland near Cromarty, which turned out to be a pretty good overnight spot once the boy racers playing country music had left at about 8pm.

Cromarty Village viewed from the water

We were up early and down in the village before 9am to make enquiries about a dolphin spotting boat trip, which was the main expense of our holiday so far, and by sheer coincidence coincided with the need for my birthday treat.

I'd done some research on Google about dolphin boat trips, and had identified two possible operators on the Black Isle. Our favoured option started in Cromarty, and was based on the following key factors:

1. Entirely female staff, including boat skipper, support staff and dog (please don't accuse me of being sexist, we just thought it was cool)
2. Nicer boat
3. More time on the water

We were knocking on the shop door before they'd even opened up properly, and got ourselves booked onto the 11am trip. We then killed the following 2 hours in the van with bacon baps, almond croissants, coffee and kindles.

After a quick briefing and getting kitted out in full on fisherman's waterproofs we got aboard the boat, which is a 12 man RIB. A RIB is a Rigid Inflatable Boat, which I've always though would be very scary and make me feel sea sick, but according to the website is very stable, yet fast, and ideal for looking for dolphins and other wildlife. It turned out to be fast and exciting but much less bumpy and rocky than any boat I've been on before. Our skipper, Sarah, whizzed us up and down the coast for two hours, during which time we spotted seals, some porpoises, and loads of seabirds. But no dolphins, for which Sarah was very apologetic about, even though we all knew full well there was no guarantee.

I was wondering how to broach the subject with Claire about going out on the boat for another 2 hours after lunch, when she commented "I could do another 2 hours of that". So that was that.
Round two was just as good as round one, with a closer look at some dormant oil rigs, but no porpoises. We were just on the verge of docking in the harbour when Sarah received a phone call from some research students from Aberdeen university who were also out looking for dolphins and had just found a small pod a short distance from the harbour.

So we whizzed back out and soon saw the dolphin's fins surfacing near the university boat. We had to keep our distance for a while (apparently there are strict rules about dolphin harassment), but eventually the uni boat left and we had them to ourselves. There were four of them and they spent a while swimming around and under our boat and even doing a few jumps out of the water.

Here are a few fascinating facts about the dolphins for you...

1. They are bottle nosed dolphins, which grow up to 4m long, and are the largest bottle nosed dolphins in the world due to them having to put on extra fat as it is cold up here!
2. There are about 300 of them in the surrounding waters, and they are identified by their own unique dorsal fins (no tags or anything)
3. They hang around in mixed pods of male and female, and the babies (calves) stay with their mothers for up to 5 years.
4. The collective noun for a group of dolphins is the same as that for a group of Stoke on Trent social workers. I will be making further enquiries about this when I return home.

After a total of 45 miles and nearly 5 hours on the water we returned to the harbour, wind and sunburnt but happy to have finally found some dolphins. Sarah wouldn't take any money off us for the second trip, so to repay her generosity we've both left well deserved 5 star reviews on Facebook and stayed in the village for the evening to spend some money in the local pub which she recommended.

Aside from the annoying man playing dart in the pub who claims to originate from Stoke on Trent "like Phil The Power Taylor", but has a very strong Yorkshire accent and hasn't said "duck" once, we've had a nice evening, only marred by Claire's iPhone battery being flat and her insisting she's not bored as a result.

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Wildlife Encounters

Wednesday 21st to Friday 23rd September 2016

The Cairngorms

Well Wednesday was a pretty lazy day. Neither of us slept well, which is entirely Claire's fault as she woke me up in the dead of night insisting that there was someone outside shining a torch, who'd just keyed the van. In my state of being half asleep I took her at her word and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, and too scared to go outside and check. The following morning when George was found to be undamaged and the tree branches were brushing his roof making squeaky noises I stuck some duct tape over the flashing light on the carbon monoxide detector and Claire promised not to be so paranoid or melodramatic in future. Especially at night time.

We had a mooch round Aviemore on Wednesday morning, got some food supplies, and then returned to Loch Morlich for lunch with a view to going for a run or at least a walk round the lake afterwards. What actually happened was that we spent the entire afternoon lazing round reading books. We spent the night getting clean and doing laundry at the campsite at Dalraddy.

Thursday morning we were up fairly early as the forecast was for good weather. I'd decided that the only nearby Munro that we could easily climb in a day (apart from the ones we've done before) was Bynack More (still a 14 mile round trip). We set off on foot at about 10.30am from near Glenmore Lodge.

The walk was pretty flat for the first few miles, through some nice woodland and past a little turquoise loch which made a change from the frequent rocky, barren slopes.

After a while we came out of the forest onto the moorland and started a fairly gradual ascent. The last mile up to the summit was steep and the paths were rougher. I was having one of those days where everything was difficult and I kept tripping up, but we were soon on the top. We had a chilly lunch as it was quite windy, and then headed off back down as I was cold.

I was a bit apprehensive going down, because although there was nothing in the least bit difficult about it, whilst having my sandwich I'd discovered that the sole was peeling off one of my boots, and was I paranoid about it coming off altogether and causing me to slide the rest of the way down on a grip-less boot.

But we made it down without any disasters, stopped for a final coffee and cake at the turquoise loch, and then headed back to the van. The last few miles from the loch seemed a long way, even though they were mainly flat and on good paths, so we decided to take a short cut past Glenmore lodge to get us back to George a bit quicker.

We probably would have been a bit quicker were it not for the two frisky red squirrels we spotted just before the lodge. They were bouncing around in the trees, running up and down the trunks right in front of us, and being frisky in more carnal ways than we first thought. Quite how they were managing not to fall out of the trees I don't know. We managed to get some photos (not x-rated ones) and eventually continued onwards when the two squirrels disappeared into the trees, presumably for some privacy.

We had a much better sleep on Thursday night, despite being woken by some noisy owls screeching and hooting outside. After the usual morning routine, first job on Friday was to deal with the boot situation. Plan A was to buy some new boots if I could find some suitable ones in Aviemore, preferably in the sale. Plan B was to get some special glue and repair mine. Plan C was to drive to Inverness where there are cobblers and more outdoor shops.

Surprisingly, the first pair of boots I tried on were comfy and suitable. Not in the sale unfortunately, but the man in the shop knocked me 10% off because he felt sorry for me. So we were left with a lot more of the day than we were expecting. We decided to head over to Loch Garten to the RSPB Osprey centre, where we'd previously seen nesting Ospreys, plus loads of small "garden" type birds on the feeders, which we actually preferred to the Ospreys.

When we arrived, the place was closed until spring as the Ospreys had migrated to Africa as they were too cold. So we left George in the car park and went for a stroll round the woods to test out my new boots and get some fresh air. The woods were lovely, with birds flitting around all over the place. We saw a flock of long tailed tits and a very cute mousey vole thing which we were able to get really close to and get some photos. It didn't even seem bothered as it just carried on preening itself as if we weren't there. I was amazed it hadn't been eaten by an otter or an owl or something like that as it really wasn't taking its personal safety very seriously.

We headed back to the van for lunch, whereupon Claire started getting quite agitated as there were lots of birds in the opposite corner of the car park, and no room for us to park George nearby. We nearly got a spot but then someone else in a big motor home swooped in and then promptly left their van and went for a walk. Claire was fuming and I had to talk her out of asking the people to swap places. Eventually we managed to get into prime position, and no sooner had we done so, a crested tit started eating peanuts out of a bird feeder right in front of us! Crested tits are quite rare - according to the sign in the woods there are only 2,500 of them in Britain compared to 2,000,000 blue tits! The trees and feeder were teeming with all sorts of birds - coal, blue, great and crested tits, chaffinches, tree creepers and a lesser spotted woodpecker.

We spent a good couple of hours watching and photographing the birds, during which time I remembered we'd got a healthy nut mix in the van which we'd abandoned in favour of a bacon buttie after a triathlon. So Claire stuck her hand out of the window with some nuts on it and before long a cheeky little coal tit landed on her hand and started snacking. We soon had them eating off the wing mirrors and even off the window sill as well.

I tried to coax them into landing on my head and shoulders outside but they weren't quite that brave, and while Claire was waiting hopefully with the camera, the cheeky coal tit sneaked into George, no doubt in search of the packet of healthy nuts. Of course, as soon as he was inside the van he panicked and started flying into the windscreen. Claire managed to scoop him up in her hands and release him back outside. We'll have to be more careful in future.

After our birdwatching session we nipped over to the nearest town - Grantown on Spey - to get a mobile signal for some essential comms, and to stock up on nuts. Unfortunately I hadn't written this blog then so couldn't post it. We've managed to park up overnight in the same prime position for birdwatching, and are hoping to be woken by a dawn chorus demanding breakfast.

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An Over Ambitious Bivvy

Monday 19th and Tuesday 20th September 2016

The Cairngorms

We were up at about 8am on Monday morning in case the car park warden or forest ranger was looking for naughty overnight campers, so we could pretend we hadn't stopped over at all and had just arrived for breakfast. The forest ranger did turn up, but completely ignored us, and left after after 10 minutes of litter picking. I hasten to add that it was not our litter that she was collecting.

We were just boiling the kettle when a lady wearing pyjamas ambled over looking shifty. She'd stayed in a van on the next car park and had woken up to find the battery was flat. Having had battery problems with George in the past (OK, problems with forgetting to switch the lights off), we agreed to go and help them after our breakfast.

We arrived at the next car park to find that it was a far better overnight spot than where we normally stay. We got their van going with the help of George and his jump leads and then headed up to the top car park by the ski centre at the base of Cairn Gorm mountain.
After a fair bit of faffing with rucksacks and contents we finally set off on foot at about 11.30, which was a bit late in hindsight. We'd never planned to be particularly early, but 10.30 would have been better.

Our plan was to follow the mountain plateau on the nearest side of the Lairig Ghru (a deep, steep sided glacial valley), ticking off a few Munros on the way, then after a wild camp cross the valley, climb the mountain on the other side and follow the mountain ridge on that side, ticking off even more Munros, to eventually arrive back at George in the afternoon of the following day. That was plan A, which was a round trip of about 36 miles and 8,000-9,000 feet of ascent.

We'd started on the same route up a couple of years ago when we went up Cairn Gorm, so we knew what was in store for the first couple of hours. A relentless trudge uphill, with little reward until the views of the mountain range on the other side of the Lairig Ghru came into view after a few miles. We stopped for lunch when they finally did come into view, and then pushed on to bag our first Munro of the day, and a Trail 100 hill to boot, Ben Macdui.

Looking back on the way up

The view across the Lairig Ghru

Ben Macdui is the second highest mountain in the UK. It's a lot easier to climb than Ben Nevis however (mainly because you start half way up it at the ski centre), and in my opinion, it's probably not quite as impressive once you reach the summit. Our Summit Selfie wasn't as good either.

Ben MacDui Summit Selfie 

Ben Nevis Summit Selfie

We headed off downhill (obviously) to bag the Derry Cairngorm - our second Munro, which was an addition to the route which seemed like a good idea the night before whilst looking at the map.

The Derry Cairngorm viewed on the way down Ben MacDui 

On the way up the Derry Cairngorm

It took longer than we expected, with more uphill than we expected and a lot of boulders and ankle turning rocks to clamber over. We reached the summit at about 4.15pm, absolutely ravenous. After a slightly better summit selfie and some food we headed back down the way we'd just come.

Ben MacDui from the Derry Cairngorm

The way down

By this time it was gone 4.30pm. We were meant to be going most of the way back up Ben Macdui (not as bad as it sounds but still quite a lot of up), going back down the other side, pitching the tent, and then nipping up a third Munro and back before dinner. We decided on the way down the Derry Cairngorm that we should reconsider our plan as we weren't sure we'd have enough daylight (or energy) to do all that before darkness, and didn't think there were many good overnight camping spots en route.

So we stopped at a great little overnight spot by a glacial lake called Loch Etchachan, surrounded by mountains. I'd thought on the way past earlier that it would be a good place to camp. There were a couple of guys in a tent there already but we pitched up round the other side and only really saw one of them when he came out to change his trousers. At least, that's what I think he was doing.

Looking back at our overnight spot

The only trouble with the change of plan was that we were now a bit early. There's not much to do once the tent's pitched and dinner's eaten. The midges were zoning in on me so we retreated to the tent with our Kindles and hip flasks at about 7.30pm.

Neither of us had a very good night's sleep. We were both cold and both woke up numerous times during the night. However, we somehow managed to oversleep until 8.40am (probably because we'd finally warmed up when the sun came up).

We have quite a slick routine in the morning after a bivvy or wild camp. I do breakfast whilst Claire packs all the sleeping stuff up. Breakfast consisted of instant coffee and porridge sachets made with boiled water from the stream. We were on our way just over an hour later.

We had already reverted to plan B (climb the third Munro and then either retrace our steps back to the van, or drop down to the valley and follow that back). We'd decided to save the hills on the other side of the valley for another day when we'd got up earlier and were a bit nearer to them in the first place.
However, part way up the re-ascent of Ben Macdui, Claire announced that she wanted to adopt plan C - just go straight back to George via our approach route, get clean, and get warm. I got the distinct feeling that it wasn't worth arguing, and besides, I was feeling pretty cold and scummy myself. So we bagged Ben Macdui for the second time in two days, and had a fairly leisurely amble back to George, arriving at about 3pm after having enough breaks to eat and drink all our remaining supplies.

Some Ptarmigans we spotted on the way back

We both felt a lot better after spending some time in the toilets with some baby wipes and the deodorant, and after sorting all our kit out we headed back down to the new spots by the lake we'd seen yesterday morning whilst rescuing the other van. We've got a spot with great views across to the hills we spent last night amongst, and have our own picnic table outside for breakfast if the midges keep away. At the moment there are no other campers in sight!

We've finally warmed up after two glasses of red wine and a curry each. Tomorrow we're having a "rest" day (i.e. no mountain climbing and some stocking up on essential supplies in Aviemore).

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