Back on track, four of the six of us continued on the walk, picking up where we left off in Aberlour, a couple of miles south of where we spent the night. Tom, Matt, Patty, and Jessica caught the bus to Aberlour. Kathy and I caught a cab to Ballindaloch, with the thought of giving our legs and feet a rest and exploring a real castle, Ballindaloch Castle, close to where we were spending the night.
First off, Kathy and I waited and waited for the taxi. We were going to hitch a ride on the luggage transport vehicle. We knew there was no guarantee when the vehicle would arrive, but by 11:30, we decided we didn't want to wait any longer.
Not that the wait had been uneducational. There were several whisky magazines and books lying about in the inn's waiting room. We educated ourselves on how whisky becomes smoky or peaty, which distilleries are no longer in business (a sadly large number), and what the "experts" rate as the best of all whiskies.
1) The peatiness does not come from the water used to make the whisky. Otherwise, said the magazine writer, whenever you took a shower with water coming from the dark-running peaty river, you would come out smelling like a kipper. (Laughed myself silly when I read that.) This is the real answer: When the malt is roasted it is subjected to the smoke from burning peat.
2) The experts had very different opinions. One picked Ardbeg 12, one of my favorites, as one of his favorites. Lagavullin, Laphroaig, and others I had never heard of, including something called Smokehouse or Smokedout or Smokedog or something like that, were also winners.
Getting back to cooling our heels in Craigellichie: We decided to catch another cab and get to Ballindaloch posthaste. Which we did. The driver was very talkative, but I could only understand every 20th word. That's lucky because Kathy understood the other nineteen. Together we pieced together that the driver only lived a couple of miles away in Aberlour, had a dog he sometimes walked as much as five miles a day (Kathy and I felt like such wimps), and his old family farm was on a hill we passed.
Before we knew it, we were in Ballindaloch at the Delnashaugh Inn (have no idea how to pronounce it!).
The desk clerk/bartender/waiter was a first-class talker. ("My mum says I have the gift of gab," he told us.) Although he was only 23, he had seen much of the world with his cadet training program as a teenager, then with the Merchant Marines. He could parachute and pilot a plane. Hospitality in Ballindaloch seemed so tame. Ah, he said, he was training to be a sommelier and was very excited about it. On his recommendation, we tried a local distillation, Cardhu (car-do), and it was good.
Kathy and I had a delicious lunch, at the end of which our bags finally arrived. It had been worth it to take an earlier cab.
For lunch I had a cullen skink fishcake. Perhaps you remember that cullen skink is a Scottish soup with potatoes, fish, and cream/milk. The chef deconstructed that, took the potatoes and fish and made it into a cake, sautéed it, and plopped it in some creamy sauce with leeks. Wow! Bonus: Kathy shared her light and yummy onion rings with me.
After a mile and a half walk to look at the castle (and a mile and a half back to the inn), we were very hungry. Luckily the rest of the group was waiting for us at the inn. We took over the sitting room of the vacant inn.
The hike to Ballindaloch went smoothly. The way was flat, the sun was shining. No adventures, just lovely scenery, they said. No eating on mounds of weedy, wet sand either, apparently. No funny stories to share. (Well, what good is that, I ask?)
By dinnertime we were all starved.
Matt had game hotpot: venison, partridge, pheasant, and duck stew. Jessica and I had a hamburger, but not like any burger I've had in the U.S., where the meat is squashed together so tightly. The meat was loosely patted together, but it didn't fall apart when I bit into it. Magic. It was so tasty, with pickled red onion, local cheddar, and the Scottish version of bacon gracing the top.
Everything we ordered was grown locally, including my beef, Matt's game selection, Kathy and Patty's beef for their Wellingtons, Tom's ribs. The others raved about their dishes as well. Tom ordered a rack of pork ribs, and the chef wanted to know what an American thought of his version of a very American dish! (I thought it was tremendous, Tom said.)
This is turning out to be a gourmet walk, which is quite a good combination as it turns out. You need to walk a punishing 12-15 miles to walk off the calories from the meals! (Especially since, of course, we all had dessert!)
Today's whisky tally: Isle of Jura 16 (good +), Cardhu (a local liquid and very good), and Strathsisla (already had and liked).
While the others were hotfooting it here, Kathy and I were having a lady-like luncheon in the pool room.
My cullen skink fishcake. Yum.
Matthew, the man with many different hats, gives us a lesson in whiskies.
The castle on the hill.
The rock garden put in by the "batchelor" baron. (Amazing what you can do if you don't have kids underfoot.)
Spring is just in the early stages here. That's Kathy on the bench among the just greening rose arbor and the early rhododendrons.
Alpaca. Cute to the nth degree.
Here's a proper picture of the castle, actually a little one as castles go.
Kathy wanted me to take a picture of these tire tracks. There's very little room at the edge on which to walk, so it should give a walker pause to see that some vehicles don't quite stay on their side of the road.
Matt's hotpot dinner. Could he tell the difference in the meats? Well, no, he said. Sometimes he bit into something and said that was probably fowl. That wasn't much of a challenge, because he had a three-in-four chance of being right about that!
My new friend, Andy, the ticket taker at the castle, took this picture of us. We had all just finished dessert and could barely move.
Andy and me. BFsF.
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