I didn't wake up all night until the alarm went off at 7:15. So finally a great night's sleep! We went to breakfast at 8:00 and had pretty much what we had yesterday except we all had haggis for our meat. We talked again with the other people in the breakfast room and had a good
conversation . We set off shortly after 9:00 and headed for Clava Cairns just a short distance past Culloden and only a short distance from Cawdor Castle.

Clava Cairns is an ancient burial site. A cairn is a pile of stones, in this case a pile of stones where people are buried. The cairns are surrounded by a circle of 12 standing stones. Two of the cairns are Northeast Passage Graves aligned with the midwinter solstice. There are different colors and sizes of stones which are placed in a pattern around the outside of the cairn. The largest stones are near the entrance and colors are aligned between the inner and outer circles. There is also a Central Ring Cairn probably with a funeral pyre in the center. There is also a Kerb Cairn from a later time that was much smaller.

We stopped at a huge train trestle that was on our way out of Clava Cairns. We had seen it on the way in and one of the people at breakfast had told us about it . The trains had been going by pretty often when we were walking around the cairns so we didn't have to wait long before one came across the trestle.

Our next stop was Cawdor Castle. Cawdor is another name for Calder, they are interchangeable. If you remember Macbeth, it was set in Scotland and he was called the Thane of Cawdor. However, this castle did not exist in the days of Shakespeare's Macbeth. But Macbeth really did exist as did Duncan. Cawdor Castle is still lived in 7 months of the year by Lady Cawdor. It is open in the summer when she is not in residence. For a castle it was quite livable and cozy. It is not as large as some others. I was taken by the tapestries most of which were about Don Quixote. The castle location was chosen by the Thane of Cawdor who had a dream to let his donkey wander and wherever he laid down, that is where he would build. The donkey laid down under a tree. He built the castle around the Thorn Tree, probably an hawthorn . Off the "Thorn Tree Room" a small dungeon was discovered in 1979 when they were re-pointing the mortar joints. There was no kitchen in the original castle which was unusual. There are two today, a modern one and an old one. After touring the castle we went to the gardens. They were really nice with the Old Walled Garden, the Secret Garden and the maze garden within it, the Flower Garden, the Wild Garden and Nature Paths. We didn't go to the Wild Garden or Nature Paths.
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Our next stop was Culloden (cull-AW-den) as they say it here. The first thing we saw by the parking lot were three Highland Cattle, specially bred to survive in Scotland. We went into the visitor center and got some lunch. I got a ham and cheese muffin, Larry got a carrot muffin, and we shared a tuna sandwich. Erin had a tuna sandwich and a scone. We all had a Scottish soda called Irn Bru pronounced iron brew. It tasted like bubble gum. It is often called Scotland's other national drink, after whiskey of course. We visited the gift shop before going through the exhibits . I got a couple of tea towels, one with Scotland's wildflowers and the other with a map of Scotland. The exhibits were very well done and really explained the history behind the Battle of Culloden. There were two unique things. First they had touch screens with different people narrating their point of view on the events, both the Scottish and English views. There was a speaker above your head in the ceiling but you could only hear what was said if you were standing right in front of the screen. At the end there was a video reenactment of the battle. What was unique was that there was a screen on each of the four walls and you stood in the center for the 5 minute film. It had an amazing effect, like you were really there. Then we picked up our listening devices and put up our brollies (umbrellas) and walked the battlefield. My pictures will show you what we saw.

We headed back to Inverness about 4:00. We found a parking place just around the closest corner to Ardconnel House and parked . We dropped stuff off in our rooms and headed into Inverness. We went to the end of Ardconnel Street and took the stairs down to the High Street. We stopped at a drug store so I could buy a hairbrush as I had forgotten mine. We checked out a few stores but didn't buy anything. Then we headed down to the river and walked across the pedestrian suspension bridge which was very bouncy. We walked along the River Ness and viewed the city from across the river. You could really tell why they built the castle where they did, on the highest stop above the river. We checked out another shop that had tartans etc. We walked down past the bridge for cars to another pedestrian bridge and then back into town. We went to Hootenanny to eat where they also have live music later. When we went in we found that all the tables were reserved and the table would be removed for the music, which meant standing. We decided to eat elsewhere. We found Lauder's Pub which was nothing fancy. They had a good selection of beer and pub grub and two meals for only 8 pounds. Erin got Sausage and Mash, I got fish and chips and Larry got Hunter's Chicken which was barbecued and chips. Larry's and mine came with peas. Erin and Larry had a red ale and I had a lager shandy. I did not want to do any more standing so I headed back to Ardconnel House after supper. Larry and Erin did not go to Hootenanny but did see some pipers and dancers on the way back.