Visiting Pete's Family Origins

I have already mentioned that one of the primary reasons for us being in Scotland has been to visit places where Pete's family came from on Grandma Gibson's side. Her family on her mother's side were the Mackenzies. We named our second son Mackenzie, a name I really love. When I was pregnant with him I felt really strongly that his name was to be Mackenzie. I am not sure that he felt the same way about his name growing up ... he got teased a lot, if I remember correctly and I think it was tough for him at times, but I do not regret giving him his name. I think there is a lot in a name and each of our children have something significant in their name that really meant something to us when we were thinking about what name we would give them. The other important part of coming to Scotland has been to drive the NC500 and if you ever get the chance to do that ... do!! Driving on this road has been spectacular, but I think I have already mentioned that. We are about half way around the NC500 in these photos.

After our 'Best Hot Chocolate in the World' we camped at Durness Campground, while there we did a quick cave trip and I mean quick, it took about 20 minutes. I am always a little anxious going into dark, confined spaces but it was not that dark and not that confined. 

I had to take a photo of our Satnav that was a life saver. It made driving round Scotland so much easier. The only real problem was Pete listening/trusting that the satnav was right?! There were a few moments when Pete got into a bit of conflict with it ... I don't want to call it 'she' even though it had a very nice British woman's voice.

We stopped at the Ardvreck Castle ... the same castle that can be seen on the Grand Tour. The Mackenzie Clan (Pete's clan) attacked and captured it in 1672. As many of you will know Pete is left handed, in his genealogy research he learnt that there is a anecdotal association with the Kerr's and left handedness ... Before she married a Mackenzie, Pete's great, great Grandmother was Jessie Kerr... part of the Kerr Clan.

These are the remains of Calder House that was built by the Mackenzies after they took over the castle. Apparently the family had riotous parties here and ran out of money not long after they had built it.

We spent a few nights in Ullapool which is a small fishing village on the coast... quite a tourist spot. As mentioned finding food that Lars and Roxcy liked to eat was a challenge at times ... here we hit gold. We found a Chinese take away that not only had food that Lars and Roxcy liked, but even tasted good.

While Pete did some family research at the local library I took Lars and Roxcy out on a boat to spot dolphins and seals. We saw plenty of seals ... Lars said he saw dolphins and we definitely saw a porpoise.

A view of Ullapool from our boat ... so pretty.

The Mackenzie Tartan ... I bought some scarves in Ullapool. I was tempted to buy myself a kilt but they were either too short or too long!

These Double Caramel Magnums are hard to find in Scotland. You can get a pack of three from some supermarkets but they are hard to buy on their own. When we were staying at Ben Nevis Campsite Roxcy had seen one at the visitors centre and begged us to buy one. We said no as she had just had an ice cream and that we would buy her one the next day, Roxcy said that we would not be able to find one and that Ben Nevis was the only place in Scotland that sold them. We were convinced otherwise ... well the next day failed to happen ... it was days before we finally had to buy a box of three. Roxcy was right, she is always right. In NZ the opposition is Memphis Meltdown by Tip Top, which was Pete's go to before we went sugar free ... I really like the new vegan Magnums, they are yummy. 

Ullapool is lovely ... the campsite was right on the sea and the early morning's and evenings were beautiful. There were lots of children here and plenty of playing. Lars and Roxcy spent a bit of time mixing with the other holiday children in the camp playground and seemed to have a lot of fun. Lars came back to our van one evening after playing with another family at the camp ground and said in a rather loud voice ... 'There are some Germans staying here and they are actually really nice'. He had just finished reading about Germany and WW2. I felt a little uncomfortable for a moment ... I also remembered a conversation with Grandma Gibson ... she had been into the city (Christchurch) and was sitting in the square where our Anglican Cathedral used to stand as a tourist attraction. She had struck up a conversation with a tourist and this is how her conversation went with him. Grandma Gibson "What part of the world do you come from?"... Tourist "Germany" ... Grandma Gibson "Oh well, never mind." Grandma Gibson lived through two wars and lost family and friends in both. Her memory of Germany and Germans was very different to mine. Syd, Pete's Father who fought in the WW2 came back with a strong anti American view. Two very different experiences of the same war, one from the inside and one from the outside. I guess there are some things in history that are hard to get away from, but I do feel sorry for Germany, it seems like a hard thing to have to live with. One person can create havoc as we experienced in ChCh recently with the Terrorist Attack on our Muslim community ... one man shut down the whole city.

I loved this RV ... it was so cool and retro looking and also a 'happy camper'.

Achiltibuie is about 40 minutes up the road from Ullapool and this is where Pete thought his Great, Great Grandmother had come from. It also is on the coast and quite remote. But apparently she came from further round the coast from a n even remoter, even smaller place called Reiff.

Reiff ... it seemed very bleak and isolated to us but maybe that is because it was wet. 

After leaving Ullapool we visited Inverewe Gardens that are world famous. They are beautiful ... created from barren land by Osgood Mackenzie starting in 1862. There are many varieties of plants from all over the world and the gardens are noted for the breadth of their plants. We found Harakeke from NZ growing there. Roxcy and I got into a conversation that went a bit like 'If I were a Princess ...' in Roxcy's mind Castle = Princess. It was a good way of distracting Roxcy from walking in the rain, which she hated.

Lars 'did not' want to go to the gardens but was feeling much happier when we visited some war sites. While walking around Inverewe Gardens Lars was feeling miserable and fed up ... it was another wet day ... another castle...and another garden. When Lars gets angry he mutters away to himself about how much he doesn't like what he is doing. Here is how one of his angry conversations went with Pete . 

"This place is so boring ... and it's so boring, they don't have any fun things. Even if I was a Prince in one of the castles it still wouldn't be any fun. They would say don't touch this, don't touch that, because all the things are so old. They don't even have a President, Queens are boring. We have a President. If I was President I would ask them to make me a RV, it would have a king size bed and it would be sooooo big.'

On our way to Applecross we caught this view ... for me this is Scotland ... dramatic and so may shades of of light and grey.

At Applecross we spent the night in a Hobbit Hut (Pod)... some light relief from our van. Mike suggested that we get a room for a few nights, it was quite hard as everything was booked out.

We walked into the village for dinner and on the way back to our camp we spotted a wild Stag. We were so excited ... just get a load of their faces. Roxcy's philosophy of life is ...

'It is really important to have fun. You have to have fun! I don't like school work, school works is stressful for kids and the adults. Fun is not stressful for kids or the adults.' A great philosophy ... and Roxcy has fun.

Pete and Lars standing at the top of one of the steepest roads in Scotland. We feel so grateful that we have been able to have this trip with Lars & Roxcy. 

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.

Finishing with Inverness

We spent a couple of days in Inverness where Pete's Great Grandparents got married, Margaret Mackenzie and William Johnston. Inverness is a small city, we enjoyed our stay here. We went to the movies, celebrated Lars turning 10, visited the Culloden battle site and Cawdor Castle. We tried to mix our time here up a bit so that Lars and Roxcy would not find it all too boring.

We went to see Spider-Man Far From Home. Roxcy LOVES Tom Holland. She has such a crush on him and wants to see any film that he is in. Lars is a big Marvel fan and has seen all the Marvel films. We really enjoyed Spider-Man. It is light watching but fun and it was so much fun watching Lars and Roxcy fill themselves up with popcorn and ice cream. Lars has 4 Marvel movies on his device to watch when he gets bored or we are doing a lot of driving, I think he has watched them 4 times since we have been on the road. Roxcy has Spider-Man Home Coming on her device. I think when we get back to the States we will have to watch all the Marvel movies on Mikes big surround sound system. That will be  quite a lot of hours viewing.

Lars turned 10 while we were in Inverness. This was our attempt at a birthday breakfast. Pete walked to the bakery up the road from where we were camping and bought a pie, sausage rolls and shortbread type biscuits. We thought it would be nice for Lars to have a hot pie for breakfast ... Pete came back with cold sausage rolls and a cold pie, apparently they did not sell them hot. He then thought that frying the sausage rolls might heat them up enough to eat. It was all a bit of a disaster really. Roxcy did not like the jam in the biscuits so I scraped it out. Not much was eaten. The food was certainly nothing like what he would have had at home with his Mum & Dad, but he did not complain.

As part of Lars' birthday celebration Pete and he went go karting ... it was a great success! Our breakfast disaster faded very quickly when Lars put on his go karting gear and prepared for the track.

Here they are lining up at the starting line with two other go karters. It was fun watching Pete and Lars race each other round the track ... they had about 30 minutes all up. 

I love this photo of Lars and Pete ... Lars looks like a young professional Formula 1 racing car driver. 

 While we were in Inverness we visited Cawdor Castle which dates back to the 1330's and  has been the seat of the Thanes of Cawdor ever since. The castle is known for its rare tapestries. This embroidered seat reminded me of Marg. She taught me how to embroider and smock. I did a lot of embroidery for a while. I think I did one for Viv, Cathy and Marg. I really developed a love and appreciation of needle work from Marg.

During our time in Inverness we also visited the Culloden battlefield. This battle was fought in 1746. Lars is fascinated in all of this history and of course the swords and guns. The battle was a disaster for the highlanders who were supporting Bonnie Prince Charlie and the end of the Jacobite rebellion. 1200 highlanders were slaughter in a 68 minute battle and many more were killed in the weeks that followed. This defeat was the death knell for the clan system and the beginning of the end of the lifestyle of the highlanders who were heavily persecuted by the military. It set the scene for the highland clearances when many families were driven out of the fertile glens and either emigrated or lived in poverty in coastal crofts. These people were Pete's ancestors and I felt like there were moments when the bloody history of these people spoke from the earth.

From Inverness we drove up to Dornoch on the start of the North Coast 500. By the time we got here it was raining and looked and was miserable. Pete and Lars had a conversation about upper, middle and lower class. Upper class is a RV, middle class is us in a camper and lower class is a tent ... there are some advantages to being middle class and this is one of them. Not having to camp in the rain. We drove past the church where Madonna and Guy Ritchie married. It is also the place where the last witch trial took place in 1722, they boiled an old woman alive in hot tar. What can I say. We are now officially on the NC500 and Outlander Country.