Yeah, we squeezed in a steam train ride, Bill. What surprised me was you could feel the stroke of the piston as it pulled the train.
4/29
Today we drove about 84 miles to visit Castle Dunrobin. There are over 190 rooms in the castle and we had a walking tour of a lot of them. This castle (palace?) was a hunting lodge at one time, a WWI hospital at another and is the current residence of the Countess Sutherland. She wasn’t in.
While there, we got to witness a falconry demonstration “in the garden.” The falconer used falcons, eagles and owls. The demonstration was very, very impressive. He told us stories of the local neighbors letting their dogs come onto the grounds. If the eagles are out at the same time, the dog is invited to lunch and is the main course. The several hunting birds are only a small portion of all the birds they care for. The hunting birds can keep themselves and the sick or lame fellow birds well fed with freshly killed game.
4/30/09
Today we mostly took it easy and didn’t get out and about. We stayed within 20 miles of the resort. Nikki signed up to go on a horseback ride. They had highland ponies. Not small horses – the one she rode was 15.5 hands (hand = 4 inches). While Nikki was blazing her English saddle, the wife and I visited a 17 century working village. They had a working waterwheel driven saw mill. They also had three thatched roof homes. The beds looked like cup boards. They bring the cattle in adjacent barns in November and leave them there until May. They use the warmth all winter.
After we linked back up, we went to a local sheep farm where they gave a demonstration of sheepdogs. They used border collies, exclusively. That was neat watching the dogs work the sheep. They responded by voice and whistle commands. They train the dogs starting when they are five weeks old and use ducks. They can’t train them that small on sheep because the sheep will bowl them over and they will be scared of sheep the rest of their life – ruined as a sheep dog.
Tomorrow we will be checking out a day early to prevent having to drive to the air port for a Saturday flight at dark thirty. On our way to Edinburgh, we’ll stop in Perth and check out the Scone Castle. From there we’ll go on to Edinburgh Castle. Typically the castles close at 1600, so we’ll drag our carcasses to the air port hotel and I’ll return the Ford.
Speaking of which, I have not found how you open the hood! There is NO inside pull to pop the hood. I’ll try again after awhile and see if I missed anything.