Inverness/Leaving Scotland

All five of us were leaving Scotland on the same day.  Nikki, Jamie and Alex were all flying out of Edinburgh, while Emily and I flew from Inverness.  Ironically, Jamie and Alex were also flying to London, although we never did get the chance to meet up there.  Since Edinburgh is some distance away, the Emily and I opted to be dropped off in Inverness before we took a bus to the airport. 

Culloden Viaduct

Had we not gone to the cairns, we would have never come across this truly magnificent viaduct.  In fact, until the writing of this post, I didn't even know the name.  I had to look it up in relation to Balnuaran of Clava.  I discovered this railroad is called the Culloden Viaduct, but it is also known as Clava Viaduct, or Nairn Viaduct.  No matter the name, it is truly a sight. 

Alex and Jamie on the path from Milton of Clava back to the car

Later that evening, we decided to go see the Aldourie castle late at night (I think it was around 11:30 pm) and see it all lit up.  Since it never seemed to truly get dark, this is what we got.  Can you believe how light it still is for being so late?  It was so cool.

Emily and Nikki reading in the living room of our cottage.

Milton of Clava

We returned to the cairns to explore a little more.  We had known of another set a little further down the road.  The rain had pretty much stopped by this time.  We passed by the Balnuaran of Clava again and continued down the narrow path to the Milton of Clava.

It felt as though we were on private property, with cows and fields all around us.  In fact, if there hadn't been signs and a well worn path, we wouldn't have even known we were anywhere near the cairns.  

 Balnuaran of Clava.  Notice how the road and fence cut right through it. 

No mincing words there

Milton of Clava:

Battlefield of Culloden

After the Balnuaran of Clava, we went to the Battlefield of Culloden.  By that time it was raining pretty extensively and we spent a lot of time in the visitors center, waiting for the rain to let up.  We watched a historical movie of the events leading up to and after the battle.  The tour of the battlefield itself was self-guided and hand-held recorders were given to help guide the tour.  However, with the rain not letting up, we decided to opt out of the 90 minute or so wandering in the rain to see the battlefield up close.  Consequently, I didn't get any pictures, but it is a fascinating bit of history.

Here is a very condensed version of what happened: 

On 16 April 1746, on Drummossie Moor overlooking Inverness, a well supplied Hanoverian army led by the Duke of Cumberland (son of King George II) annihilated the much smaller army of Lord John Murray and the leader he mistrusted, Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
This was the bloodiest of all the Jacobite battles.  It was also the last battle fought on British soil.
Charles Edward Stuart’s choice of rough, marshy ground was catastrophic, and the Jacobite swords and daggers were no match for the Hanoverian cannon and guns. More than a thousand Jacobites were killed and around 300 Hanoverians died. The battle itself was over in an hour. The bloody aftermath went on for weeks. 

One of the many myths of this event is that it was a Scottish versus English affair. In fact, far more Scots supported and fought on the Hanoverian side than on the Jacobite.

The Battle of Culloden took place on Culloden Moor, (a short drive outside Inverness), on 16 April 1746. It was the final battle of the 1745 Jacobite Rising and the last Battle to be held on British soil.
The Battle on Culloden Moor, was both quick and bloody, it started with an unsuccessful Jacobite Highland charge across flat boggy ground, totally unsuitable for this previously highly effective maneuver. The Jacobites troops were soon routed and driven from the field, the battle only lasting about an hour.
The Battle of Culloden saw some 1,500 Jacobites killed or wounded, while government losses were lighter with 50 dead and 259 wounded.
- See more at: http://www.explore-inverness.com/what-to-do/attractions/culloden-battlefield/#sthash.D1beF3fC.dpuf

The Battle of Culloden took place on Culloden Moor, (a short drive outside Inverness), on 16 April 1746. It was the final battle of the 1745 Jacobite Rising and the last Battle to be held on British soil.
The Battle on Culloden Moor, was both quick and bloody, it started with an unsuccessful Jacobite Highland charge across flat boggy ground, totally unsuitable for this previously highly effective maneuver. The Jacobites troops were soon routed and driven from the field, the battle only lasting about an hour.
The Battle of Culloden saw some 1,500 Jacobites killed or wounded, while government losses were lighter with 50 dead and 259 wounded.
- See more at: http://www.explore-inverness.com/what-to-do/attractions/culloden-battlefield/#sthash.D1beF3fC.dpuf

The Battle of Culloden took place on Culloden Moor, (a short drive outside Inverness), on 16 April 1746. It was the final battle of the 1745 Jacobite Rising and the last Battle to be held on British soil.
The Battle on Culloden Moor, was both quick and bloody, it started with an unsuccessful Jacobite Highland charge across flat boggy ground, totally unsuitable for this previously highly effective maneuver. The Jacobites troops were soon routed and driven from the field, the battle only lasting about an hour.
The Battle of Culloden saw some 1,500 Jacobites killed or wounded, while government losses were lighter with 50 dead and 259 wounded.
- See more at: http://www.explore-inverness.com/what-to-do/attractions/culloden-battlefield/#sthash.D1beF3fC.dpuf

The Battle of Culloden took place on Culloden Moor, (a short drive outside Inverness), on 16 April 1746. It was the final battle of the 1745 Jacobite Rising and the last Battle to be held on British soil.
The Battle on Culloden Moor, was both quick and bloody, it started with an unsuccessful Jacobite Highland charge across flat boggy ground, totally unsuitable for this previously highly effective maneuver. The Jacobites troops were soon routed and driven from the field, the battle only lasting about an hour.
The Battle of Culloden saw some 1,500 Jacobites killed or wounded, while government losses were lighter with 50 dead and 259 wounded.
- See more at: http://www.explore-inverness.com/what-to-do/attractions/culloden-battlefield/#sthash.D1beF3fC.dpuf

Balnuaran of Clava

The next day brought lots of clouds and rain.  We started out in Inverness.  There had been a zip-up jacket I had seen on our first outing that I hadn't bought and really wanted.  So, we found the store, I got the jacket, we did a little more shopping, and we stopped in for lunch at an "American" diner to celebrate 4th of July. 

The Scottish idea of a good ol' American burger was one that I consider a heart-attack waiting to happen, so I went with a chicken wrap instead.  In fact, not one in our little group was willing to give the heart-attack burger a try.  They had some purple coleslaw which came with my wrap that was heavenly, and this is coming from someone who doesn't like coleslaw. 

After lunch we were going to go to the Battlefield of Culloden, but one of the locals had mentioned some tombs near the battlefield.  We decided to check it out.  It wasn't tombs in what I had thought, but it was well worth the visit.

The local who told us about the tomb warned us not to climb on it--because many had been destroyed from people climbing on them.  There were also signs which asked us to be respectful, and yet, when we got there, there was a kid about eight or so who was climbing.  So irritating, the lack of respect, and the fact that the parents allowed it.  Grrr. 

While we were there, it started raining.

Here's a little history:

A prehistoric cemetery

On a gravel terrace above the River Nairn is one of Scotland’s most evocative sacred prehistoric sites. The Clava Cairns are dominated by a line of three exceptionally well-preserved burial cairns, each enclosed by stone circles. We know little about who the cairn builders were, for they left no written record. The actual remains of those buried within the cairns no longer survive because of overzealous archaeological digging in the early 20th century. However, recent excavations have shed new light on the cairns.

A regional tradition

The burial cairns at Clava are around 4,000 years old. They are not quite like those elsewhere in northern Britain. Other burial monuments generally incorporate massive standing stones – either in the facade as at Cairnholy in Galloway, or supporting the chamber as at Maeshowe in Orkney. In contrast, at Clava the circles of standing stones are separate elements from the tombs.

The three well-preserved cairns each have a central chamber. But while the two outer cairns have entrance passages, the chamber of the central one is completely enclosed. The outer kerb of each cairn is well defined by large boulders, and each is surrounded by a ring of standing stones.

Sun worshippers

The three cairns form a line running NE to SW. The passages of the two cairns are also similarly aligned, suggesting that the builders had their eyes on the midwinter sunset, just like their contemporaries who built Maeshowe. The standing stones around the cairns also acknowledge the midwinter sunset, for they are graded in height – the tallest facing the setting sun in the SW down to the lowest on the opposite side. Even the colour and texture of the stones seems to have been carefully selected to emphasise the veneration of the sunset on the shortest day of the year.

Tombs of the chiefs?

The burial chambers in each tomb were cleared out long ago. However, in the 1950s a few crumbs of cremated bone were found within the central cairn. Evidence from other similar ‘Clava-type’ cairns (such as Corrimony, inland from Urquhart Castle) suggests that while many hands were needed to create the tombs, only one or two bodies were buried inside them. They seem therefore to have been built to house the privileged few among the local farming community, perhaps tribal chiefs.

 From the limited evidence available, it seems that the Clava cairns were not burial places for communities, but for selected individuals, both male and female. Professor Alexander Thom discovered that the two entrance passages align exactly and that the alignment passes through two of the stones surrounding the central non-aligned cairn. The significance of this is that the passage graves were probably constructed in Neolithic times, and the stone circles later, during the Bronze Age. The alignment points to the midwinter sun's setting position, indicating that at some time the site perhaps had an astronomical function.
   
 Cairns like those at Clava are found mainly in the area around Inverness and the Black Isle, and the Spey Valley. Their distribution coincides largely with areas of good farmland, and often the smallest stones of the mounds have been almost totally removed for the construction of dykes and farm buildings.

Trying to protect my camera from the rain

Nikki liked the rain least of all, and took shelter under a tree