Home -> Europe -> Scotland -> Travelogue 2004 -> Friday 19 March

A cold and rainy day, Dingwall

It is cold and rainy outside, worse weather than we have ecer had in Scotland. Over the last 4 years we have had only twice a rainy day, and then only for a few hours; also some days with a drizzle but that has been it. This holiday makes up for all the bad weather we have missed.
Well, we have promised Iain and Cathy to make a website for their hotel, so this is a perfect time to start.
Pub Caley hotel We start testing some ideas about the layout and colours and ask their opinion. After a few hours we have got an idea how they want it. We also take some pictures of the interior of the hotel, for example of the bar, which is now our workroom.
Dingwall Dingwall About four o'clock the sun starts shining and we decide to take advantage of it for a few hours. At Dingwall we drive up a hill to visit the monument (National Memorial, build between 1904 and 1907) on a cemetery. From the hill we have a nice view on the village and the surrounding mountains.
Monument Dingwall The tower itself is closed and we cannot climb it. A pity, since the view must be even better from up there, without the trees blocking a part of the view. Dingwall is the birthplace of MacBeth and we read that his descendants still live there, in some deteriorated castle.
Rainbow From Dingwall we go on to the west and take a turn into Strath Bran. But the blue sky suddenly turns into grey and soon we find ourselves in the middle of a snowstorm. The road becomes slippery and we decide we can better drive back. On the way back the sun comes out again and we see a few beautiful rainbows, much bigger than we ever have seen in Holland. Maybe that is because they look much closer to us, sometimes we can see the end of it less than 50 meters away. We could have collected quite a few pots of gold, but we are lazy and enjoy the spectacle from our warm car.
Fairburn nursery home Near Marybank we come upon this remote castle. It is not on our castle map, but it looks like a castle-like country house. It is Fairburn House, a nursery home on a very special location! Maybe a nice place for us when we grow a bit older?
It is friday and there are more people in the pub than usual. We are having a real good time and go to bed much later than we have planned. But it is our holiday, so who cares. We can also sleep late, here, and the weather forecast for tomorrow is very bad, even worse than today, so we probably stay in.
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