Much Tattoo about... a Castle, and the Countryside, and...

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We woke up this morning with an air of quiet excitement. Today we are planning on exploring the Edinburgh Castle and then heading... somewhere in Scotland. The day was kicked off with the stock standard English continental breaky followed by a quick pack of our stuff. Once again the Tom Tom (satellite navigation system) came through with the goods and we easily found our way to a car park area near the Castle. We walked through a little market and 'climbed' up the road to the Castle car park.

The castle car park was closed to the public due to the Royal Tattoo with will be held early August. We only missed out by a couple of days - although we couldn't have rocked up and grabbed tickets at the gate, it was sold out ages ago. The castle gates opened at 9:30 and after a quick queue we grabbed our audio tour and started marching around the castle. The castle is huge with a history spanning over thousands of hundreds of years. The castle is still in use and contains several museums with extensive collections of military equipment that has been used to defend the castle over the past thousand odd years. The audio tours are excellent giving you a detailed history of not only the castle but, also Scottish history from an independent country to its current role in the United Kingdom.

We finished the tour around midday and then jumped in the car. After some debate on whether to head up north to Fort William and the Isle of Skye verses heading southwest towards our Ferry ride in Stranaer (in two days) we decided to head southwest.

Our trek southwest brought us through some beautiful country views filled with grassed slopes, dotted with long horn sheep and crossed with buddling brooks. I had the task of duelling the narrow roads in the manual car - weaving through the Scottish (tartan) countryside like a rally car. We headed to a quaint little town called Peebles and got some 'tourist' advice on where to head next. The information lady recommended we head via St Mary's Lock to Moffat and stop in at Traquair Manor on the way.

Our first stop was Traquair Manor, the oldest inhabited house in Scotland. The house was first built in 1107 and contained information and household goods gathered over the years. It even contained a cot used by Queen Mary of the Scotts for her baby, James, when they visited. The owners still support the notion of the Stuart family ruling the Scottish throne and the front gates to the manor are still closed awaiting the return of a 'Stuart king' - I’m guessing they have a long wait!

St Mary's Lock was beautiful (as you can see in the pictures). We arrived in Moffat at 5:30, clocked into our B&B and headed to the pub for a meal. Another information packed day with amazing views - the life of a traveller...

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