On The Road Again!

And you thought the Dumbarton Bridge only existed in the Bay Area! Well, needless to say, there is a town called Dumbarton here in Scotland that is not too far away from Glasgow and yes, there is a Dumbarton Bridge (although I'm not exactly sure if we've seen it yet). Along with the town and the bridge, there is also Dumbarton Castle, which we decided we had to check out... I mean, after all, we want to see how many castles we can get to and since this one seemed to be a short trip from Glasgow, why not? So off to Dumbarton we go!
 
First stop, as we seem to always do, the tourist information office.  Got some information, talked to the man behind the counter, got a fair recommendation on where we could go to grab a quick bite of lunch, and gathered more travel pamphlets to add to our collection.
 
We drove across the highway from the tourist office and ate at a place that reminded us of a larger scale Baker's Square. Not that they specialized in pies but they did have their sure of desserts and the food had everything from burgers to meat pie (luckily they had salad... Something I had been craving for sometime!).
 
We got good directions to Dumbarton Castle from the cheerful little man at the tourist office. We arrived there not really knowing what to expect. We had experienced Stirling Castle before, which was very well restored and was very very large. We weren't quite sure what Dumbarton Castle had to offer to us, as we were looking at it sitting on the hill above the town. Could it be as grand as Stirling? Would it be pretty? Would it be worth the trip? These were some of the questions we had since it didn't seem to be well publicized in the travel brochures and we couldn't really find a lot of information about it... it certainly made us wonder. We thought we would at least take a look since the man at the travel office told us it was worth a visit.
 
We were able to drive the van to the entry gates of the hotel. We entered the gates and went into the gift shop where we had to pay our entry fee. When we paid, the folks that were working there convinced us to buy a "Historical Travel Passport" that they claimed would save us money if we planning to visit any more castles or other historical sites in Scotland.  We thought long and hard about buying it and decided we would go ahead and purchase the 3 out of 5 days tickets. With these we were allowed to see as many sites as we could in 3 out of the 5 days that the passes were valid.  At first we were all gung ho about this until we realized that the sites that were included in these passes were ones that were sort of off the beaten path and not really major attractions that most tourists would visit.
 
We spent about 45 minutes to an hour at Dumbarton and although it was something to see, we really weren't all that impressed.  There really wasn't much to see, and it certainly wasn't anything like Stirling Castle. Time to move on...
 
Not really knowing what to do next, we took a look at the map that came along with our passport tickets to see what other possible things we might be able to explore and noticed that the Bowane Iron Furnace was listed and we were curious about so... on we  go to see what this is all about. It was rather an interesting place although, probably not worth the long drive it took to get there. We drove and we drove and we drove and drove and even drove some more until we got to the place which was literally in the middle of nowhere! This place was built back in 1752 and was a major location where iron was produced. There are dense forests located around the furnace which makes it a great location for collecting wood for the manufacturing of charcoal. It was a major source of iron production until 1876 and is claimed to be the "longest lived blast furnace in the Scottish highlands".  It was very peaceful there and consisted primarily of barn like structures that houses a lot of the timber and coal. Certainly not the usual place we would have gone to but it was sort of interesting.
 
We were planning to visit Inverary Castle  as we thought it was closer to Dumbarton Castle but unfortunately, once we drove for miles and miles and did our little Furnace exploration, the castle was closed for the day. That didn't stop us! We drove to the castle anyway just to see what it looked like from the outside and to see if it was worth trying to come back to. Absolutely no doubt... this is a place we will try to return once we figure out our travel plans to the Isle of Skye up in the northwest highlands. This castle was the closest one that resembled the Cinderella castle at Disneyland. It wasn't as big as Cinderella's but it certainly was impressive. Not only did we enjoy the view of the castle, we also got a special treat getting to know the highland cows that were located in a large field at the rear of the castle parking lot. We had seen these types of cows along the roads we had been traveling on and intended to stop the next time it was convenient to take pictures. We were pleasantly surprised to be able to get up so close to them and spend some time watching and talking with them. There were a pair of adorable little ones that were eating near the fence we were by. They seemed to feel comfortable with us nearby and they even approached us so that we were able to pet them. Michael had a great time petting one of the less shy ones. He even got licked by the cow on the hand, which isn't something that happens everyday. These cows were absolutely adorable.. we fell in love with them and wanted to take one home but we weren't sure how Ben would feel having a baby brother or sister cow to play with! I guess we need to check with him first!
 
We drove all the way back home after a very long day of driving. I started to get a horrible headache on the way back to Glasgow that wasn't much fun so Michael had to drop me off at the house before heading to go pick up dinner. He found a little Italian place nearby and brought back some yummy food back for us to enjoy. A little rest, some Advil and food in my stomach made everything MUCH better.  I look forward to a fresh start tomorrow... nighty night!