Newtonmore museum
Door: Joel Bakker
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Joël
06 Oktober 2014 | Verenigd Koninkrijk, Newtonmore
On Monday the 20th of September, I, together with my German partner in crime, Torstin, went to Newtonmore. We'd heard of a museum that represented life here from 300 years ago.
So after a morning in which we cleaned the Hostel, the Camping shelter, the Toilet area and hauling wood back and forth, we left the campsite by bicycle.
We made our way down to Nethy Bridge where we once again found ourselves on the way to Aviemore. In Aviemore we had half an hour, which we spended having a more thourough look around town.
After mostly pointlessly wandering around town for a couple of minutes we hopped on the train that would take us to Newtonmore.
Once we'd arrived our next challenge presented itself: figuring out where we needed to go. Imagine getting out of the train and seeing a deserted town with one of those dusty things blowing by, like in an old western film.
That would honestly be more exciting than what we saw. Sad to say, but the first look of Newtonmore was a bit depressing. However, we bravely made our way towards the first sign of life: a traffic sign, always good.
From that moment on, luck shone down on us, we quickly found civilised life and eventually town centre.
We'd gotten a bit hungry by then, remember when I failed to mention a lunch of sorts before we left, so we decided to grab a bite to eat at one of the many local inns and restaurant. We chose one of the smaller tea rooms eventually, mostly because the big sign that practically screamed SCOTTISH PIE(!) and that did look very appealing. We were immediately served by an elderly lady who introduced herself as the owner of that small and lovely place.
Of course we'd already made up our mind and ordered the Scottish pie. Roughly ten minutes later, we were served , what I believe to be, a solidified mix of angel tears and sunshine.
As it happened, I was wrong. It was a Scottish pie and after inquiring what it was made of, we learned that it mostly consisted of mutton (sheep) and even though it was a Scottish recipe and they called it Scottish pie, the rest of the world was equally uninspired and called it Mutton Pie.
Even though it wasn't as exotic and mystical as we'd hoped, it was still delicious and we devoured every little crumb of it.
Now that we'd replentished our energy reserves, time had arrived to make our way to the museum. This time a little more confident, because we'd had the brilliant idea of simply asking where it was before we left the tea room. After roughly fifteen minutes of walking at a brisk pace, we found ourselves at the entrance where we got a very positive surprise: there was no entrance fee! The very nice lady who'd informed us of this gem of information then proceeded to tell us that the museum was made up of three different parts: a small modern house that provided information, a couple of replicas of houses and other buildings, and finally a real life reenactment of life 300 years ago accessible by either a longish route or a very convenient shortcut through the hills.
Since it only had an hour and a half left, we decided to skip the modern house so we could wander around the parts we had originally come to see. We visited the old school where a very strict teacher punished us and explained how schools taught children in Scotland until only 60 years ago.
This was incredibly strict and physical punishment was a common thing.
Afterwards we visited the post office and the general store, after which we decided to head over to the village. Because we were a little pressed for time, the choice of taking the shortcut seemed obvious to us and possibly couldn't go wrong.We took the route that led us directly through the hills, providing us with magnificient views (see profile picture <-- ).
Completely overwhelmed by the sheer magnificence of nature all around us we didn't realise that the shortcut shouldn't take us longer than forty minutes. Once we finally accepted that we'd somehow managed to get lost in a fairly simple situation, we started heading back already realising that once we'd made it back we would only have about twenty minutes left to go to the village and see what was going on.
Sadly, our trip back took us a wee bit longer than expected and the walk to the village proved to be longer as well, leaving us with just a few minutes before we were requested to head back towards the exit.
After this turn of events we didn't feel dissapointed however, seeing the landscape in this manner and having seen at least a part of the museum had proven to be a good combination that satisfied both the need to learn about the culture as well as simply enjoying the landscape around us.
So after a morning in which we cleaned the Hostel, the Camping shelter, the Toilet area and hauling wood back and forth, we left the campsite by bicycle.
We made our way down to Nethy Bridge where we once again found ourselves on the way to Aviemore. In Aviemore we had half an hour, which we spended having a more thourough look around town.
After mostly pointlessly wandering around town for a couple of minutes we hopped on the train that would take us to Newtonmore.
Once we'd arrived our next challenge presented itself: figuring out where we needed to go. Imagine getting out of the train and seeing a deserted town with one of those dusty things blowing by, like in an old western film.
That would honestly be more exciting than what we saw. Sad to say, but the first look of Newtonmore was a bit depressing. However, we bravely made our way towards the first sign of life: a traffic sign, always good.
From that moment on, luck shone down on us, we quickly found civilised life and eventually town centre.
We'd gotten a bit hungry by then, remember when I failed to mention a lunch of sorts before we left, so we decided to grab a bite to eat at one of the many local inns and restaurant. We chose one of the smaller tea rooms eventually, mostly because the big sign that practically screamed SCOTTISH PIE(!) and that did look very appealing. We were immediately served by an elderly lady who introduced herself as the owner of that small and lovely place.
Of course we'd already made up our mind and ordered the Scottish pie. Roughly ten minutes later, we were served , what I believe to be, a solidified mix of angel tears and sunshine.
As it happened, I was wrong. It was a Scottish pie and after inquiring what it was made of, we learned that it mostly consisted of mutton (sheep) and even though it was a Scottish recipe and they called it Scottish pie, the rest of the world was equally uninspired and called it Mutton Pie.
Even though it wasn't as exotic and mystical as we'd hoped, it was still delicious and we devoured every little crumb of it.
Now that we'd replentished our energy reserves, time had arrived to make our way to the museum. This time a little more confident, because we'd had the brilliant idea of simply asking where it was before we left the tea room. After roughly fifteen minutes of walking at a brisk pace, we found ourselves at the entrance where we got a very positive surprise: there was no entrance fee! The very nice lady who'd informed us of this gem of information then proceeded to tell us that the museum was made up of three different parts: a small modern house that provided information, a couple of replicas of houses and other buildings, and finally a real life reenactment of life 300 years ago accessible by either a longish route or a very convenient shortcut through the hills.
Since it only had an hour and a half left, we decided to skip the modern house so we could wander around the parts we had originally come to see. We visited the old school where a very strict teacher punished us and explained how schools taught children in Scotland until only 60 years ago.
This was incredibly strict and physical punishment was a common thing.
Afterwards we visited the post office and the general store, after which we decided to head over to the village. Because we were a little pressed for time, the choice of taking the shortcut seemed obvious to us and possibly couldn't go wrong.We took the route that led us directly through the hills, providing us with magnificient views (see profile picture <-- ).
Completely overwhelmed by the sheer magnificence of nature all around us we didn't realise that the shortcut shouldn't take us longer than forty minutes. Once we finally accepted that we'd somehow managed to get lost in a fairly simple situation, we started heading back already realising that once we'd made it back we would only have about twenty minutes left to go to the village and see what was going on.
Sadly, our trip back took us a wee bit longer than expected and the walk to the village proved to be longer as well, leaving us with just a few minutes before we were requested to head back towards the exit.
After this turn of events we didn't feel dissapointed however, seeing the landscape in this manner and having seen at least a part of the museum had proven to be a good combination that satisfied both the need to learn about the culture as well as simply enjoying the landscape around us.
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
