Welcome back to “When Wine Calls”. We hope you are enjoying reading about our adventures.
Sadly, the time had come for us to leave the Isle of Skye and we made a dash back through the Highlands over to the East Coast passing through Inveraray where they will be holding Highland Games there in mid July, down the A9 and onto Pitlochry, which was our overnight stop, all up a drive of around 4 hours.
However, prior to heading back over the Skye Bridge we stumbled on another unique coffee stop for our morning coffee, an old rundown stone cottage with no roof on one section of the cottage. Amazing location beside the road and again out in the middle of nowhere but the coffee and home-made muffins were scrumptious – we couldn’t believe how many cars stop at the roadside to come in while we were there.
Pitlochry is a beautifully preserved town with some quaint shops, in particular the local whisky shop that loves to display interesting signage in the store for whisky lovers like me. On this trip through the Highlands, I could have bought so many unique whiskies not readily available in Australia but our “When Wine Calls” adventure is too long to transport the bottles around Europe so I have itemised a list and will try and source them when we get home.
Pitlochry was only an overnight stop for us, but we did stay for the night in an old historical hotel situated high on the hill overlooking the mountains.
The next morning it was off to Dundee where we had booked accommodation at a Home and Away apartment for a few nights, the main purpose being to catch up on our washing after 2 weeks in the Highlands and re-pack for our next leg to Europe.
However, on the way we found this sign pointing to a Café/Antique place, so again we turned off the highway and down another country road we went in search. It ended up being a converted old farmhouse with a café (The Tufted Duck Tea Rooms) in one of the antique furniture areas with other farmhouse buildings converted into areas for china, jewellery, tools, antique clothes, and everything in between.
The farmhouse was surrounded by cow paddocks and nothing else for miles and was a tremendous setting – the owner talked me into having a home-cooked custard donut to have with my coffee although those that know me well know that it was not a hard decision, but wow was it delicious. Another special place to add to the photo album.
We had not travelled to Dundee previously, but it is actually the fourth largest city in Scotland located along the east coast at the entrance to the River Tay.
The city has these incredibly long and impressive separate car and rail bridges that cross the river and when you drive over the bridge it seems like it goes forever. At the northern end of the car bridge is the V&A which is the Museum of Design (part of the Victoria and Albert Museum of London) with the outside built like a wooden ship and quite a stunning piece of architecture. Adjacent to the V&A is the very impressive barque three masted rigged auxiliary steamship RRS Discovery built in Dundee in 1901 for Antarctic research (I hope I got this right Dougal). Interestingly, her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition carrying Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first journey (the Discovery Expedition) to Antarctica. You can tour this historical vessel if you have the time but for us a photo had to suffice on this trip.
Walking around the centre of Dundee we soon discovered that like so many major cities nowadays in the post-Covid era many shops and large stores have now permanently closed which has to some extent sucked life out of the city, quite sad to witness really.
In contrast we drove a few miles along the river to a lovely suburb called Broughty Ferry Village where there was street shopping, the township was buzzing with activity and parking was hard to come by – possibly a look “Back to the Future” for many other cities.
The apartment at Dundee comprised of two good sized bedrooms with a large lounge room and kitchen and was extremely well equipped. It was located high on a hill overlooking the city with a small front garden you could enjoy through the large front loungeroom windows. We decided that in view of the amenities provided we would cook in both nights rather than eat at local restaurants.
While the food has been amazing so far on this trip it was a pleasant change to cook a few home cooked meals, and with the local supermarket just around the corner we were easily able to get our groceries and more importantly our wine. It was interesting to see the brands of the Australian wines on the shelves which took us back to our backpacking days, but we chose white wines from Spain and Chile which we found good quality and well-priced here.
Happy hour comprised of whisky that I had bought while in the Highlands while Pauline had G&T’s albeit they had to be pre-mixed which is one of the downside of staying in an apartment while travelling.
At the apartment we also organised all our cold weather clothing (that we certainly needed over the past 2 weeks) into post bags for shipping home to Australia when we get to St Andrews to lighten our suitcases, given the stricter baggage restraints we have while flying within Europe. We repacked our bags with only warm weather clothes and the next morning headed back to Edinburgh but on the way, we detoured to St Andrews where I had booked a guided tour of the Old Course which was another of my bucket list items. The next morning I was so excited to get there that I missed the turnoff to the farmhouse for Pauline’s morning coffee and had to travel quite a distance to locate a farm gate suitable to do a U-turn to get back – the pressure to be there on time for the tour was building but Pauline was very patient and agreed to have take away that morning to ensure we made it.
What can I say about St Andrew’s Old Course, the Home of Golf. Ever since I started playing golf when I was in my teens and then watching the British Open each year on TV, in particular when they played the Old Course every 5 or so years in rotation with the other renowned
Scottish courses such as Carnoustie and St Michaels, I wanted to visit and see such famous holes as the 17th Road Hole, the combined 1st and 18thFairway with the R&A building in the background but above all stand on the stone bridge on the 18th Fairway where all the famous golfers of today and yesteryear have crossed and stood for a photo as they played their final hole.
For me, today was that day and so much more and ended up extremely emotional personally to be standing on “that famous stone bridge” surrounded by so much history and realising that I had made it here – what a day it was and one that I will always remember.
While I was living the dream at the Old Course, Pauline went exploring around town uncovering quaint little shops, St Andrews Castle, and old laneways. Prior to leaving St Andrews we also caused mayhem in the local Post Office posting all our winter clothing back to Australia. Luckily, we had a wonderful lady serve us and was so patient helping us navigate the process not to mention the very patient other customers that were in the long queue behind us throughout. – a big thank you to all of them.
After such a huge day at St Andrews we finished the drive down to Edinburgh and stayed at a hotel near the airport – not much to say about airport hotels really, but as we had an early flight the next morning to Amsterdam and the beginning of our European leg of our adventure it was the best accommodation option for the night not that we will be making a habit of it on this trip.
That is a wrap for our London and Scottish Highlands adventure. It has been a remarkable 19 days and we have seen so many interesting and off-track locations in that time, stayed at remarkable places with such memorable outlooks and enjoyed fantastic food, wine, whisky (oh and the odd Guinness as well) as well as unique coffee places along the way – what else could you ask for when travelling.
Tomorrow, we confront the post-covid summer airport challenge as we fly to Amsterdam, our first stop on the European leg of our adventure which we are really excited about. In the meantime, “Wine is Calling Us” down in the hotel bar so we hope you can join us again when we update you in our next post from this amazing city.
Bruce & Pauline
When Wine Calls 
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