Beatrix Potter and Victorian Hotel



Big Tree and Victorian Hotel


 



Susi and I decided to explore the little town of Dunkeld which was the Capital of the newly formed Scottish Nation in the 9th century when the first King of Scots, Kenneth MacAlpin made it head of the Celtic Church. Okay, the real reasons we decided to go there was that it was close, pretty, had some good hikes and a reasonably price hotel for an overnight stay. 


I thought it would be fun to take the train from Perth there as I really like trains. Unfortunately, the connection from the bus station to the train station was tight and due to an uncooperative ticket machine and a labyrinth of halls and bridges to get to the correct platform we arrived  just as the doors were closing and the train was leaving. So we were out the price of the tickets and had to trek to a bus station in the middle of town to use our free senior bus cards to travel to Dunkeld. It wasn’t all that bad though as we took a very scenic route through valleys and hills to be dropped off right in front of our hotel.


The hotel was a quaint victorian granite building that seemed to be stuck in time. We entered the carpeted registration hall, rang the desk bell and were greeted by a young lady with a very heavy Eastern European accent. She efficiently had us fill our information on a registration card and gave us a key for the room on the third floor. When we asked if we could leave our stuff and go hiking (it was too early to occupy the room) she had no problem with that. However, when we asked if there was a bathroom we could use, she had no problem directing Susi to the ladies loo, but had no idea where the gentleman’s was. She had to ask the manager/owner where it was. That was odd, but the manager explained that it has been difficult to get people to work at the hotel and most of their staff, which currently was only three people, were not locals.


Once we were squared away, we decided take the Hermitage Trail which began right across the street from the hotel and the train station. It turned out to be a scenic, sometimes wet and uphill walk in the beginning, just what we hoped it would be. That judgement morphed a bit as the hike went on and on. Still, that is what we had planned and it certainly was the kind of walk that removes the stress of daily life. We found a spot with discarded concrete posts and rusted farm implements that provided a nice platform for a slanted spot for our lunch.  We scanned the path ahead and saw  that the rest of the trip would be a bit more entertaining. A couple of park employees were busy trying to pound a pole into the hard rock ground with little success. They persisted in what was an impossible task before giving up.  After scratching their heads for  while, they  “solved” the the problem by putting the sign on the one post that they had already planted and attach the other end to Mr. Wiggles post to hold him up. With that kind of logic, I wouldn’t want to use an outhouse that the two were responsible for constructing.


Once we were finished with our entertaining lunch we continued on our walk that led us to the hermitage and through the hills to spectacular waterfalls and some more discoveries. One that peaked my interest as an archaeologist was walls and foundations of what had to have been a settlement. Susi and I love the “Time Team” series. I poked around a bit until Susi reminded me we had several more miles to go before we could sleep. With that in mind, I will cut the dialogue short and make the rest of the blog more visual with the photos my partner in crime took to chronicle the hikes we did in the two spectacular days we visited this part of Scotland. 

This is the Big Tree. It inspired William Shakespeare to write Macbeth. 

The combination of the dark forests and this amazing spooky witch like tree must have 

brought out his dark side.


These were spaced every 100 feet up to the Tree.




 

The tree and me. The tree is the spooky one.

















The mysterious ruins of a farm settlement .



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