Overnight in Keith - and more whisky!

Alistair, Derek and I sampling Macallan at the distillery
The Strathisla Distillery near Keith - the shape of the building is used for the Whisky Trail and much of the advertising for this area due to the unique shape.
The Macallan Distillery
The original house at the Macallan Distillery
Alistair and I at the house at Macallan

Unsurprisingly, our time in this area had a lot to do with whisky as it is in the middle of the whisky trail. We went to Macallan and sampled the whisky and delicious whisky liquer. We drove all over the countryside and saw a lot of distilleries and also all the whisky in storage.

Carol´s family is in Keith and we stayed overnight there. We had a lovely dinner with them and then sampled more whisky by the fire. Carol´s mum cooked a great roast beef dinner including ´nips and tatties (parsnip mash and potato mash for the Aussies). We followed up with a divine lemon meringue pie. Carol´s dad was very generous in bringing out quite a few of his wonderful whiskies to try and significantly added to Alistair, Derek and my count of whiskies tried. He had some wonderful single malts I had never even heard of and I enjoyed them thoroughly. I giggled over the sound of the glug glug jug we used to put water in our whiskies and now Carol and I both want one for ourselves.

Lunch at the Inversnecky

Mmm, lunch at the Inversnecky! We saw this funny sign at the beach - I don't think you could call this a resort by any stretch of the imagination. Remember, we were here in the snow a couple of days ago and people were kite snowboarding across the road.
A Highland Cow - finally got to see one up close!

We had lunch at the Inversnecky and then a bit of a drive around the countryside and went to another beach for a wander. There was a nice walk through the dunes, past pillbox amourments and other signs of the war. Who would´ve wanted to invade Aberdeen and surrounds?

Royal Deeside with Uncle Gordon

The Burn O´Vat - there is a cave hidden up behind the waterfall through this gap in the rocks. We were unable to go up there as the water was quite high from the snow melt.
The view from up above the Burn O´Vat
Alistair and I up above the Burn O´Vat - it was cold and a little bit wet! Do you like our matching jackets?

We explored Royal Deeside with Uncle Gordon and then had dinner at Derek and Carol´s with all of their family plus Uncle Eddie, Aunty Margaret and Elizabeth. Uncle Eddie was the one snapping photos at dinner, so they´ll have to wait.

Day tripping with Aunty Margaret and Uncle Eddie

The gardens and pigeon coop at Crathes Castle
Crathes Castle

The falls of Feugh - where salmon jump up the stream in spring.

Aunty Margaret and Uncle Eddie took us out for a day trip to Crathes Castle and the falls of Feugh. These are both places Alistair remembers going as a child :) There were stories of bringing the family and car loads full of food to eat.

Uncle Eddie also had old home movies converted to DVD with each of these places on them. Also on that DVD was some footage of Aunty Margaret and Uncle Eddie´s wedding day, where I could have thought it was Alistair as a child at the church, when in fact it was his dad. The likeness was amazing! I´m sure Mum2 has exactly the same picture of Alistair on the wall in Adelaide - they look interchangable!

Uncle Eddie took many more photos and was kind enough to give us a copy of them all. Unfortunately they are on CD, so you´ll have to wait until we get home to see his brilliant photos.

Dinner at Aunty Margaret´s

Here we are before dinner at Aunty Margaret´s. Clockwise from the bottom left are Uncle Eddie, Aunty Cyn, Alistair, me, Carol, Jenna, Uncle Gordon and Jenna. Aunty Margaret must be fetching us girls more Buck´s Fizz. Here is Georgia crawling for the first time.
Aunty Cynthia got caught licking the spoon from the trifle - that is Carol and Aunty Margaret looking on, very amused. Aunty Cyn couldn´t believe someone caught her - I bet she won´t laugh when Derek tells her it´s on our blog!