Monday 12 August – Louise’s Scottish scones, soup, shopping and sightseeing tour

I had talked to David and Louise the earlier night about taking some photos/video with the drone at nearby Loch Leven. There is a castle on an island in Loch Leven called Lochleven Castle. It was where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned, escaped and fled to England.

Ros and I went down to to the loch. I had set up a ‘mission’ on my drone app that would take photos on one trip halfway around the island and then video on the next trip. It was a 2.2km round trip and would take about 8 minutes according to the app.

I set up the drone in a secluded spot near the edge of the walking path (there is not much foot traffic around). I was quite nervous as there was about 200 metres of land and then 500 metres of water between us and the island. In hindsight I should have done a small test in the 200 metres of land to make sure the photos and videos would work as expected. I did both flights and they worked well. The drone came back both times!

I decided to self-fly the drone (the mission waypoint setting uploads the details directly to the drone to fly to specific gps coordinates and return) out to the castle. This didn’t go to plan as the controller came back saying signal lost amongst other issues. I decided not to push my luck.

When we got back to Louise’s we had a look and it hadn’t actually taken any photos the first time. Not sure what happened at this stage, so I thought I would change some settings and go out again later today when we get back.

Louise took us on her Scottish tour of scones, soup, shopping and sightseeing. First stop, Birnam for scones. This place was the post office, general store and cafe. There were three favours of jam – strawberry, apple and clove, and lemon curd. My favourite was the strawberry followed closely by lemon curd.

Next stop on our tour was The Hermitage – a forested area with a river and wonderful old trees with moss growing everywhere. It seemed like a different world when you stepped foot in there. That was after I parked the car a bit too close to another then after everybody got out I moved the car – to one of the furtherest spots available. Just some additional steps for us to do at the end.

Some of the route was quite boggy thanks to the rain of previous days. We just made sure to walk carefully. On the way back we came across some trees and tree stumps that had coins pushed into them. Not sure what the significance of that was, but there was lots! There was also a building there with a view out of the waterfall, but it was locked because there was a wedding happening there later in the day. On the way back we came across a number of guests walking through the muddy area to get there – not the easiest trek in suits, dresses and high heels.

Louise told a story about recent guests who they took to House of Bruar to see the shops and have some soup. We decided that we would do the same and check it out. It’s called the ‘Harrods of the North’ (from memory). The range of goods (cooking through to clothing) was impressive. We saw some pies that we would get later on to take back for dinner. Upon entering the first clothing area, we were in awe. There was just so much to see. I found a scarf that I would later purchase.

We also ventured into the ‘cashmere’ shop. Ladies on ground floor and men’s upstairs. I left Ros and Louise and went upstairs. Oh my, so much choice. I did spot some nice boots, then realised they were RM Williams from back home. There was also some interesting things around the store like the fox holding a gun – hunting season no doubt! I finished looking upstairs and went downstairs. I found Ros and Louise and Ros said that there was something she wanted. I said go for it, we won’t be back. Louise gave me a look as if to say ‘you silly boy’. Yep, she was right. 495 pound for a cashmere outfit (roughly $750). Maybe some socks would be better haha.

We had some soup for lunch – all three of us choosing the same cream of vegetable soup. It was delicious, served with a large chunk of bread. We then went back into the shop to grab the pies. We ended up with a beef pie and chicken and ham. There was a ‘game’ pie of venison, partridge, pigeon and something else. We weren’t game to try the game pie though.

On the way back to Milnathort we stopped at Dunkeld to see the cathedral there. In what is an unassuming area, you walk through the town to this magnificent cathedral. It sits on the bank of the Tay River with a grassy area for people to enjoy. The Cathedral is really old and part of it is being restored. There is a smaller area in the building that contains the current church area for services.

On the way out of town Louise suggested we turn right from the car park. We worked out, quite a distance down the road that we may not be going the right way haha. This was an added extra to sightseeing part of the tour haha. We did check out the map in the end and go a few backroads to head back towards Perth, our next stop.

Siri got really confused navigating us towards Tesco. She wanted us to go into the Tesco car park, do a u-turn and head back out the street. Strange! Ros and I went into Tesco to grab some mashed potato and peas to go with the pies while Louise picked up her glasses. Success all around!

After arriving home, I fixed up what I presumed was the error with the drone waypoint mission earlier in the day. I went back to Loch Leven. Success was far from the result. Luckily nobody was around me because I may have sworn quite a lot. The first issue was that as it headed around the back of the island, on the screen it said ‘aircraft out of control’, and then on the screen it had an image of what looked like the wall of the castle, followed by ‘signal lost’. After about 15 seconds of my heart stopping, the drone reconnected and it was coming back to the home point! It arrived safely and needless to say I packed it up straight away and headed off.

When getting back home, I worked out it still didn’t take photos. I had turned off all the video recording as I thought they may have been why it didn’t take photos. After carefully looking through all the options, I think I have solved the issue and will check again – but not today!

We had the pies for dinner which were fantastic. After dinner David took Ros and I on a tour. Our first stop was Balvaird Castle where I was able to fly the drone around with no crowds. I got some beautiful photos of the castle and surrounding countryside no near misses with castle Walls this time.

Our next stop was Falkland. This looked familiar – probably because two years previously we had driven around the town twice on our way to Braemer and didn’t realise it. David showed us a couple of the spots that were used in the Outlander series. We continued onto the East Lomond Car Park – with fantastic views out over Edinburgh. We continued back home and crashed out, with the next day we would continue onto Edinburgh.