Sunday morning I was up early to go pick up the rental car. It was a short bus ride and walk over to the rental car terminal near the airport. The car was ready, and I was back to the hotel in no time. We got a small Mercedes hatchback, which was perfect for what we needed. We had another long day of travel ahead of us, so we wanted to hit the road. We needed to be at our ferry by 5:30 p.m., and we had about 3 1/2 hours of driving time ahead of us.
This is what our drive across scotland looked like. It was a very beautiful drive, even if the weather wasn’t ideal.
From Edinburgh, we had decided on a couple of stops along the way. A short distance northwest of the city center in the Firth of Forth and the village of Queensferry. There is a famous, historic railway bridge across the firth, and we wanted to have a look. The Forth Bridge did not disappoint.
A pano of the Forth Bridge, the famous railway bridge across the Firth of Forth.
The tide was way out; it might have been more interesting at high tide, but we’ll never know…
"Firth" is another word for estuary, in this case of the River Forth. The old railway bridge is very cool - a unique looking design, and we made a short stop to wander the harbor at Queensferry to get a look at it.
Initially, we drove right into the heart of Queensferry and parked behind one of the hotels, right on the harbor. That gave us a chance to walk out on the breakwater to get a great view out over the water and out to the bridges.
In doing a bit of research, one of the more interesting things I discovered was that there used to also be a tunnel under the river, created by coal miners linking collieries on each side of the river. They had to close it and fill it in with concrete in the 80s.
Looking over the town of Queensferry.
As it had been an early start, we grabbed a snack at the bakery in the cute downtown high street, before continuing on our way. Justine had complements for the coffee and the pastries looked amazing, but I managed to resist. It was probably the last time on this trip, even if I did steal a bit of Justine’s along the way.
There was an even better view of the bridges on the other side of town, so we made a second stop for some pictures. We need to get our selfie game working, as there were bound to be lots of opportunities in this trip! The weather was proving better than expected - not great mind you, but it wasn’t raining on us yet!
We drove a short distance to our next stop at the House of the Binns and Binn Tower, a folly sitting high up on a hill overlooking the River Forth. The house is a National Trust property and has been the home of the Dalyell family for over 400 years. It’s a beautifull house, but we decide to skip the tour of the insides and just walk the grounds. We really wanted to see the tower and the views.
The House of the Binns is a stunning old country home.
There were literally sheep everywhere.
On the drive up, the grounds are covered in sheep and that continued for much of our walk. There are also absolutely enormous trees everywhere, making for quite a nice walk through the forest as we explored.
The tower itself, a folly (name used for these historical looking buildings, usually towers, generally built in the 1800s that served no practical purposes). This one was built by the owners to win a bet on the most useless way to spent £100. It only cost him £29 (in 1826), so I’m not sure if that mean he won or lost the bet. Just goes to show what the pound was worth in the 1800s.
The tower - sadly you could not go inside to climb it!
Some of the cool walls and landscaping around the property.
From the House of the Binns and Binns Tower you could see down to the River Forth, where on its banks sits Blackness Castle. So we needed to head down there and have a look! We needed at least one Scottish castle. The drive was short, about 15 minutes through winding country roads. We had a lot of those coming over the next few days.
The castle itself sits on a small point of land on the river, in a very defensible location. The info boards indicated that the original owner and builder offered to build it for the King, in exchange for not having to go out to sea on a ship. So he built it to look like a ship, one that "could never be sunk".
The castle itself was smaller than I expected, and the grounds were lovely. We again chose to not go inside, trying to limit our time so as to not get stuck rushing later in the day. We wandered about for a little while, including some of the surrounding dunes, before heading back to the car and on our way. I do have some much better photos of the castle, which hopefully I will get to in the coming weeks. It may take a while.
From there, we started heading west. We jumped on the highway, to cut out some time. This took us past the statues of the Kelpies (no idea about this one…), a bit north through Stirling ("the heart of Scotland"), before swinging back south around the bottom of Loch Lommand.
Loch Lommand and the Trossards
From here, the road was quite nice, skirting the edge of the Loch, giving us views out over the water as we headed almost due north. There was a bunch of traffic heading south (which was a surprise) and we were glad t be headed in the opposite direction. Our path was mostly clear sailing.
At times we flitted in and out of the trees, but mostly we wove along the water’s edge. The weather was a bit of a mixed bag - it started well, but quickly the clouds rolled in, and before too long the rain started.
Our first stop as we headed north up Loch Lommand was at Firken Point. It was a lovely little rest stop that gave access to a fairly long trail system that ran along the side of the Loch. It would have been great to have had more time to explore the area, especially if the weather was nicer.
We were across the Loch from Ben Lommand, not that we could see the peak well in the low hanging clouds. We got out to use the facilities and stretch our legs a bit. We walked down to the waters edge and had a look about. We could see some of the mountains across the way, and the low mist gave everything a wonderful atmosphere. It felt very "Scottish". Sadly the rain started to pick up, so we didn’t stay for very long. Instead it was back to the car, and on our way.
We continued north for a while, stopping at the wonderfully-named “Rest and be Thankful Viewpoint”. This spot, still shrouded in mist and rain was nestled between two "mountains", providing lovely views up and down the valley. Again, the rain made it less than a pleasant stop, so it was another quick stretch of the legs. There was a flock of fiches (I think they were Common Chaffinches) in the bushes near the rest stop, so that was kind of cool. The were very pretty birds.
Eventually we got to the northern most point on the Loch, but before we headed back south and down the other side, we made a stop at Fyne Ales Brewery.
The plan had been to stop for a drink and some lunch, but that didn’t really work out. The brewery was up a long, narrow winding road, and was a very cool spot, with beautiful scenery. They had an excellent selection of their beer, but there were really no food options to have a proper lunch.
We were stuck with bar snacks only - chips and locally made biltong, along with our pints. The beer was really good, and their brewery was quite nice. They had a really great beer garden out in the back, but sadly the rain kept us from sitting outside.
The outside of the brewery.
That left us with a shortish stop and really wanting a proper meal. So we bought a few things to take with us to enjoy later and hit the road once more.
At this point, we were at the most northern point on the road around the Loch, and the road turned south along the other side. On this side, there were a lot more small villages, some that looked like they had fish farms just offshore. The most significant town was Inverrary, which had a very beautiful castle and a great little town center right on the water. It might have been worth a stop, but we were a little tight on time.
Towards the bottom of the Loch we arrived into the town of Tarbert. This had been on my list for a stop, as the town had the ruins of an old castle to explore. And since we didn’t really have lunch, we were going to need to double up a meal. The road into Tarbert went right along the water’s edge, providing a great view of the town, situated on a small harbor.
We’ll stop there. Next time, exploring Tarbert Castle and the ferry to Islay.