Summer fun: Clava Cairns and the Gruffalo, etc

Last week we visited Balnuaran of Clava, which is a "prehistoric cemetery" (3-4000 years old!) just outside Inverness. I can't believe I've lived in the Highlands for nearly 7 years and had *no* idea there was such an amazing place to explore! It was our study of Stonehenge in "The Mystery of History" that got me started looking for local standing stone sites and I don't think my kids will ever forget what we've learned.



Should anyone be interested to learn more about the site, I've included photos of the notice boards, with lots of fascinating information about the different stone mounds/circles. So those reading my blog can get a bit of a virtual tour! ;-) Though some of you might think dozens of photos of stones is rather boring, but afraid I really loved being there *and* taking the photos, so had to share them here! :)



Peter and children heading towards the North-East Passage Grave (cairn)


Very rocky ground - looks like some kind of path, perhaps?



Peter and children & Rebekah with the North-East Passage Grave behind them


same again


Going inside the central area of the passage grave - it would have had a "roof" over the top originally, as shown in above notice board.


inner wall of passage grave


looking back at it, with the circle of stones around it



Then not very many feet away we came to the Central Ring Cairn. Kids thought it was very exciting to climb over the ring of stones and get into the centre (not sure they were meant to climb it, but it's not *too* high).


Interesting standing stone.


Climbing out!


Abigail, Clement and Miriam


My dear Clement peeking round from behind "a very big old old stone" (as he likes to call them)





Benjamin running around inside the South-West Passage Grave - he *loved* exploring there AND he was reading all the notices too (not all words, of course) and asking questions.


and again


with Rebekah


Just beside the South-West Passage Grave is the road - and as you can see, it goes right through the circle of standing stones! Kind of interesting having a road through here.


same

other side of the circle of stones


Benjamin standing next to a stone inside the passage grave which has "cup marks" on it


Interesting stones here, with Benjamin peeking through! :)



Kerb Cairn


Interesting stone path of sorts, going from the Central Ring Cairn to one of the stones in the outer circle.


Abigail and Rebekah


Benjamin next to a very tall stone! :-)


And just around the corner from the Clava Cairns, this amazing Culloden Moor Viaduct, the longest masonry viaduct in Scotland and one of the most spectacular, built in 1898.


After our visit to the cairns, we meet up with more friends and other homeschoolers at a park in Inverness for a picnic.

Then we went on a Gruffalo hunt! ;-) (surely everyone knows the children's story of the Gruffalo?) it was led/organised by the local rangers.


Lots of notices and cards about what forest animals eat, and puppets and stuffed toys along the way


at the end the large carved statue of the Gruffalo, made from a old cut down tree


And Benjamin was *delighted* to find a real Gruffalo too (well, someone dressed up) and didn't want to leave! He kept pulling his tail though! oops


A lovely smile on Benjamin's face :-)


and again


a tired Clement being worn by his Daddy, in a "Toddler Patapum" sling


Deborah who is always full of adventure - she's standing up at *everything*. I know she'll be walking soon - and climbing! eek!


My biggest 3 children - just happened to find them like this, in age ascending order too!



a few days ago Abigail recreated Stonehenge - from memory too! I was quite impressed! :-)


Behind bars! lol


Future bungee jumper?? Looks like she's about to leap out of her seat.


Sisters enjoying the sunshine

Nigg with Abigail and Benjamin: guest post by Peter

A few weeks ago, in the spring, I took Abigail and Benjamin for a walk at Nigg, about 8 miles from here. I've kept noticing that the pictures were still on my camera, so thought I'd like to share them here.

Nigg is notable amongst other things for the large 1970s KBR oil rig construction site, currently kept on a maintenance basis awaiting decisions on its future, and next door to it, an active oil terminal.

Nigg's Christian history in recent centuries includes a 1739 revival and 1756 secession from the Church of Scotland over the imposition of an unsuitable minister, which led to a rare rural Highland branch of the Seceders, represented today by Balintore United Free Church. The evangelical minister of the parish of Alness, James Fraser (author of a Treatise on Sanctification) owned an estate at Pitcalzean, Nigg, and supported the seceding people of the parish of Nigg.


On to our walk:

First we visited Nigg Old Church (link to website created by the trust that looks after it), a 17th century T-shaped church on a site which was likely a place of Christian worship for some 1200 years.

This was the pretty view facing us as we entered the church - the pulpit is round to the left on the same wall as the entrance door.






Benjamin and Abigail in the pulpit:



The picture below shows pews facing the pulpit. Not only were there the three wings of pews shown in the photos, but also some lofts (galleries) for the wealthy which have now been walled off.


None of the three church buildings around the village are in regular use for worship nowadays - the nearest Church of Scotland in weekly use being the historic Fearn Abbey, while the nearby Seaboard Villages (Hilton/Balintore/Shandwick) have three other evangelical Presbyterian churches which saw quite a number of people come to faith in the later 20th century since I lived there as a child. Nigg itself seems rather depopulated compared to what it would have been when the agriculture of the surrounding prosperous farm land was done by hand. Hugh Mackenzie, one of the elders in our church and a local farmer, remembers the contrast he noticed when he started farming on the Fearn peninsula in the 1960s (?), between how he was working one of his own fields on his own with mechanisation and the numerous labourers in a neighbouring farm field which was still being worked the old way.


In a side room underneath one of the old lofts is the current home of the Nigg Pictish stone (one of several comparable stones within 15 miles). Thought to be from the eighth century, it has religious designs apparently about the 3rd/4th century Egyptian hermit monks Paul and Anthony, and about the Biblical King David.


This gravestone in the churchyard was one amongst several that caught the children's eye:
Looking down from the side of the church onto the Bishop's Walk, which was where we went next:


The wild cherry tree here was labelled, as are a good number of other trees of different species in the wood, some native, some long established in Britain, and some brought from British colonies:After we got through the wood we came to the seaside of Nigg Bay. This discarded piece of what seemed to me to be old carved sandstone (from where?) interested the children:


Benjamin walking along the shore, composed of sand, stones, and ....

cockle shells!

We meant to go back by a different path, but didn't find it, so we walked cautiously back along the side of the road and back to the church along the Bishop's Walk, stopping for a snack on a seat by a pond. And yes, they were tired!