We decided to take advantage of the beautiful spring weather and head out on another castle touring day trip. We tried to plan for mostly castle ruins so that we could bring Casey with us. While it wasn't the nicest day of the past month, we still had reasonable weather and it was a wonderful day out.
The castles we had on our itinerary were all relatively nearby and we had sort of questioned why we hadn't seen them all before. The first was Huntly Castle. We were a little surprised to find that we had the castle all to ourselves for the entire visit. There were a lot of people out and about, including some doggie play groups and an obedience class that caught Casey's attention, but the castle was ours alone. It was very impressive. It had been through the hands of some of Scotland's most powerful families over its 8 centuries of existence. It's last owners, the Gordons, made some massive improvements and a lot of them are still visible. There's a large cobbled courtyard where various buildings once stood, including a stables for what must have been some very small horses. A large frontispiece hangs over the main entrance, which is slightly unexpected from what looks like an otherwise formidable military outpost. But I guess it goes hand-in-hand with the elaborate carvings on the front wall. You can go inside the castle as well, where they have restored some of the stairwells and floors so that you can get good looks at the carvings around the top floor fireplaces while energetic, cobalt blue swallows dart around your head. Casey loved it, exploring all the crevices, nooks and crannies. She would have made a very good castle hound. We're still not sure if the experience was biased by the complete lack of anyone else being around, but Huntly quickly shot up to right near the top of our list of castles in Scotland.
The next stop was Balvenie castle, a name that some might find more familiar from the whisky. This was in a little bit more of a ruined state, but given its previous owners I was more surprised that there was anything left at all. It was first occupied by the Black Comyns, who became mortal enemies of Robert the Bruce and were driven out when the Bruce razed Aberdeenshire. It was next occupied by the Black Douglasses, who got on the wrong side of James II. After them it passed on to the Earls of Atholl.
When you walk through the large iron gate and into the ruined courtyard, you are greeted by the cawing of hundreds of crows nesting in the large trees just outside the castle. It feels quite eerie. None of this spooked Casey who continued her castle exploration, often finding rooms that we had missed. We were, again, the only ones in the castle, which is a nice way to see any tourist attraction.
We were on our way to our last castle of the day when we chose to stop at an old, ruined 16th century church called St. Mary's Kirk. As we parked the car, I turned to take in the beautiful vista of green fields in the valley across the road, filled with cows. This was a change from the previous valley, filled with sheep and dozens of little lambs. One of the cows in particular caught my attention, as it seemed to have its tail up in the air for quite some time. We watched a bit longer and a minute later we saw a little calf drop to the ground. Nothing says springtime outing like watching a calf being born. His mother licked him clean and he spent the better part of the next 5 minutes trying to stand up. In a complete juxtaposition, we went from that over to the church, which could only be reached by going through a cemetery. The gravestones were covered in mosses and lichens. It was amazing to see how many Gordons there were.
Our last stop was Kildrummy Castle. Another ruin, this was nonetheless impressive just for its sheer size. Easily the biggest castle ruin we've seen, it had beautiful rounded towers and a large cobbled courtyard. In its prime it was the pride of central Scotland. It must have been incredibly formidable, with a large ditch, a barbican (large pit by the entrance which required a drawbridge, and five enormous towers. From the broken down walls you could see that they were built at least 10 feet thick. You can see that the only way Edward I's siege ended up working was through the treachery of someone on the inside, who burned the entire store of grain. The castle was last owned by Soapy Ogston, who built a beautiful hotel across a small ravine overlooking the castle. Fiona and I are now officially looking for reasons to book a weekend at this gorgeous hotel.
We finished off our day-trip with a dead tired puppy sleeping in the car while we had milkshakes at the Touched by Scotland store in Oyne. We had a fantastic day driving through the Aberdeenshire countryside, taking only the small roads. If the weather holds out, and probably even if it doesn't, we'll be out and about many more times this year. There is just so much to see and do.
