Above: Stirling Castle from a distance.
The original plan was to have a short drive from Fort William into Glasgow and take in some of the sights of the big city. However, Kim had relatives that he wanted to look up in Kirkmichael, near Blairgowie even though he had trouble contacting them directly. We did make contact with some of their business associates who would try pass a message about our impending visit.
We decided to go regardless as it was only a detour of about 90 minutes. We asked around the village when we got there and found that they had sold up about 2 years ago. They people we asked ran the village shops, so they would know everyone.
Disappointed, we headed towards Scotland’s big city, Glasgow. We had a couple of other short detours along the way. We paused at Stirling to take a peek at the castle from afar. Then we stopped for a cuppa at Dumbarton where Kim had family friends who were expecting us. It was rather sad to see them as Ian, in his early 80s had developed dementia and couldn’t remember us or hold any form of conversation.
We continued to our kinda 3-star hotel, the Campanile, near Glasgow Airport by some big shopping malls. We had booked it through one of my regular hotel sites at GBP28 per night. We were very pleased with the room, and would have been if it had cost double the price!
A stone’s throw away was a pub-restaurant called the Steam Wheeler, which looked like a franchise but wasn’t. We’re so easily pleased as we tucked into their roast dinners for GBP6 per head. The UK isn’t as expensive as it used to be with the current exchange rate, and NZ prices have caught up. Often, food and drinks are cheaper in the UK after we convert it back to NZD.