IPDG's Travels Week 6

Some of you may recollect that last year, I was fortunate to hit one decent shot in the St. Andrews Kilrymont Golf Competition at Kingsbarns. The prize for finishing nearest to the pin on the short, but awesome and very intimidating 15th hole, was the use for a week-end of a Honda 2000 sports car, courtesy of the Honda West End Garage in Broughty Ferry. After a very busy year, Daphne and I at long last managed to identify a free week-end to take advantage of this. We based ourselves in Blair Atholl and enjoyed both visiting many of the notable landmarks in the area and driving open-topped between them. First port of call was Falls of Bruar, which looked quite spectacular after the previous night's rain. Inevitably, this had to be followed by the many attractions of the House of Bruar. Retail therapy at its best! After a light lunch, we headed westwards via Loch Rannoch to Rannoch itself, which is as far west as you can go without resorting to foot power. We were fortunate to be there when one of relatively few trains in the day to Fort William and Oban, passed through, then enjoyed the excellent home baking of the station tea room. In the evening, back at Blair Atholl, we walked up one of the many attractive woodland walks on the Atholl Estate, meeting on the way a group of stalwart walkers, ending a long day out, after starting some 26 miles away at Braemar. I could sympathise with their view that any cooling liquid would be better directed to their feet than their throats! The next day, after a quick visit to the Blair Atholl Watermill, we headed down past Loch Tummel to the new House of Menzies Centre which also has excellent home baking, to Aberfeldy, then over the hill to the Sma' Glen. Turning off this, we headed for Perth via Glenalmond College, then round Perth to the south side of the Tay and on through Newburgh, Gauldry, Wormit, Newport and over the road bridge to Dundee. The day was rounded off with a visit to Arbroath to see a rare, but totally invisible, gull. It was with extreme reluctance that I returned the Honda to West End Garage today. It was a real fun week-end, with a chance to relive earlier years. I had forgotten the fun of being so much more exposed to the elements, and being instantly aware of the scent of flowering buddleia, so attractive to bees and other insects, and the evocative smell of a newly-mown field of hay. The Honda drives like a dream and I cannot praise highly enough, the engineers who designed it. My thanks go to the Rotary Club of St. Andrews Kilrymont for coming up with such a wonderful prize and to the West End Garage for their generosity in making it available.