Autumn Road-Trip 2: Dulsie Bridge

While we were driving between locations, we took a detour to visit the Dulsie Bridge, as suggested by Suzy_Bugs. I really don't know much about its history. We parked up at a view point above it, and went for a stroll around the gorge-top path, and then to a little field with a fallen tree and some rather fabulous and almost fantastical mushrooms that the others took good photographs of, but which I took rather dire photographs of, so none of them are shown here. 

Dulsie Bridge. Photograph by Housecat

I think it's a very fantastical-looking location, something that could have been out of The Hobbit, or Lord Of The Rings, or maybe Game of Thrones (but the river would have to run red with blood for that set of books...). It is old, and it has been converted into a modern road bridge, but there is something both about the old stone bridge, and the deep gorge (which bears the marks of flooding quite a long way up the stone sides; I presume it runs VERY high with melt-water and rain in Spring!) with trees either side made me feel like I wasn't quite in the regular world, like I had either stepped back in time, or stepped sideways into a different world altogether, one more magical.

One of my favourite thing about old structures is how between a tendency towards materials such as local stone, and the blending actions of time, they seem to just fit naturally into the landscape. Part way through our visit, it began to rain again, and the skies grew grey with cloud. It wasn't the best conditions for photography, especially for someone who is inexperienced and unskilled like myself. I got a bit higher up the gorge, and tried to photograph along the river, but I was photographing through the trees beside me and I'm not sure how well that endeavour turned out. 

Dulsie Bridge, photograph by Housecat

Overlooking the gorge is the selections of large stones shown below - I do not know if they are a natural outcrop or the remains of a stone chambered tomb or cairn that has collapsed. Either way, they looked quite remarkable, and I had fun trying to deliberately give them fantastically vibrant colours, as if they were something from an illustrated fairytale. I'm not sure if it's really very successful; being colourful is not exactly my forte! 

Stones, photograph by HouseCat

I tried my best, and I think only the first photograph really worked. It's nice to have at least some mementos of visiting. If anyone knows more about the history of bridge, and why it is well known - other than it being rather picturesque - please feel free to inform me! More photographs from my road-trip will go up over the next few days. I visited quite a few places indeed, and I feel each one needs it's own blog post because a single post would be very long indeed - the same as when I visited Edinburgh or when I went to Rait Castle, Barevan Churchyard, etc. 

Birds of Prey, Owls and Scottish Weaponry

Today was exciting, but it didn't exactly go to plan! I went to the International Pipe-Band Championship with 2Wit 2Woo. I was helping alongside Suzy_Bugs, who is also a volunteer. 

An older photo of me with Skirly, a buzzard.
Skirl is a word for the sound of badly played pipes.
It was originally a word for mournful piping.
Buzzards make a screech noise.
Photograph by Suzy_Bugs

First of all, I over-slept, which is a common occurrence as I often find it rather hard to go to sleep at anything approaching a reasonable hour, so I am very, very tired many mornings. I had set my alarm clock, but turned it off and then promptly fell back to sleep (in a funny heap, getting a neck-ache), then could not find my clothes for the day. As I was supposed to be going to volunteer with the owls and raptors, I wanted to be reasonably practical rather than frilly. I then missed the bus I was supposed to be on, then the next bus arrived into the city centre about 30 seconds after the connecting bus from Inverness to Aviemore departed, so I had to wait for about half an hour for that... 

The bus journey was between 45 minutes and an hour, and I ended up in Forres about just gone 11:30, but without being with the 2Wit 2Woo van, and not having the money to pay for a regular ticket (I think volunteers are supposed to get in for free or reduced rates). I walked up the wooded hill above the park being used as a show-ground, and found a suitable vantage point to work out where our stall was, and then asked two nice young men near the fence and the stall to go over and pass a message on to those running it. Thankfully everything got sorted out, and I got my blue wrist-band.

I spent most of the time helping fairly static, remaining at the stall. I got to handle a variety of the owls there, including Spotty, who I had never handled before, who bit me (but not very hard) and was in a bit of a bad mood. Most of the birds seemed complete unperturbed by the fact that there were over 150 pipe-bands, and approximately 4,000 pipers and drummers, and a whole lot of spectators! We were near one of the pipe-band practice stations, which was quite cool, as I got to hear a lot of good piping. I haven't got a good ear for telling just how good piping is, as it is not a genre and tradition of music that I am hugely familiar with (yes, I've seen and heard a few since I moved to Scotland, but I hardly know it well ) but I did enjoy what I heard. 

Targe, dirk and broadsword...
Rocket the owl in the background.
Photograph by Suzy_Bugs

Towards the later afternoon, I took a walk around the grounds with Rocket, a barn-owl, sitting on my arm, and talked to lots of people, including representatives from the RAF the Army - the latter Rocket seemed to take a real liking to, giving them affectionate nibbles in return for lots of scritches and petting. Something I learnt was that in local parlance, if you stroke or pet something, it's called "clap" not "pet" or "stroke" - so there was a momentary mix up in communication when I thought someone meant applaud the owls, and I didn't want them to startle the owls with noises.  I got to meet some historical re-enactors from Brodie castle, who were wonderfully friendly. I sadly can't remember the chap's name but he was really helpful, told me lots of interesting things (including how to make a targe for re-enactment or L.A.R.P purposes) and let me handle the weaponry (all false-edged, but pretty fun anyway.)

The highlight of the day was handling Sweep, a young jackdaw. The little bird was incredibly calm on his first outing. We did minimise his handling, nonetheless. He even fell asleep once! He's an incredibly bright young corvid, and was trying to figure out (unsuccessfully) how to remove his jesses. 

Sweep and I! A cute wee jackdaw.
Photograph by Suzy_Bugs

Suzy_Bugs and I had to leave early, as we had to catch a bus back for getting home at a reasonable time. She bough Chinese take-away for Raven and I, for which I am grateful. I am also grateful for her taking all of today's photographs. 

Cawdor Castle

To Cawdor Castle, of Shakespearian fame as Macbeth is Thane of Cawdor! The setting of all that death, madness and scheming!

Looking up the drive way to the front of Cawdor

Well, only in literary fiction as the real Cawdor castle was built about 400 years after the real Macbeth was born... Of course, Shakespeare is allowed to apply as much poetic license as he likes, and I liked imagining the cast of characters wandering about the place as I visited. 

I was feeling particularly stressed, frazzled by a long day with more human interaction (and more stressful human interaction) than I could really handle, and Raven, realising that I was close to bursting into tears and having a mini-meltdown, decided that it would be a good idea to take me out somewhere quiet. So we went for a drive out to the countryside around Nairn, which took us past Cawdor. Turning up the drive to Cawdor Castle was complete impulse. 

The Castle from behind.

We didn't actually go to the castle to visit the building (out of character, I am aware, but it was reasonably busy with tourists) but to take in some fresh air in the beautiful forest behind the castle.  It has a number of winding paths, a small river/large stream, ponds, pools, and a few bridges (built by the Army) and a lot of old and beautiful trees. I felt hugely better after both getting far away from the madding crowd and in having a nice stroll with my other half. 

A skyline to inspire fairytale and fantasy

It was not intended in any way as a photography outing, but I did take a few photos of the castle on my phone, which I am displaying here. The building was started in the 15thC, and built in several stages right up to the 19thC, and is very beautiful; quite the apt setting for a play full of such Medieval intrigue and magic! At some point I will return with a proper camera (the camera on my phone isn't terrible, but would be a lot better if it didn't constantly get mucky from being in my handbag!) and take some more artistic photographs of the castle.