A Day in the Cairngorms

Given that the weather forecast for today wasn’t too bad (the usual sunshine and showers, though the emphasis today seemed to be on the sunshine rather than the showers) we decided to drive down into the Cairngorms and check out a few sights. First, we stopped at the Osprey Centre at Loch Garten and spent a while watching the Ospreys – they weren’t up to much, but most of us did at least get to see one. We also saw lots of finches and had some good views of red squirrels on the feeders there.

We then carried on down to Aviemore to check out the steam railway, but in the end decided not to stay because it was over an hour until the train went and none of us really liked the look of Aviemore – way too touristy and after the levels of people we’ve been used to for the past few days (i.e. very few) too crowded. Instead, we carried on south down to Newtownmore, where there is a Highland Folk Museum, which is a mostly outdoor museum with historic replica buildings from various periods including an early highland township (c. 1700) – glad I didn’t live in the highlands then, I think - a bit primitive, dark, smoky and not much choice of what to eat as they seemed to subsist largely on oats and nettles.




At the museum, there was a resident sculptor (in wood) who was doing little workshops with kids – helping them make little critters using pieces of wood and a drill. The kids adored this, of course, and we now have a menagerie of critters – a mouse, a hedgehog and a rodent who I think might be a gerbil or might be a different kind of mouse.



The Highland museum also had some other attractions, including an old schoolhouse where they could write with old style pens and ink and a playground, which they enjoyed. And a tearoom, which I enjoyed! We actually skipped an entire section of the place – the bit set up like an old croft, with people in costume – as we were all tired and ready to head back. As the museum is free, we didn’t feel we weren’t getting value for money! Some more photos can be found over here on flickr...

The drive to and from the area was spectacular – amazing views through the mountains – and although the roads were small, there was little traffic, so it didn’t matter too much. Luckily, we didn’t have to do too much passing on very narrow places and the highest passes through the mountains were wide enough for two cars anyway – not like the Dingle Pass in Ireland, which scares the pants off you...