The Bothy: Milton of Tillynaught

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Something unique about Scotland is that they don’t use street addresses like we do in the United States. Their “addresses” can be as small as a town name and a postal code. Because of this, we had a hard time finding “The Bothy,” which was way out in the middle of nowhere. We passed miles and miles of golden fields full of scattered haybales, and eventually recognized the new metal bridge and the old train bridge that our host referred to, and found their driveway in between the two bridges.

When we pulled into the gravely, grass covered driveway, we looked around the area for a possible place to park our way too large Mercedes rental, and tried to figure out which building was the guesthouse and which one was their own house. We checked our papers to see if our hosts, Janet and Rod, had indicated what we were supposed to do when we arrived, and meanwhile they were standing outside our car waiting for us to open the door. Oops!

They got us settled into the cozy little bothy and lit the wood stove, and told us to feel free to roam wherever we wanted. We liked that. It was also nice to see two eggs for us on their kitchen table, and a small jug of milk in the fridge. We later found out that those two eggs were all they had gotten from their hens for the last two days. Out of 18 birds, they only get 1 egg per day. We felt spoiled getting two eggs!

After bundling up, we walked out and explored their property (and said hi to their chickens) and talked to Rod as he unloaded roof slates from his van. He told us about an old mill he had considered fixing up, but realized it was too much work due to flooding. He also told us about a path he had mowed down by the river right near their house and suggested we take a walk along it. It was a beautiful walk! We didn’t see any deer like he had said we might, but we did get to see the old mill and some ruins nearby. We walked inside the mill and found a small boat and some old bags of fertilizer and not too much else, other than broken floorboards from the second story.

The bothy was all warm and cozy with the fire still burning for us when we got back from our walk. We ate some delicious cheese and crackers for supper (off Janet’s adorable chicken themed dishes) and worked on our blog in the evening, then headed to sleep in the cozy bedroom full of chicken themed decor.