Dunrobin and the Best Hot Chocolate in the World

There are days when I struggle to remember where a photo has been taken. I am trying to post them in the order of our trip .... wish me luck. Thank you to those who are encouraging me to continue with our blog, as I mentioned at the beginning Instagram seems a lot quicker to get up, but less of a story I guess.

This is how some of our evenings looked while on the road ... all huddled round the iPad watching a movie. Pete looks engrossed ... I am not sure what they are watching. Lars said they had 22 movies downloaded on their devices, iPad and phones. They watched them many times. When we were doing lots of driving it was certainly good for them to have a distraction rather than entertaining themselves by annoying each other.

This is the back of our Camper. Very neat and tidy ... at least that is how it looked every morning when we set off on another day. The fridge was great. It is amazing how we managed to cram ourselves into this space and make it our home for a month. We did very well. I think Pete and I are good at that. We are not too fussy when we travel ... we can rough it. Lars and Roxcy showed incredible stamina. They never complained about their uncomfortable sleeping conditions, not much anyway. Lars is a very energetic sleeper and he takes up the whole bed ... like the whole bed, no matter what size it is. I am not sure how he will get on when he starts sharing his bed with someone.

Dunrobin Castle ... I think this was my favourite Castle of all. Pete has complained that I have not put up enough photos of castles but really, how many castles do you need to see to get an idea of what they are like? We did see a few castles ... 

I love the bag pipes. I grew up with the bagpipes. My Grandmother Crombie paid for me to have Highland Dance lessons, which I loved. I learnt the Highland Fling, The Swords and The Chartreuse. I wore a kilt, shoes, long songs, the whole bit. I would get up early on a Saturday morning and go to The Caledonian Hall, which is no longer there. I had my dance lessons at the back of the building which was dark and cold, we had competitions in the front on the stage. The year I did my one and only competition I did the Highland Fling and the Swords, I kicked one of the swords of the stage and right at one of the judges ... public shaming. I don't think I ever went back, I wish I had.

I love these colours. I am really in the mood for more pink in my life.

The nursery ... I love the lace on this dress, I think it is sooo beautiful. 

This design reminded me of Grandma Crombie, my Father's Mother, she had a dinner set of a similar design and I still have some pieces. 

After our look through the Castle we went out into the garden which was amazing!! There was a Falcon and Hawk display that Roxcy and Lars were fascinated with. It was very entertaining for us. These birds can fly and fly fast. 

Our morning here started out quite foggy and looked like it might rain. We went down to the beach anyway. These colourful sheds reminded me of changing rooms at a beach, or a scene from a movie. I am not sure that the beach here is swimmable but these made it look like it could be.

The beach ... the tide is out. There was no sand here really. Lars and Roxcy had fun walking around over the rocks, all I could see was them slipping on moss and smashing their heads open.  By the evening it was a different day. Much like ChCh weather wise.

The distance between towns on the NC500 are quite short, but the roads are small and in some cases single lane so it can end up taking quite a lot of time. We camped in Wick for a night and took Lars and Roxcy out to an Italian Restaurant and had pizza and garlic bread. It was yummy, just looking at this garlic bread is making me hungry. I asked Lars how he would rate the pizza out of 10 and he said 7 ... still no as good as Pizza Chef in Windsor. Nothing tasted as good as at home ... no matter how hard Pete tried he could never get the bacon tasting as good as Mike.

Isn't she lovely ... isn't she beautiful! Roxcy looks beautiful in this shade of blue.

I think I have mentioned that food has been hard. Nothing tastes quite like home for Lars & Roxcy. The idea of things has been great, but the taste not so much. It was a real struggle for a while to find food that they liked and would eat. We found this packet of Chicken Noodle Soup that Roxcy really liked ... and would eat. That was such a relief.

They liked Shortbread as well. Who does not like shortbread. There is no Christmas without shortbread. I LOVE shortbread ... I make it every Christmas. Our road trip has been a bit of a shortbread tasting trip and this one passed the test. There are so many different flavours now...I made a Lavender and spicey salt one at Christmas ... I saw a cumin seed flavour. I am inspired to add lots of different flavours to my shortbread now and make it more often. I use Marg's recipe ... it is fail safe and very moreish.

We climbed down some very dodgy looking steps ... there was a discrepancy in the number, we got from 317-342 ... some were more right than others??? I love the intensity  of the black rocks coming out of the ocean.

At the top of the steps was a very unassuming cafe that we stopped off at and they had the best scones. I had a fig and orange one ... warm out of the oven and very yummy.

This is the most North West part of Scotland ... Dunnet Head. It was cold and windy here. We wondered around here for a while taking in the view. We met up with a woman from China I think. She could not speak English and we could not speak Mandarin, but we managed to strike up a communication. We took a few photos of her and she asked to have her photo taken with Roxcy, does this sound familiar to any of you?  Then she took this photo of us.

I wanted to put this photo, take note of the two large rock formations in the background ... they look like large eye teeth sticking out of the ocean and who better to pose in that photo but Lars and Roxcy.

I think this photo is a really good example of the difference between Lars and Roxcy ... Lars will walk through the gate, taking the easy way and Roxcy loves to climb the fence, take on a challenge.

In the evening of the same day ... hats and jackets of ... swimming costumes on and into the ocean. The sea was sooooo cold, but these guys are used to swimming in the Atlantic Ocean so they are thick skinned. It was such a beautiful evening on the beach and they had such a blast.

We drove quite a ways to taste 'the best hot chocolate' in the world, they put creamy marshmallow topping on top. It looked like curdled cream to me when I saw it. So do I think this is the best hot chocolate in the world .... NO! It was very sweet and a little sickly. I like dark rich hot chocolate with a touch of chilli. Hot chocolate for me is like coffee for those that drink it. If you are a barista who drinks hot chocolate then you will know what someone mean when they say strong as opposed to sweet, not milky and hot.

While we stayed at John O'Groats we went out to a WW2 gunnery, sitting on the top of a head. Lars is absolutely fascinated with war and was keen to stop anywhere that had a WW artefact of some sort. Roxcy is not interesrted in WW artefacts and did not want to stop and spend some time checking them out, again. She got really cross and walked off by herself. She looks so sad and alone here! Roxcy recovers quickly and becomes quite loving and friendly again. She is good at sorting things out in her head.

When ever there is a road trip there is knitting to be done. I had hoped to get this finished while in Scotland ... I got a lot of it done but not finished.