Firetop

Fraser Castle was our first destination on Friday morning after checking out from Norwood Hall. It was yet another beautiful sunny day as we drove West towards Alford on the A944. We reached Fraser Castle at about 11:45am and discovered a virtually empty car park and closed castle. However, most castles are closed in January, and we went primarily to see the external scenery rather than any internal historical materials.

Outside Fraser Castle was a large children’s adventure play area and a well maintained walled garden. As we approached the walled garden a large tortoiseshell cat came running up with its tail in the air and meowing all the way. Having spent some time affectionately rubbing against our legs and on the floor we were followed across the walled garden and out of the other side until we headed over to the main Castle building.

As Castles go, Fraser Castle looks very much the French chateau and not your stereotypical battlement encrusted medieval construction. It was certainly impressive from the outside, I took a few more photographs but Suzie_Q was soon feeling very cold again so we didn’t waste much time heading back to the car to warm up.

Our next scheduled destination was Kildrummy Castle, the original choice for our accommodation in Aberdeenshire. However, like its hotel, the castle was completely closed in January – to the extent that the drive was shut and we couldn’t even get close enough to take pictures of what looked like a ruined castle. From what we saw we weren’t too disappointed and, instead of going back on ourselves to Craigievar Castle, we made a decision to head for Corgarff Castle as per our Lonely Planet guide.

Ironically Corgarff Castle was also inaccessible due to heavy snowfall but from the road it didn’t look like a castle at all, more like a farm with a large modern tower in the middle. Not sure it would have blown us away. As luck would have it we were now on the A939 and continued forwards across the Mountains. Our hearts were certainly in our mouths as our car struggled to go up steeper and steeper roads, protected from sheer drops by flimsy fences on icy roads. Snowfall up here had been much heavier since we drove around the other side of the Cairngorms on Wednesday.

Suddenly as we came over the brow of a mountain, there on the left was a ski resort, complete with lodge, cafeteria, ski runs, lifts and… skiers! It was quite amazing to come across this having started the day in a sunny snow-less Aberdeen. We stopped at the resort and had jacket potatoes whilst watching snowboarders jumping off ramps and small children learning to ski down a training run. There’s no doubt that this ski resort was very empty as snowfall is well below average, however, we were pleased to come across this picturesque location totally unplanned.

Following lunch I managed to get the car out of the snow-covered car park (after much wheel-spinning) and back onto the A939 to head for our next destination of Tulloch Castle Hotel in Dingwall - North of Inverness. It took around three hours to drive through yet more fantastic scenery via Grantown on Spey and Inverness, to Dingwall. At the end of the day we were so pleased that we’d taken a risk by heading through the mountains from Aberdeen rather than taking the faster coastal dual carriageway, the views were quite unforgettable.

Technorati Tags: fraser castle, scotland, corgarff, craigievar, kildrummy, A939, skiing holidays

Bookmark to: