Thread: Ramblings from the UK.

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Tuesday May 17th.

Jane and James in their car, Christine, Charlie, Rosie and myself in Charlie's car, and we were away from Ruh by 9:30, heading for Thurso prior to ferrying to the Orkney Mainland to-morrow. Local knowledge let Charlie take rural back roads toward Stirling, through under utilised land running gorse, (lots of gorse,) sheep, a few beef cattle, fewer dairy cattle, mainly fresian, one jersey herd, and predominantly cropping nearer Stirling.

Wanted to stop for a cuppa at Auchterarder, but there wasn't a park to be had in the village proper, so we all pulled into a school parking lot to stretch legs and maintain nicotine levels.
A wrought iron gate in a stane dyke 100ft or so away piqued my interest so wandered over for a closer look.
It was a fake; the whole thing was arc welded. But...there 100ft from school grounds was a magnificent area of hemlock.
Not a good look.
Don't these people know their noxious/poisonous weeds?

Followed the Tay river for quite some distance, running parallel to the Cairngorms; interesting wild scenery. and...semaphore signals on the railway track. Haven't seen those in years.

Golspie; and a statue to the Duke of Sutherland.
That surprised me, he was the bloke responsible for most of The Clearings that threw the peasant farmers off their land, and created much hardship, starvation and suffering.

5 miles on...and a sign indicated Dunrobin (Dunrobbin'?) Castle...is there an ironic joke here somewhere?

Well out on the east coast by now, and met up with the infamous stretch of road known as Berridale Brees.
A descent and climb out the other side of (about) 200ft, a gradient of 13%, 3 hairpin bends at the bottom, and another hairpin on the northern side.
Just no way no how to keep revs and gears up.
After seeing it first hand I can understand why the truckies hate it.

A relatively flat and straight run along the coast with wind turbines all over the place, arrived Thurso, our hotel for the night about 6:15, and we're now just a short drive to the ferry for Orkney to-morrow.

Life is all good.