We continue on with the final leg of our great Scottish road trip! We took the scenic route through Glen Coe and on down south(ish) to Argyll and Butte. We made a stop for a picnic lunch, just a car picnic to hide from the wind, and then on to another brief stop to stretch our legs at Kilchurn Castle on the tip top of Loch Awe.
We just stopped at the overlook to see the castle from afar as it's currently closed for maintenance. The viewpoint is accessed through a pasture. We kept a respectful distance from the animals, but it was pretty fun to see the baby lambs and hairy coos.
Not gonna lie, the field was pretty boggy. But the kids were light enough to not sink into it much, and I figured out a path by jumping between tougher clumps of grass.
After our little excursion through another minefield of sheep poop, we had less than an hour to our final destination: Inveraray. Our last castle of the trip is this magnificent pseudo-renaissance edifice. This is the seat of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll (heads of clan Campbell), and the current Duke and Duchess do actually live here. They live in rooms upstairs, running the rest of the castle as a museum and events space as their family business.
It is quite spectacular, none of the castles we visited so far were furnished and decorated in such elegant style. When we arrived we just happened to coincide with a small guided group tour and Paul really wanted to listen, so we just followed the tour through most of the castle.
Here's a fun fact: song writing duo Lerner and Loewe wrote much of My Fair Lady during a visit to Inveraray Castle on the piano there.
There is a huge collection of historic weapons, including some that were used at Culloden, and even a sporran that belonged to legendary outlaw Rob Roy.
The guide for the tour group was quite funny. He told us about this very haunted bed in a very haunted room. A young musician was murdered in this bed at it's room in the old castle. When it got moved to the new castle, the ghost seemingly came along. People have reported hearing music playing at night OOooOoOOOoOOh!
There have been other ghosts and incidents reported, including at old Duke who, after he died, his least favorite painting went flying off the bedroom wall. It seems the ghosts are primarily pretty friendly though, unless you happen to be a particularly ugly painting.
The tour finished out in the big kitchens. Would you believe it? No one in the actual group wanted to try on the livery. No worries, our kids wanted to be scullery maids and footmen!
Inveraray is wildly photogenic. Walking through the gardens we must have taken a hundred photos and every single one a keeper. If you feel like the following collection is entirely too much, I need you to know that I was trying to be so selective.
From the castle, you can look up to the nearby hilltop (which is part of the estate) and see the watch tower of Dun na Cuiache. No, I can't pronounce it, but put a pin in that, it'll come up again later.
We wrapped up our castle visit, picked up a few groceries, and drove just a couple miles down the road to our sweet little cottage. It reminded me of the fisherman's cottages in Footdee when we were in Aberdeen. It was probably my favorite place we stayed! It felt very cozy when it was raining (which is every day) and especially cozy when we finally got a fire going with the perpetually damp wood.
And it had a Henry Hoover. I realize that this is a dumb, very niche joke/interest of mine but I literally screamed with joy when I heard one of the kids say, "hey this vacuum has a face on it!" I was seriously so excited to see this vacuum, I was like a kid on Christmas.
The next morning we woke to wind and rain. The kids were in favor of not going anywhere ever again and watching TV instead. I offered the alternative of driving to Kilmartin where there wasn't heavy rain on the forecast. Kilmartin Glen is an area with a surprising number of neolithic sites: standing stones, cairns, and stone circles scattered all over the place.
They're mostly just in people's pastures, so they set up a system of gates and fenced paths between fields to give visitors easy access and minimizing the chance of livestock escaping.
It was still quite cold and windy, so the kids were not thrilled to be here, until we got to the first big cairn. There is an open and accessible central passageway inside which turned the kid's mood right around.
We visited a second site with another cairn and more standing stone. This cairn also has an entrance, but not quite so spacious. It was a pretty tight squeeze.
We wrapped up our ancient explorations and headed back to Inveraray for lunch. We had reservations at the George Hotel restaurant for lunch. It's a dark, cozy pub atmosphere and we had a George who was quite tickled to see his name on the side of the building.
The kids kind of liked their food, but really liked their milkshakes. We walked a bit through town and made our way to the estate grounds and the giant hill overlooking Inveraray.
We saw our first hairy coo who wasn't a ginger! What a cutie.
Maybe unsurprisingly the kids were not thrilled to be hiking up a hill. But Arthur performed the most ridiculous, out of control tantrum. He then insisted on being carried the whole way and basically fell asleep on Lee's shoulders.
The forest was quite pretty and when we finally got to the top we were rewarded with powerful winds and commanding views of Inveraray and Loch Fyne.
Kids were tired, not entirely thrilled, but we made it to the top! Obviously the downhill was much quicker than the climb and at least Arthur was happy to walk a big chunk of the way down.
Once we got back to Inveraray we stopped at the cutest little sweet shop so the kids to could pick out some gunny candies as a reward after all the their tough climbing. Their other reward was getting to spend the evening relaxing, watching TV and generally enjoying our last night in a very cozy cottage.
Our next morning was the last day of our road trip! We made a quick stop at the Rest and Be Thankful Overlook. A very beautiful place we immediately got rained on, so we kept it short.
We made a drive through Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. It's a big beautiful place of which we only saw a tiny portion, we did spend some time exploring the shores of Loch Lomond.
We found the perfect place to throw pebbles in the loch and a great view of Ben Lomond.
Our last road trip stop was Balloch Castle Country Park on the southeast side of Loch Lomond. The park is really large. We had a car picnic and then walked down to the playground that is right overlooking the loch.
From there we finished our drive and returned our rental car in Glasgow, our final Scottish destination. What a road trip!
