Blogs from Pitlochry, Perthshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe

Water is a defining element of Perthshire and its winter monsoons define its rivers and lochs. The next section of the Perthshire A to Z , while yielding only a single letter, would keep water in the forefront of my mind. The rain of the previous week had eased but continued to fall. Nonetheless, after a gap of a few weeks it was good to get back This section eased me back in with ten miles – 60% of which were off road – between Old Blair and Port na Craig. Easy was the theme of the day as I had plenty time leaving Blair Atholl with a generous 2 and ½ hours to make the returning train from Pitlochry station. My fitness had been a bit up and down since the previous leg in mid ... read more

I was so excited, I could barely sleep last night. Today, I visit my friend, Mary, in Pitlochry. At breakfast, I met two lovely ladies from Belfast, Ireland. We talked about all sorts of things. Most especially, I wish I had met them the night before, then I could have gone to a pub with them to listing to Scottish music. Oh well. Afterwards, I made my way to the train station from the B&B and it was a slow progress since I had luggage. As the train was at 8:30am, I didn't want to take a chance and wait for the bus, so I walked. The train journey was very nice. As travel by airplane has become so time consuming, hazardous and petty by the airlines (charging fees for every little thing, pretty soon they ... read more

On Sunday, June 21st I went with two friends to go on a canyoning adventure. I didn't have much of an idea of what canyoning was, but when my friend showed me what it entailed I just couldn't pass it up. Canyoning has a little bit of everything, from rock climbing, cliff jumping, rappelling down waterfalls, and even sliding down waterfalls. We went through a company called Nae Limits based out of Pitlochry and the guides we had were awesome. The gear we used included a climbing harness, three layers of wetsuits, and a helmet. When we got to the canyoning sight, it felt like I had just taken a bus and ended up in Colorado or Montana. The scenery was not what I had in mind when I pictured Scotland, with cascading waterfalls and towering ... read more

Day 8 - Fort William to Pitlochry Sorry guys but the hotel at Pitlochry was a bit dickey and we could not send out the blog. As a side note we are enjoying the Scottish TV shows, Pointless, Gogglebox & The Chase. The rain is still with us again today. Pictures become extremely challenging because for some reason the wind is always blowing from the direction that I want to point the camera. On this trip i have cleaned the lenses at least a dozen times per day. OK - out of Fort William after a breakfast of parritch with WHISKEY! GOD I LOVE THIS PLACE!!!! We are going to head thru some more rugged parts of the highlands. We did find some more rugged roads that are one lane, no guard rails, no straight sections ... read more

Another rainy day - even the locals say they have never had such a cold rainy summer. Nigel provided us with a delicious breakfeast feast this morning - black pudding, mealy pudding, sausages, baked beans eggs and potato scones. So with this fortifying breakfeast under our belts we all headed out for a day of sightseeing and scotch tasting about 1.5 hours north of Edinburgh in a town called Pitlochry. This is the home of our favourite distillery Edradour. We aslo had a fabulous lunch at the Auld Smitty where we have eaten several times before and were happy to introduce Lori & Nigel to their delicious menu. After some shopping in this quaint little town we headed several miles down the road to Stanley Mills an old mill house that had a collection of cotton ... read more