We drove from Aviemore South to Dunkeld Cathedral just after 9am this morning - more roadworks along the way. It was only a short trip, so it wasn't too bad.

We saw some lovely little National Trust houses in the street leading up towards the Cathedral, quite amazing how people don't do more damage to their cars in these narrow streets (perhaps they do?!?).

The Little Houses (as they're called) in Cross and High Street were built after Dunkeld was sacked during the Jacobite Uprising in the 1600's. These houses were restored by the National Trust for Scotland along with the Local Authority during the 1950's and 60's. They form the core of the buildings in the centre of Dunkeld. They are now private dwellings.



The Dunkeld Cathedral was built in 1318 but reduced to a ruin during the reformation. The choire, re-roofed in 1660, now serves as the parish church.



Inside the Sacristy are some amazing artifacts from history including statues depicting bibical stories; a statue of contraversial historical figure Alexander Stewart (circa 1343-1406), Earl of Buchan and Lord of Badenoch (hi Marion!) also known as The Wolf of Badenoch; an Effigy of Bishop Sinclair who built the Cathedral Choir in the 1300's; a 9th or 10th century carved Apostle Stone depicting a battle scene and the Great Curfew Bell from the late 1600's. The bell was housed in a special wooden belfry and rang out daily at 6am and 8pm. For many years elderly citizens spoke warmly of their childhood days when the curfew bell signalled time to go home from play on summer evenings. The bell was rung up until the first World War and was taken down for safety in 1975.

We passed through Birnham Wood, which Kaye tells me is mentioned in Macbeth. Woo.

We drove on from Dunkeld to Scone Palace where we toured yet more amazing rooms with no option for photography :( The palace itself is huge, as this model shows.



We drove on and had lunch in Perth (pizza hut for me vs cafe for Kaye) before heading past Dundee and across a bridge to Saint Andrews.

Kaye walked around the old golf course and I went to the "Secret" Nuclear Bunker, an artifact of the cold war, now a tourist attraction.

Kaye will write up her experience on the old course soon, check back here for any update in this regard. Meanwhile, the Secret Bunker is about 10 miles south east of St Andrews and was built during the cold war to house one of the UK's many major government nuclear bunkers.

Old military equipment now lies around the innocent looking farmhouse which sits atop the underground facility to give it an air of the times.



The facility is entered via the main tunnel which is 150 yards long and enclosed in 18 inches of solid concrete - the entire site was excavated and build using massive amounts of concrete (typically 3mtrs thick) reinforced with Tungsten bars.

Filled with cold war recreations such as the RAF control room, communications room, etc it is quite amazing how much effort they put into preparing for the bomb which thankfully was never dropped. Several movie rooms play clips from the times including news reels telling people how to prepare for a nuclear bomb being dropped on their heads - like anything was really going to help anyone outside that bunker anyway.

They had an amazing display in the munitions room of classic weapons and artiliary of the time - including the M1A1 Thompson, MP40, Sten and many others seen recently in online computer games such as Battlefield 1942 and MOH:AA. "Cool!" :-)

I finished up just after 5pm, so I missed the opportunity to visit the shop to buy the guide book and post cards - we'll try and get back later this week.

I drove back to St Andrews to pick up Kaye from the old course and we then headed off home via "The Hedge" - an absolutely massive Beech Hedge.