Miscellaneous on Monday 17th

I’m guilty of starting to put in maps but not continuing – below corrects this.

Kirkcudbright to the Trossachs

 

Brig o’Turk, Doune, Pitlochry, Blair Castle

Blair Castle, Grantown-on-Spey (+ ospreys), Findhorn, Dingwall

…north

Some things I forgot to mention which may be of interest.

Wigtown (and other places): The Covenantors refused to accept Charles II as head of the Church of Scotland in 1685 and for this they were put to death.

The Trossachs Hotel - sorry no photos, but its sort of sub-Hogwarts with lots of pointed towers- was used in the first two Thirty Nine Steps films, i.e not the one with Robert Powell.

The Headquarters of Harveys, map-makers for walkers, is in a very modest building in Doune.

Forres has a nice little museum, although not as magical as the one in Kirkcudbright.  It is called the Falconer museum with room dedicated to Falconer, who came from Forres.  Falconer was a contemporary and friend of Darwin and fed Darwin the results of his own research which helped Darwin to firm up his thinkings which became The Origin of the Species.  He was in India for much of his life.  From working in the Himalayas he believed that the Himalayas are a young mountain range because of the great amount of fossils found and came up with the thesis that the more fossils the younger the layer.  He also selected land in India for tea plantations, tea at that time was only grown in China – hard to believe now with tea in  India being such a major crop.

Dingwall: Macbeth was born here.  It is the junction of the Kyle line as well as the Wick line.