It was sad to say goodbye to the family again as we headed back to Edinburgh. There was time for one last farmhouse breakfast before we hit the road. There were several possible routes we could take back to Edinburgh. With no snow or ice to worry about, we decided to take the high road and check out the Scottish mountains and ski fields.
The route was mostly on decent roads, but there were a few stretches of single lanes roads with passing places. Traffic volumes were pretty low though and there always seemed to be a passing place just there when we met a vehicle. There were dozens of passing places on every mile of road and every one of those had its own “passing place” sign, just in case we couldn’t work out what that extra little bit of sealed road was for. No matter how narrow or windy the roads are here, there is never any gravel.
The scenery through the Cairngorm National Park was quite like NZ’s South Island, although I think there was probably less snow that the South Island even in summer. It’s been really mild in Scotland and the mountains are low, so there was very little snow anywhere. Our lunch stop was in a gorgeous town called Braemar, not far from Balmoral Castle where the Royals often reside. Braemar had plenty of fancy places to eat, but we were looking for something quick. We spotted someone eating a pie on the street and realised it had come from the nearby butcher shop. We had a quick wander around the village while our pies got heated, then stood on the little stone bridge eating them. The kids had steak mince and we had venison and cranberry – possibly the best pie I have ever eaten and absolutely stuffed full of meat.
We had one more quick stop to check out the three bridges that cross the Forth River, then headed back into Edinburgh. The kids were keen to check out a British hypermarket, so Andy dropped us at Tesco Extra while he returned the car. We bought a few edible goodies and had a good laugh at the huge amount of Irn Bru in the supermarket ready for Hogmanay. This bright orange drink is seriously popular here and way out-sells Coca Cola. It supposedly contains girder iron and is reputed to be a great cure for hangovers.
Jo kindly picked us up and we quickly dumped our luggage and added extra layers to keep warm. The Hogmanay celebrations start early here and we wanted to watch the 7pm torchlit procession. Plan A was to grab some food at Nandos, but the 40 minute wait for food made us find a Plan B – the takeaway shop next door. Even then we almost missed the start of the parade. Lots of the streets were blocked off so we walked parallel to the Royal Mile and could see the parade starting. We figured we could move faster than the parade so continued down towards the palace and grabbed a front row spot just past parliament. The plan worked and it was about a five minute wait until the parade caught up with us. We were entertained by pipe bands, fire something and 30,000 people carrying torches.
We watched the parade for about 10 minutes then headed to Hollyrood Park and climbed up the hill for great views. The first few thousand torchbearers were arranged into a map of Scotland, and there were various acts to keep us entertained until the fireworks finale at 9pm. It was a fantastic atmosphere and amazing to be surrounded by people from all around the world celebrating New Years (a day early!).
