Another day, another castle

Particularly while in Scotland, it became a running joke with my dad that Scotland = Castles. According to him, every time I'd step outside the door I'd be off to see another one.
Dad now thinks that Scotland is about 95% castles, 3% trains to get to these castles, and 2% mountains, lochs (lakes), islands and rain. This obviously isn't true - it's more like 93% castles as I did see a fair amount of chapels, cathedrals and abbeys too...

I don't know what it is about me and castles or old cathedrals - especially ruins - but I do absolutely love them. Maybe it's that you aren't exactly overrun with them in New Zealand. Maybe it's their enormous age and that they are still standing after centuries of warfare, pillaging and neglect, built with nothing but manual labour and horse drawn carts. Maybe it's their still-obvious grandeur, size, space and 'solidness' that is so incredible. When I'm walking around inside the tumbling down walls I just can't get over how people actually lived in these gorgeous places, walking up and down tiny flights of stone steps or sitting in a grand hall by a huge stone fireplace.

I think the Scottish castles and ruins in particular have a piece of my heart simply because of their location. Built on tiny islands or the edges of a loch, on rocky outcrops, on top of hills and mountains, or on peninsulas on the coast, they are all standing in places of isolation and power and beauty. They still feel just as isolated and impressive as they would have been centuries ago. I really love that whoever resided in these places, keeping a watchful eye over the magnificent land all around, would have felt a huge pride and connection to their home and country through the sheer beauty, still apparent today.

There's an enormous amount of castles in Scotland, and I tried to get around as many of the main ones as I could:

1. Edinburgh Castle is the obvious first of the list. You just can not ignore it sitting majestically on it's hill looking out over the whole city. I think it's quite funny that I actually did see a castle nearly every day I lived in Edinburgh!

 

2. Dunnottar Castle - I went on a day trip two hours up the coast to Stonehaven to see this one for my birthday, and lucked out with a stunning hot sunny day. I think this was one of the first ruined castles I had had a proper look around at

3. Eileen Donan Castle. This is one of the most photographed castles in Scotland, on all the postcards, and when I went to the Isle of Skye I arranged the whole return trip around specifically stopping here.

4. Kilchurn Castle. Still unknown if the 'churn' is pronounced like it is spelt, or as 'kurn' or as 'urn.' Got to see this one, also on all the postcard shots, on both of the awesome road trips I went on with the beautiful Kate

5. Inverness Castle. I liked this one because it technically isn't a castle! It's on the site of where one used to be but was only built to look like a castle, and used as a sheriff's court/jail. It's still used as law courts now.

6. Stirling Castle. The view from the castle gates was amazing. This was a very important castle and due to it's location right where the lowlands meet the highlands it was said that whoever holds Stirling holds Scotland. King Robert the Bruce's statue looks out over the land, and a rainbow showed up just as I got there.

7. Craigmillar Castle - another castle on the other side of Edinburgh that is huge but no one really remembers it's there. My friend Nicola lives right nearby so when Shanelle and Andy visited we all went together. I loved the humongous tree growing right inside the courtyard.

 

8. Inverlochy Castle. This was a surprise one that I got to see on the bus tour to Loch Ness. It makes up for not getting back to Loch Ness to see Uruquart Castle which was too far along the lake to be included in that trip.

9. Duchal Castle - just a few pieces of wall left, completely hidden away in some woods by a small river, down a mud track off a back country lane near Kilmacolm, and only known about by locals (thanks go to Kate!)

10. Castle Stalker - seen from afar

11.Newark Castle - seen from afar

12. I'm sure there's a few more and I'll be adding them as I think of them...

This isn't counting all the hundreds more across England, Wales and Ireland...