An Aha Moment, Swimming, the Archive Centre and Culloden Battlefield

Red Coat Soldier at Culloden

McLennan's Captured the day prior 

McLennan's on the Front Lines

The Battle Field

Cairn on Culloden Moor

The Flumes

Looking one way - it's the pool

Same spot, looking the other direction it's the Archive Centre

I stayed up late last night on the internet trying to find out information on a McLennan Monument at Dores when I stumbled across a Clan McLennan newsletter and an article about a family from Australia, tracing their McLennan roots which pretty much mimicked our search.  In this article they had been to the same church and graveyard we had been to, but they stumbled upon a leaflet written by the Auchtertyre grade 6/7 class about the old cemetary on the hill that the locals call Angels Hill.  I brought up this discovery at breakfast and Poppa's face lit up and said "That's where Alex is buried!"  It was with this renewed hope that we headed to Inverness and the Archive Centre for Ken and Janet to search for more clues.  They spent the better part of the day there and I think maybe found a few bits of info, but are no further ahead.

As Aidan has been begging us to swim every day, we decided today was the day.   I think it was really meant to be as when we pulled up the Archive Centre and the Leisure Centre were a parking lot apart.  The boys were in heaven with 3 water slides (they call them flumes) that wound their way out and back into the building.  You rode a tube down on one, one was twisty and the other was a straight drop.  We did all 3.  There was a wave pool and river area that adjoined an outdoor pool as well.  We are still puzzling over the outdoor part as it rarely even reaches 23 C here in the summer.  (We looked it up yesterday, we are at about 57 latitude which is further north than Fort McMurray - just they have the benefit of the Gulf Stream so it doesn't get too cold here in the winter and can grow palm trees).  Having worked in pools for many years it was interesting to see the foam toys covered in mildew, along with a few spots of the pool edges.  Is it because of the humid climate?  Things had to be pretty darn clean when I worked for the city, I don't think it would have passed, but it was fun.  Oh ya and what looked to be the hot tub was actually cooler than the wave pool.  That was a bit unexpected.  They have a colored armband system so you can be in the pool for about 65 minutes and then you are out to keep the numbers below 250.  Didn't apply today as it wasn't that busy.  So we stayed until we were good and wrinkled.

We had picked up lunch at a bakery we stumbled across in the morning and set the GPS for Culloden.  The route took us right through the middle of Inverness - it is much smaller and cleaner than the other cities we have been in and looked to be quite beautiful. 

We weren't sure we really wanted to go to Culloden Battlefield, but kind of felt we should as it had such an impact and in the end we were glad we did.  The interpretive centre is done really well with the story being told from the Jacobite perspective on one side and the British on the other.  It highlights all the events that led up to the fateful day.  In a nutshell the Highlanders had many victories, but were short in supplies and numbers and the British had large numbers and were well supplied and had been working on honing fighting techniques which could defeat those of the Highland Warriors.  The Highlanders tried to ambush unsuspecting British soldiers at night, but it failed when the fog set in and they realized they would never get to their destination in time.  Turning around, come morning they were starving and exhausted and some of their numbers were off in search of food.  They still could have retreated, but Prince Charlie pushed on and the rest is history.  They show a reinactment of the battle on 4 screens surrounding you in a room which sets the mood before you go out on the Moor.  There are many artifacts on display and there were 2 men dressed up, one as a Jacobite the other as a Redcoat demonstrating the weapons used.  The boys really liked that part.  Keeghan was instructed on how to load an English musket which took a minute or 2 and then was told an English soldier had to be able to shoot 3 rounds a minute and if they couldn't they would get 50 lashes.  Also if you were left handed and couldn't shoot right you got 50 lashes as you had to shoot right with these guns due to the position of the flint.  They pointed out to me, the mother of 3 boys that on the field fighting that day were an 11 year old and the youngest casualty was 14 years old.  From historical information we know that many McLennan's were killed in a prior battle and that not many were at Culloden, but it was listed here that some McLennan's were captured a day prior to the battle and that others from Glen Garry were on the front lines.  The Moor itself is something that cannot be explained, you need to experience it for yourself.