Day 6 – Leslie, Cornhill and Pennan

This morning we enjoyed a fabulous “Full English” breakfast at the Leslie Castle. Breakfast was served in what used to be the working kitchen and the lowest floor. It still has the original kitchen hearth and you can see where they diverted the moat to provide rudimentary running water and a wastewater discharge. Pretty clever!

After breakfast, we walked around the wee village of Leslie and explored the old church yard. After so carefully researching where Joseph Fraser was buried, we could not find his tombstone. We looked and looked. Oh well.

Then we headed off to Cornhill for their annual Highland games. On the way, we drove through Kennethmont and past the Law farm, two other notable landmarks for the Fraser family. Pictures later.

The Cornhill games were just fabulous! There were three pipe bands there and then all the traditional Highlands contests: tug-of-war, hammer throw, shot put, the caber throw (the big telephone pole thing), and more. With such poor cell connection, I can’t upload videos – but I’ll try to do that when I’m back to civilization again.

We noticed that many of the competitors had interchangeable names – that is, their first and last names could be reversed and it would still be a perfectly good Scottish name. Examples include: Stuart Fraser; Ewan Bradley, and Kyle Randall. Lots of Fraser’s in these parts! And they pronounce it “Frazer”, not “Frasure”. I suppose since we added the “i” here in America (“Frasier”), we’re entitled to pronounce it differently.

The children had running and sack races, and the girls and young women were doing Highland dance competitions. They were accompanied by live bagpipe tunes, and each class of competitors had to dance the same steps to the same tune. Sometimes that piper had to play his tune 20 or 30 times.

The food stands were serving fresh strawberries, angus steak & onion sandwiches, hard cider and ice cream.

After the games, we continued toward the coast to the small fishing village of Pennan. If you have seen the movie “Local Hero” (and if you haven’t, you MUST), then you would recognize the charming row of white houses at the bottom of the cliff. We had dinner in the Pennan Inn – the hotel where (in the movie), the motorcycle zips past every time they walk out the front door.

Then we drove back along all then winding roads toward the Castle. It’s nice to come home to a castle after a day of sun and wind.