Scotland and England - Part 4 - Glenfinnan, Castle Stalker and Loudoun (2 Apr)

We woke up early in the forest and had breakfast.  We had three goals for the day, two movie related ones - Glenfinnan Viaduct from Harry Potter, Castle Stalker from Holy Grail and one other one - Loudoun castle, an abandoned castle turned into a failed theme park.

The big note for the day was the roads.  They were the most narrow we had seen and many times we had to fold in the side mirrors to pass another car or a narrow section.  The scariest thing was when a truck approached from another direction and we somehow had to pass:

Not to mention the sheep and goats wandering onto the road

A nice wide two-way highway

Our first stop was the Glenfinnan Viaduct.  Its a raised train line that lies near the Glenfinnan monument, a tower with a lone highlander on top to honor those who died fighting the Jacobites.  The monument was cool, but it was the Viaduct we had come to see.  It was the train line used for Harry Potter's Hogwart's Express train.

Glenfinnan Monument

Glenfinnan Viaduct

Alana and Cameron at the viaduct

The viaduct

Alana and the viaduct

After Viaduct we set the GPS for Castle Stalker, only to find (after an hour of driving on super narrow, windy roads) that it had again led us to a ferry.  This time we decided even if we had to sell one of the kids we would take the ferry rather than backtrack.  Fortunately it was a 3 minute crossing and cost £7.

We were worried the motorhome would be too big, until we saw the truck roll off

We headed to our next stop, Castle Stalker, when the first and only rains of our trip started.  It bucketed down and when we arrived at the castle it was pouring.

Castle Stalker is privately owned, so we couldn't tour it, but there was a lookout.  The castle is famous as the castle holding the Holy Grail in Monty Python's Holy Grail movie:

Castle Stalker in the Holy Grail

We risked the rain to run out and take some photos.  It was so wet that the biggest concern was keeping the camera lens clear and changing into dry clothes when we got back to the motorhome.

First views of Castle Stalker

After we'd changed and dried off we headed on the long drive to our next stop - Loudoun Castle.

On the way we stopped at Kilchurn Castle to take some photos across the water:






Loudoun Castle has an interesting history.  The keep was built in the 15th century, expanded in the 17th century and the 'current' castle was built between 1804 and 1811.  In 1995 the ruins of the castle were converted into a theme park, which operated until 2010.

The castle is currently an abandoned ruin, but fenced off as it is private property.  Our interest in it lies in the fact that Kristine's family has ties to the castle from the Campbells and Hastings.

We expected to not be able to gain access to the site, and sadly this was the case:

The road in - pity the McDonald's didn't steal this gate in a raid...

This was all we got - photos of the gatehouse

After trying to get a few photos without trespassing, we gave up and began to look for a place to camp for the night.  We needed to empty the waste water and fill up, so it was easiest to find a caravan park for the night.  We found one in  Beattock, the Moffat Manor Holiday Park.  They accommodated us arriving late (around 9pm) and assigned us a place.  Unfortunately it had been raining all day and grass had turned to slushy mud.  Our site was also on about a 20 degree angle, so we spent most of the night awake worrying that the motorhome would slide or slip down the slope, or that we would roll out of bed.  It wasn't the best night sleep we'd had.  But we did fill up and empty the van.

A lot of the day was spent driving, we tallied up 182 miles or 292km for the day:



Our total driven was now about 1040km.