We have a 5,5 hour travel day ahead of us, to Lossiemouth, Scotland. Tim is not super fit today, so Olga packs the bags, car and cleans the holiday house. We want to leave at 10, but a new caravan is entering the site and the exit road is blocked for 10 minutes.
When we exit the site, cows block our way, as if we are not allowed to leave this morning.
We pass Stirling Castle. We visited it 6 years ago, and it’s so surreal to be back with our children.
The castle is surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, giving it a strong defensive position. Before the union with England, Stirling Castle was also one of the most used of the many Scottish royal residences, very much a palace as well as a fortress. Several Scottish Kings and Queens have been crowned at Stirling, including Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1542.
It’s super crowded and we only have 45 minutes for the visit as we have to check-in into our next holiday house between 16 and 17. We manouvre around the other visitors to make the most out of our 45 minutes. Zeno calls enthousiastically « kameel » at every canon he sees, and Cleo points at all the unicorns, Scotlands national animal.
We run through the royal palaces, the chapel, great hall, outer closure and garden. And then we have to go back to our car and cross through Scotland to get to our holiday park.
However, the small streets underneath the castle are not build for big suvs, let alone caravans. We stand still for 10m because the cars cannot pass and we see the ETA run-up from 16:30 to 17.
We hope to make up for the lost time at the highway, but there is another traffic jam because of several car crashes (luckily not us), and the ETA runs up to 18.
We call the holiday park to explain we’ll be late. It is stunning to drive through the Scottish highlands with purple heather and the sunlight is beautiful.
Our new caravan is next to the sea and a lighthouse, we cannot wait to take a dive tomorrow. But now we need to eat, and while the children let out their energy in the playground, Olga does the week groceries. We eat some quick snacks as dinner, put the children to bed and Olga can end the day with a long walk on the beach.
