A Garden Center and a drive through Scotland

 After a lovely full Scottish breakfast at the Ballachulish, we packed up the car and headed off across the open county of Scotland for Aberdeen.

We passed through the Cairngorms, which was beautiful Scottish countryside.

We also inadvertently drove through Dufftown, where Glenfiddich distillery is located, and past a couple of others (Dalwhinnie and Aberlour flashed by).  This drive took us along/across the river Spey, for which the Speyside region is named.  So we passed within a few miles of. . . quite a few places. 

I may have mentioned this earlier, but perhaps not:  we'd realized a few weeks ago that we started planning too late and pretty much all distillery tours were sold out before we even figured out our itinerary.  As a result, we didn't bother trying to stop anywhere on this trip, but I definitely intend to do a Whiskey-focused tour of Scotland in the future, which I will plan much further in advance and will involve spending some proper time on Islay and southern Skye in particular.

We stopped for petrol halfway across the country and while there, we used our phones to search for local food.  Rachel was recommended a small cafe called "The Clootie Dumpling" just up the road, and neither of us had ever heard of a Clootie Dumpling before, so we promptly added it to our route and headed off.

This would up leading to a very strange discovery -- Midway through a stretch of otherwise-featureless forest we came across a large sign directing us off the road and into a gravel parking lot in front of a very large building which turned out to be a extremely well-stocked and curated. . . garden center?

 

Boring road is boring

We wandered through it, confused, to discover an excellent cafeteria / cafe in the rear, with patio seating surrounded by plants for sale and small garden statuary.

Need any plants?

Of course we got food, excellent sandwiches and soups, plus the promised Clootie Dumplings for dessert. It turns out a Clootie Dumpling is apparently a sort of steam-cooked fruit cake ... Pudding... Thing?

They were rich and warm and delicious, and the brandy honey sauce served with mine was top notch. 🤌

We continued across the Scottish countryside, passing a remarkable number of crop fields that were a brilliant, almost stunning yellow.

We covered ground at a leisurely pace and made it to Aberdeen with about an hour to spare, plenty of time to queue up and get our car loaded onto the ferry.

Next stop, Shetland!