27 May 2012 DRUMMUIR Sunday

We had a very interesting morning meeting Keith's relatives whom he, also, hadn't met before.  We ended up getting invaluable advice for our outings for the week ahead as well as wonderful leads for Allans Scottish descendants too.

In the afternoon we took a walk through the Isla woodland in search of Drummuir Castle.  With a delightful tramping through the forest, the path lead us to a little wooden bridge crossing the Isla River and it just so happened that our timing was perfect as the old diesel train pulled in to the quite unobtrusive train station - you'll see in the photo, that is the station we're standing on.

Having not expected to be getting the train, we quite literally, counted out our pennies for the fare and didn't have enough between us for four tickets, so some quick decision-making later and the Conductor let us on at the reduced rate of our total contribution.
The carriage was a 1960's edition and is run by volunteers on weekends.  A husband and wife team make up the Management and a friends shares the driving(?).  It goes between Dufftown and Keith, but obviously we only got on at Drummuir which is 6 miles from Keith and back again, following the Isla River all the way, with donkeys, cows, sheep and even buck dotting the lush green landscape as we trundled by.
After arriving back at Drummuir station, we continued on our woodland meander past Church ruins from 1677 and through the wildflowers, to find ourselves in the Drummuir Walled Garden.  It is a real-life "Secret Garden" with nooks and crannies, rabbits and ducks and all manner of herbs and veggies, PLUS they have the secret gate to Drummuir Castle which they kindly allowed us access to.

There were even eggs in the Castle grounds. (OF COURSE we didn't touch them)