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Sunday, 3 June 2012

On the Whisky trail


Friday 1 June 2012  -Inverness to Aberdeen
Day 50 and 109 to go
Another glorious day to be had in Scotland. We are getting really lucky with the weather.
After enjoying a good nights sleep we wandered down for breakfast at 8.30. Today was a massive food day starting with a double serving of everything for brecky. We downed it knowing that we would definitely not require lunch.
Our host Neil was quite personable even if he didn’t have enough teeth to fill in his gappy smile. The breakfast room was full of Elvis memorabilia including a life size statue in full performance pose so of course Paul had to have his photo taken with it.
We packed up our things, paid up and were on the road. WE drove about 30min out of Inverness making it to Tomatin Distillery, one that had been recommended to us by Damon. We arrived just as it was opening. We watched a short film before being given a taste of the whisky that I quickly gave to Paul. Paul enjoyed it and picked up a few bits and then we drove onto Aviemore in search of beer. 

The Cairngorm Brewing company has their brewery located in a small industrial estate that today began bottling their beer on-site rather than sending them to Manchester. The girl running the bar and giving the explanations was from Gosnells in Perth she was very informative and helpful.
Paul tried the full range of beers, 10 in total and all apparently were enjoyable. He again bought paraphernalia including a shirt from the sheep shagger beer range with Brewing to be wild on the back with a sheep riding a motorbike. Very apt.

With the beers and whisky under his belt it was my turn to drive the car for the next 1 ½ hours. We drove through the Cairngorm Mountains and National Park. The roads were up and down and round and round. Many were single lanes that required passing spots.  However, the views were spectacular and after driving passed the ski area we stopped to take in the view. Beautiful.


I continued on the road driving to our next distillery, Royal Lochnagar. This distillery is located next to the Queen’ Balmoral estate and castle. We had to drive passed but we could not see beyond the initial gates. 2 min later we pulled into the distillery.
The estate was given the Royal title after Queen Victoria and Albert were invited to sample the whisky and they enjoyed it. Paul enjoyed it too, but it was very expensive. We left soon after finishing the free tasting. 

Paul took over driving again while I watched the scenery pass by. There were many twisting roads that Paul was itching to take on the bike if he could. He was driving the car like he would a bike.
We stopped on the way when we came across a small herd of Highland Cows or Hilin Coos as they say around here.  They were so cute and not particularly interested in us as we stood by watching them. How they see through their shaggy fringes is beyond me. 


The road continued to be picturesque, we stopped again at a waterfall before heading into Aberdeen 30min later. 
We located our hotel just out of town and checked in to our room. We had a cuppa and sorted our things before getting back in the car and driving into the city. Unfortunately being the beginning of a 4 day long weekend the traffic was madness though we did finally find a multistorey to park in.
We walked towards the centre of town stopping at a cool boutique pub called Brew Dog. It was packed with Friday arvo drinkers. Paul had one of their beers and I had their own cola that was quite delicious.
We continued our walk towards the main mall walking up a street that had many food stalls. We bought some prawnies and potato to eat as we wandered. We continued to meander through the streets stopping again at Aberdeen’s oldest pub for a pint before returning to the car and back to the Wellington Hotel.


We hung out in the room for a short while working out the next couple of days and then we went into the restaurant for dinner. Seeing the special of 3 courses for 11.99 pounds we ordered up. The starters of soup for me and fish for Paul were a good start. We then had the “Sunday Roast”. Paul opted for beef and ham while I had chicken. When the plates were brought out we were left with our jaws dropping. The plates were absolutely MASSIVE. My chicken was a half roast, while Paul had steak like cuts of meat. This came with potatoes 2 ways, roast and jacket, 4 of them, plus a huge assortment of other vege. We just stared in disbelief and wonder as to how we were possibly going to get through it all. Every mouthful we took hardly made a dent it was like a refilling plate. In the end we both had to call time and return our plates to the kitchen with enough food on them to feed another person for 2 days and we still had dessert to come!
We spoke to the waitress who said it was okay to take our dessert back to the room and so we did. We both looked like giant beach balls I am surprised we could get through the door to our room. We slothed about watching “The Patriot” on TV. Eventually we located the room to down the dessert and then it was time for bed. 

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