2018 UK Tour: Wed August 8 - Inverness to Markinch

Apologies for the blog going up so late - we had some connection issues plus this entry is very picture/video heavy with content so uploading took all night. We have another busy day ahead so the blog might be delayed a bit or posted day after tomorrow, we'll see how late we get in tonight.

So hostels are great in theory - cheap, good for the young and perfect for pack backers. Not that this was bad to exprience. Just maybe it was good we only booked one. We both didn't sleep very well so were up at 6am and showered and on the road by 7am. Which is kinda what we were planning anyway as we HAD to be down to Cluny, Fife by 12:30pm. So on the road sans breakfast which neither of us really wanted anyway. Our first stop of the day was Loch an Eilean. A 13th century building that started out as a hall house and the second half added in the 14th century (a tower) which was built by Alexander Stewart - Wolf of Badenoch. It once had a zigzag causeway out to the little island it resides on. Late in the 18th cetury the water level was raised during the course of estate works, shrinking the island and causeway. Found this gem on google looking up castles. We arrived probably around 8am and parked, hiked the .4 miles to it and then Kels took a little swim out to it. I decided against it as it was a tad chilly in the morning and I can take a chill pretty quick whereas Mr. Evans is a furnace and constant emits heat. There was no one around so we had a perfect opportunity to take pics and just drink in this amazing sight.

Walking along the shore, viewing the castle

Kels made it to the ruins. It was only about 100m away so a short swim.

Kels entering the only way into the ruins from this side.

Switch to the GoPro pics he took while on the island.

Kels made it and explored the ruins - goal accomplished!

Swimming back

Water turned out not too bad - he said it was very much like swimming in the Okanagan lakes we enjoy growing up. The wind however was another story.

View of the ruins from a bit further down and out on a small dock.

After kels dried off and got changed we head out on the road down to Cluny, Fife and something we both were very much looking forward to. However by this time (10am) we were both feeling the pains of hunger and riving by we saw the signs for a castle restaurant hotel. Taking a chance we pulled in. Fonab Castle. Parking in the lot we walked into the hotel where the front desk checked it they were still serving breakfast. Quickly she showed us into the dinner room which was pretty posh and swanky. But they were very nice and had excellent service. Surprisingly breakfast for 2 (eggs benedict) including tea and toast was only 30 gbp. We think they under charged us but at the end the one waiter answered our questions and then showed us the whisky room, formal dining room and lounge upstairs with an amazing view of the loch the hotel sits on. We took some pictures and when we headed back down another employee (this one in a kilt) chatted with us just outside the lobby. We were so super impressed that we talked about coming back just to stay here - apparently they book a year in advance. We joked that they saw that we were driving a Mercedes Benz and cued all staff to give us the red carpet treatment no matter what we were dressed like.

On down we continued to our afternoon destination - Elite Falconry. We arrived a tad bit early and the person due to take us out was still with her group from the morning. Gave us a chance to take pics of the amazing selection of birds they had on their lawn. Be warned the following is an onslaught of different birds. We ended up taking over 500 pictures today because the experience was just that amazing. It's taken me hours just to upload tonight.

They had our reservations wrong so they asked us to come back in half an hour. We had no issue as this was the only thing on our docket this afternoon and lodgings were close. So we went across the road and up a ways to some kind of outdoor activity enter that had clay shooting, segway tours, golf and other activities. Once back we loaded up in their old land rover with a 4 some family from Texas who had done an outing all morning with the birds. They drove us up into some of the fields they shared with farmers and we unloaded for the big prey experience.

This is black eagle and her name was Oasis. She is from South America.

Between Kels and I and the son and daughter of the family from Texas we all got to feed and have them land on us. The birds don't care to be petted but we got to admire them up close and see them soar in their nature habitat. It was amazing!!

Second of the big birds was Kossic and he was a Russian eagle. His favorite food was termites!! He has a GoPro strapped to his back (not ours) as he can soar to amazing heights. He had to get a little help so was walked up to the top of a rise.

Back to Kossic.

Kossic

Oasis

This is Roadrunner and this little dude has completely made me change the way that I see owls. We did a little walk about on the pathway and he tutted along behind (or in my case in front) The myth about owls being wise is untrue. They do all their learning in their formative years and that's it. So he was more like a puppy. Roadrunner is 15 years old. I think that he won my heart as my favorite bird of the day.

As a bonus (because they messed up our start time) they brought out and let us handle this beauty. This is Mara. She is a white tailed eagle native to South America. They haven't had her for long and have been working with her to train her. She is one of the most intelligent birds of prey and is a bit of a cheeky devil. However Roxanne said that she flew brilliantly for us this afternoon and the experience was phenomenal. She weighted in at about 20 pounds but was very gentle when she landed on your arm. However being there for any length of time you felt the 20lbs.

Kels was able to take some time lapse photos (below) of Oasis landing on my arm. The back beat of her wings sounded incredible and watching her fly was just one of the most amazing things I've ever experienced in my life.

After Mara, the other owner of Elite Falconry came out and brought a special little guy he's been working with every day for the last little bit. He was a falcon and for the life of us we cannot remember his name. We had the privilege of just being in the right place at the right time to watch him in this training session. You'll see below he has a long rope and at the end it what they called a lure. He swings it and as the bird swoops down he mimics a bird in diverting the lure and making the bird of prey loop and do it again. It was incredible to watch - almost like they were playing instead of training.

Here he's tuckered out and giving a nice feeding for his work. This bird eats as much as the eagle because of his fast metabolism.

Here he's showing us the tips of the wings having yet been shed from the previous season. The rough notched feathers are from all the previous flights. They have to completely shed all their feathers every year/\.