Hermitage Park

Thursday 14th, October. Today we got up a bit earlier and got a full Scottish breakfast cooked for us by Avril. It was the first time I had tatty scones. Basically it is potato fried into a flatish round piklet type thing. I’m not sure if it was this morning or not but I had my first taste of Irn Bru. However it was Diet Irn Bru which tastes like crap. The real stuff is fantastic! David offered both of us some Haggis with our breakfasts, which both of us declined.

After breakfast we got ready to head out for the day. I’m not sure if it was today or another morning at Avril and David’s, but while I was in the shower I got some shower gel in my right eye. It flicked up from the bottle top into my eye and all I could do was try and wash it out. I was in agony as my eye was stinging. The pain eventually reduced, but sine then I am more careful around shower gel.

Once we were ready we headed for the Trossachs, which is to the west of Stirling. The car was full with all four of us and Hann the dog. Kim had her legs up on the centre console because Hann liked to sit in the foot well. Their car is a Jeep and has a very dangerous drivers seat set up. It isn’t dangerous for the driver, but rather for the passenger behind them. When the car stops the seat moves backwards onto the passengers feet. If you aren’t fast enough you could get your foot jammed under the seat. It was Avril that took the risk by sitting behind David.

David said that if I saw something I wanted to photograph to just let him know and he would stop the car. To be honest I was still a little jet lagged and wasn’t sure what I wanted to photograph. We did stop a few times and got some okay photos. It was overcast again, but the cloud cover was higher so we could see more of the countryside around us. It wasn’t until we got to the Hermitage Park in the Trossachs that I really got some good photos.

It was amazing how many cars were in the small car park at Hermitage Park. There were so many that we couldn’t get a normal parking spot. There was also a food stand there which was a strange sight to see. As we walked into the park I tried to get a photo of Avril and David with Hann between them in the distance, but by the time I got the camera ready they had changed positions, so I didn’t get the photo.

At the end of the walk there was a small building. You go into the building and out to a lookout over a river and waterfall. I took plenty of photos here and so did Kim. As we left that building we went down another trail which took us along the waters edge. There was an old stone bridge there with a lot of character and a small walkway underneath it. I was waiting for some slow tourists to move out of the way. They didn’t even say thank you for letting them move off along the narrow walkway without hassle. It was very slippery under the bridge and a lot of the path was washed away. I took it easy and only got a few shots from down there. Looking back on the photos now I think they could have been so much better, but at least I got some photos to remember the place by.

As we walked out of the park a young couple came walking towards us. David had Hann on a leash and as the young couple passed the girl said quietly “Cute”. David took this to be her thinking that David was cute. She instantly became another one of David’s babes. Kim interrogated his reasoning for thinking she was talking about him and deduced that all his babes were a result of walking Hann. Clearly Hann has all the babes and David is lucky to ride on his coat tails.