Weekend Wanderings

......Saturday walk to St Ninian's Cave (near Whithorn) It's a lovely walk through Physgyll Glen and down to the rocky shore overlooking Port Castle Bay and looking right you can see the cave up in the rocky cliff face.
The Roman Catholic Church organises an annual pilgrimage to the cave each September with in excess of 300 people attending. The Catholic Church describe Ninian as the man who first brought the Christian faith to Scotland. It's fascinating history and can easily be googled for more information if you're interested.  Reaching the cave we immediately felt the spiritual vibes - crudely made crosses were everywhere and personal offerings of all kinds for all sorts of reasons. It was a deeply moving moment at St Ninian's Cave with kB being a devout Catholic.

leaving the carpark area and the walk through the glen to the beach

coming out of the glen and approaching the beach

a contemplative moment looking over the beauty of the calm, silvery bay - it was so peaceful
it is said that all of the stones, pebbles and rocks that make up the beach, are blessed

the view from inside the cave

I left St Ninian's Cave with a touch of quiet solemnity and reflection

............ what I saw on the way to Isle of Whithorn with the Irish Sea as blue as could be

... arriving at Isle of Whithorn, parked up with a view, had a packed lunch and J went rock climbing and got a wonderful photo of St Ninian's Church ruins overlooking the Solway Firth. 

 Headed back and close to Newton Stewart things were looking very 'springy'!

a lovely outing on a gorgeous day...... 

Day 6 - HIghlands

At last I bring you Day 6 (final day in the Highlands)

I really enjoyed Falkirk - the community has done the most amazing job of getting The Helix and the Kelpies presented to the world along with the Falkirk Wheel (the only one of its kind in the world and an engineering feat of unbelievable magnitude) and if you'd like to learn about something so amazing just google the previous post on the Kelpies and/or the Falkirk Wheel.

I love the Scottish Canals and their history....and one day a canal journey on the Union Canal from Edinburgh to Glasgow would be the ultimate!

I could easily gave spent another whole day in Falkirk just exploring all over again the Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies and the Helix Project. Central Scotland has much to offer.  All too soon we really needed to hit the road. A real treat and unexpected surprise on our last leg toward home was the amount of snow on the Galloway Hills.... one part was iced over and I was scared. 

Hoodoo from the Highlands of Scotland trip

Day 5 - Highland Snow! Lotsa snow!

I love Inverness and the River Ness and was a little sad to farewell this capital of the Highlands. Leaving Inverness we were soon among high mountains and LOTS of snow! A detour and visit up to Cairngorm Mountain at Aviemore was stunning. Obviously popular and a favourite ski resort. I was surprised to see that snow hiking is just as prevalent as snow skiing. And the sun was shining brightly to cap it off beautifully. Don't be fooled it was jolly COLD - just a few seconds of having my hand out of my ski mitten was painful!  Truly painful! I was amazed to see that a train took people up to the very top of the mountain to a cafe. If we'd had more time to spare it would have been a treat to have a coffee up there and enjoy the spectacular view from such a vantage point.

Saying a fond farewell we headed down and were soon driving through the Pass of Drumochter - breathtaking!  Passing 'Perth' and the awesome Sterling Castle which unfortunately we had no time to visit. Although I wasn't too sad as Edinburgh Castle along with Holyrood House are my all time favourites.  We skirted around Andy Murray's home town of Dunblane too.

Arriving at Falkirk which was our intended destination for the day for two reasons - first visiting the Kelpies sculptures  (a truly poignant and amazing story if you wish to google the Falkirk Kelpies)  Day 6 I'll tell you about our second reason (The Falkirk Wheel) Stay tuned for that!

enjoy the photos it was quite a day!! fabulous!!

 stunning, stunning, stunning - what a story.......  The beautiful Falkirk Kelpies

stayed tune for Day 6 - the amazing, the one and only in the world...... Falkirk Wheel