Day 13 - Fangorn Forest

Day 13, July 16, 2013:

Blue sky again, I’m beginning to think all the rumors of a grey and cold Scotland are simply a ruse to keep hordes of tourists out of the green hills!  Bit of a slow morning, mooing around, drinking coffee and enjoying the view.  The boys are a bit tired of being dragged around so we are leaving them to their devices today and Martin, Pauline, Mary Rose and I headed out to Callander for an explore. 

Callander is a small town in the Stirling region that sits right on the Highland Boundary Fault which is why it is often referred to as the “Gateway to the Highlands” and is the Eastern gate into the Trossachs National Park.  The town is overshadowed by the Callander Crags which rise hundreds of meters above the River Teith in the valley below.  A beautiful Scottish Gaelic town noted for its building with the locally quarried deep red conglomerate they call ‘puddingstone’.   We walked the few hundred meters of the main street, poking our noses into the shops, many of which were vacant (a sign of the economic times?) and visited a wonderful collectible toy shop where we bought some Enid Blyton.  A bite at a local pub then nothing would do but a hike to the top of the hills through beautiful mature spruce and pine forest (reforested) interspersed with clumps of centuries old beech.  A challenging walk uphill into the crags, but well worth it for the view and the impressive forest it passes through.  The Beech copses felt like the Fangorn Forest right out of The Lord of the Rings, it had an ancient feel to it.   Our walk completed it was home again for a cold one and another delightful supper on the back patio.