Today was a lot nicer weatherwise, although it was still raining hard when we woke up.  After breakfast we headed off towards the village of Braco in the Black Hills near Crieff.  We wanted to see the Ardoch Roman Fort there.  In fact there were two forts and several marching camps back in the 1st/2nd century when they were occupied.  The first fort was believed to have been set up by Agricola, the father in law of the historian Tacitus, whose campaign was detailed by the historian.  All that’s left now are the extensive and impressive earthworks that protected the site.  Great humped ditches.  Its impressive if you are interested in that sort of thing.

The area around there though is a great, gorgeous, timeless stretch of green and golden hills, probably hardly changed in 2000 years.  There is the odd farm dotted about, nestling into the hillside, some sparse flocks of sheep…. red kites hovering overhead, hunting in the grass….  Must be pretty bleak in the winter up there but at this time of the year it was glorious.

We came down eventually to the east end of Loch Earn and drove along the north bank.  Found a nice pub on the loch edge and had a cold drink in the sun.    Continued on through the countryside, revisited our friends, the Highland cows again and a wool and tweed factory.

Later on this afternoon we had to pay for our stay by visiting the site of some new Lochside lodges and sit through a sales pitch.  It was quite a hard sell and we weren’t remotely tempted to buy.

Knackered by the time we got back to Callander and we ate dinner in our hotel, washed down by two more of their fabulous gin mixes.