Glasgow to Inverness

After our little jaunt to Ireland, we flew back across the sea to Glasgow and picked up our hire car at the Glasgow airport. This little car acquired the affectionate name of 'mouse' because whenever I turned the wheel to the left it would squeak. When I first heard the noise, it sounded like someone outside was honking at me, but then we realized it was the steering column. Mouse would squeak the most when the car wasn't warmed up. Mouse did very well for us, in spite of the squeak, her reluctance to start on occasion, and the random way the back windscreen wiper would go without being turned on. I really enjoyed being back behind the wheel of a car again! It's been three years, after all.



Our first stop was the Dumbarton Castle; it's just south of Loch Ness and just north of Glasgow. It's an imposing structure, perched on a volcanic rock overlooking the Firth of Clyde. I thought it looked like a ship from a profile angle; that point you can see behind my head sticks out like a huge mast.
Dumbarton was the centre of the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde from the 5th century until 1018 in case you were wondering why there is a castle there.

On our drive northward from Dumbarton towards Inverness, we stopped at the Falls of Falloch. I always love being out in the woods, so this was a favorite stop of mine. The river Falloch flows into Loch Lomond. Scotland is so beautiful!

Just to the east of Inverness is Cawdor Castle. It dates from the late 14th century and was built as a private fortress by the Thanes of Cawdor. Shakespeare romantically linked this castle with Macbeth.

Cawdor Castle has lovely gardens, in which we wandered, and the picture below is a very small representation of them. Cawdor also has a large wooded area behind it in which visitors can wander on paths of varying lengths. As you can see there are some very LARGE trees out in that wood. We took a little path that was about 1 mile long, but there were others of 3 or 4 miles to choose from. While out there we experienced a sudden rain storm, but it passed shortly after it began.
Just a bit further down the road were the Clava Cairns. These are prehistoric burial cairns that were built about 4,000 years ago. The site is comprised of passage graves, ring cairns, kerb cairn, standing stones and the remains of a chapel of unknown date. The picture below shows a ring cairn and a standing stone.

In this one I'm behind some of the leaning standing stones. It was raining a bit while we were here.