The Highland Games (and the Queen!)

Well we've finally got to this posting (or Sarah has:) , sorry for the delay. It seems that when you have a job, time flies. I get home, we have dinner, we do some laundry, and then we go to sleep....so I rarely have time to be on the computer, which makes our blog postings a little late.

But here is our update on our trip to the Braemar Gathering (Highland Games) in the Highlands!

We left bright and early on Saturday morning at 8am on a bus load of tourists (from all over) for our 3 hour ride up to the games. Rob would agree with me in that this trip was by far the best from what we've done so far. The ride up can be described as amazing!!!!!!! The scenery was out of this world. The images of the Highlands that I had had before coming to Scotland didn't really do the real thing justice. As hopefully you'll be able to gather from our photographs, the area we travelled through (it was called Glenshee....because it apparently the valley of the fairies and banshees) was mountainous and had tons of vallies. From a distance, the mountains look like they're covered with this brown brush, but up close, we were able to see that it was heather (the purple flower that grows in abundance here). Glenshee is basically a deserted area, which is most likely due to the wildness of it all! We managed to take some video clips as well with our camera, but they don't do it justice either. Hopefully I'll be able to post the clips on the blog. We're just trying to edit them, so bare with us.

We arrived in the cute little picturesque village of Braemar, and pulled into the coach park. Apparently the reason why everything is so lush in the area is because when it decomposes it turns into peat...which is soft and mushy. I'm telling you this because the coach park was made of peat. You can imagine then the trouble we had parking:) The bus was sliding all over the place and the driver had a heck of a time trying to squeeze the bus into a tiny area as directed by the angry little Scotsman parking attendant. However, we finally managed to park safely and disembarked, donned our rain jackets (and we should have had rubber boots too!) and headed off to the games. We were told as we were leaving the bus that the Royal Family (the Queen and whoever else decided to come with her) were expected to arrive at 3pm and leave at 4pm if we wanted to see her. I was quite excited.....Rob not so much:)

We paid our £8 each to get into the games and wandered around a bit. There was tons of available stadium seating, but to sit there you had to pay £14 each for a seat! So we decided that wasn't worth it, so we took our blanket and sat on the mounds to watch. The events took place in a central arena, and there were many events going on at the same time. We were able to see tug of war (which all army/navy crews competed in), and relay and track races. One particular race, over 30 members (of all ages between 20-60) raced up the closest mountain!!!!!! and back down to the start. The winner was able to make it up and back in a shocking 24 minutes.....and this mountain was not small. It was amazing to see these older men with white hair come running through the finish line with mud all up their legs and racing the younger men....and beating some of them!

Another event was the hammer throw (both heavy and light). This was pretty neat....the men have huge spikes on the front of their shoes that they dig into the ground to get stabilized....then they spin the hammer around their body about three or four times and then release it into the air and see how far it goes. The movements when they spin are pretty crazy. It is something to see that's for sure!

There was also some highland dancing to see in which young girls, and the odd boy, wearing kilts and checkered socks (although I'm sure they have a fancy name for them) dance on their tip toes. They wear these little soft shoes (sort of like ballerina slippers) and they hop and jump around on their toes. This requires incredible balance and it's neat to watch.....for about 5 minutes:)

The coolest thing we saw all day though was the caber tossing. They didn't bring this out until about 10 minutes before the Queen arrived....save the best for last! A caber is this giant pole (looks like a telephone pole) that the men are required to pick up at the bottom (so that it is standing straight into the air)....then they run with it for about 10 paces and hurl it in to the air with the aim of getting it to rotate top over bottom once and land at a 12 o'clock position. This requires an incredible feat of strenght and only a handful of men were able to rotate the caber....and even fewer (about 1-2) who were able to actually have it land at 12 o'clock. Hopefully you can see from the pictures how hard it must have been for these men.....the ladies will remember this from the movie Made of Honour that we all saw together.

Finally, at about 5 after 3, the Royal Family arrived. We could tell they were coming because all of a sudden, at the entrance to the games, a firing squad (I'm sure mostly for show) lined up on either side of the gates at attention. Then through the gates came the Rolls Royce with the Windsor flag on it's front, followed by a Land Rover....typical royal vehicle:) The cars drove around the stadium and stopped right in front of the Royal Pavillion. Out of the Rolls hopped (well not really:) HRH the Queen, followed by her husband Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh and their son, HRH Prince Charles. We saw them from 20 feet away, as we had made sure to get a prime spot near the Pavillion. She waved her little wave and then sat in the pavillion for exactly one hour....then left in her car led out by a humungous bag-piper band. Rob and I got a place on the roadside too so we could see her as she drove out...this time we were within 5 ft. as their car drove by. All three members of the royal family are looking rather old.....but it was still pretty cool to see them!

That marked the end of the Games, and so we hopped in our tour bus and headed home, but first via a little picturesque town called Pitlochry. It was a former spa town used by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It would have been nice to stay longer, but we only had time for a steak dinner. (2 dinners and a bottle of wine for £20!). We then boarded the bus and arrived back in Edinburgh at 8:30pm. A long day, but worth it!

On Sunday we walked around Edinburgh, (in the rain of course) and took some pictures of the city. I'll post them as soon as I can....however for those of you who know Edinburgh, the pictures are mostly from Princes St...and not the Royal Mile (which I think is the nicest spot in Edinburgh and the oldest!). We'll get up there this weekend, as we plan on staying in town and relaxing for once.

We miss all of you....keep us updated!

Love,

Sarah & Rob

P.S. And Dad, no we haven't tried any haggis yet......I'm afraid to...yuck....but Rob says he's going to give it a go sometime. I'll let you know what he thinks of it:) And thank you for the recipes! Can't wait to try the last one....sounds great:)