Forress, Inverness, Ullapool, Eilean Donan, Isle of Skye, Glenfinnan, Glencoe, etc.

Marijke is a Robertson and McConkie (or versions of it) often associate with the Robertson Clan.  Also pictured here is a mixture of Inverness, the Inverness castle, Ullapool (top left photo) and Urquhart castle.

From Aberdeen we drove to Forres (collage to come) where both of us have family history.  It was a beautiful little town with lovely parks and flowers (holds a flower festival there each year).  From there we went to Inverness which is sort of like the capitol of the Scottish Highlands.  We didn’t spend a lot of time in either of these places as we still had to get to Ullapool where David Crook (son of Tom and Anne Crook in Perth) and his family live.

The drive to Ullapool was really pretty and Richard had never really seen this side of Scotland, even after living here for two years.  Ullapool is a nice seaside town way up in the northwest of Scotland where many people never go.  The Crooks were really nice and treated us like old friends though we had just met them.  They had three kids and they were all in Gaelic schools where all the lessons are taught in the Gaelic language.  Their kids' names were Mhairi (pronounced Vari, the Gaelic version of Mary), Joe and Finlay (pronounced Finley).

Eilean Donan Castle and drive to Isle of Skye

 We told the Crooks we wanted to drive from Ullapool to Urquhart Castle, then go to the Isle of Skye, and then go to Irvine all in the same day.  They laughed their heads off because they thought our plan was crazy.  We have different perspective on time/distance coming from Utah where it takes 8 hours to get to Denver or 6 to Las Vegas.  We were able to get to see all the we wanted to, even if we didn't have much time to stop or explore.  

Isle of Skye, including Skye Bridge, and the ferry ride to Mallaig...Richard's hair, in desperate need of a haircut, blowing in the wind.

In one day we saw: Urquhart Castle, Eilean Donan Castle, a little bit of the Isle of Skye (it’s pretty big), Glenfinnan Viaduct (featured in the Harry Potter films), the Bonnie Prince Charlie monument (of the Robertson clan) on Loch Shiel (the lake in the Harry Potter films), Glencoe, Fort William and Loch Lomond.  





Our route included a 30 minute ferry from Armadale to Mallaig which is fun for someone from Utah who almost never sees water.  Driving on the Isle of Skye was interesting on the single-track road and alongside the "heeland coos".   They had recently repaved the road and added quite a few pull-out points for passing, but occassionally we'd meet in the middle and one of the cars has to reverse to one of these pull-out points.

Glenfinnan Viaduct, Loch Shiel

All of these places were beautiful and it was great that Richard could finally see them.  We had a lot of fun driving through all these places but the area we covered in one day could really be a full week of sightseeing.