“Windy, rainy, and cold, but I’d play anyway…if I could afford it!”  -Mike 

(The very famous Swilcan Bridge at St. Andrews)

When I realized we were going to have more free time in Stirling than anyone needed, I rented a car for two days. On our second morning, we walked about a mile to the car rental company and picked up our car. The plan for the day was to visit St. Andrews -a legendary place for golfers- and Mike is a golfer. I also squeezed in two stops “on the way” -which only qualified as being “on the way” because they were technically between Stirling and St. Andrews, but not directly.   

Our first stop was to see the Kelpies.  In Scottish folklore, a kelpie is a dangerous shape-shifting water creature that lives in lochs and can appear on land as a horse. The kelpie appears to their human victims as a grey or white horse, entices them to ride on their back, then carries them down to a watery grave.

These Kelpie horses were installed in 2013 and are placed at the Eastern entry gate to the Forth and Clyde Canal.  Both heads are 98 feet tall.

After we did a quick walk around them, we wanted to see the Falkirk Wheel too. The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift -rather than a traditional lock and dam.  It lifts (or lowers) boats 79 feet as they lock through a canal system in this area.  For some reason, I thought it was within walking distance of the Kelpies, but it turns out that it was about 5 miles away. We drove there, but the parking lot situation/fee was weirdly complicated to figure out -so, although disappointed, we decided to move on.  

Our next stop was Midhope Castle, known to Outlander fans as Lallybroch.  I am an Outlander fan, but not a fanatic. However, knowing we were that close, I couldn’t resist making a quick stop. 

It was in 2013 when Midhope gained new fame by appearing as Lallybroch in Outlander, but Midhope already had its own history.  It was first referenced in 1458 as Medhope, the home of the Martyne family.  It became Midhope in 1478 when the Livingston family became the owners.   Between then and 1678, there were a few different owners.  In 1678, the Hope family bought Midhope and the lands surrounding it.  They lived in the castle until 1705, after which they moved to nearby Hopetoun House.  Both Midhope and Hopetoun House are located on the Hopetoun Estate lands.  After they moved, the castle was used to house workers for the estate for many years. Eventually, by the 1930’s, the castle was left vacant and suffered some damage along the way -in particular by a fire in the 1950’s that destroyed the roof.  In the late 1980’s, restoration work strengthened the walls and restored the roof.  The Hope family is still the owner of Midhope to this day -going on 350 years..  

Interestingly, the Hopes have kept the area around Midhope relatively natural and undeveloped because It is still part of a working farm.  They have a parking area behind two old barns a short distance from the entrance gate.  After you walk down a one lane road you find a tiny ticket “hut” at the gate and that’s about it. 

Basically all you can do after buying your ticket is to walk up the drive -a scene we’ve seen many times in Outlander- and view the exterior.  Even so, it was still fun to see it. Mike decided he couldn’t handle that much fun and waited for me in the car.

The drive to St. Andrews wasn’t much more than 50 miles, but it took nearly an hour and one-half to get there.  By the time we got to St. Andrews, we only had time to find lunch and then locate the Links Clubhouse where our official tour started -much to my disappointment. I had hoped to walk through the town and see the castle, cathedral and other interesting sites, but we didn’t have time. 

St. Andrews is known as the birthplace of golf.  It is believed that golf was first played here in the 1400’s.  It was officially recognized as a playing field in 1552. Originally, a round of golf was 22 holes, but by 1764 it was formalized at 18 holes and that became the standard for a round of golf everywhere.  There are seven different courses here in a very small area.  

It was not only cold, with rain showers there, the wind was HOWLING!!  We’d dressed warmly (we thought) because we knew it would be colder that day -but we were still freezing!  

The whole story of St. Andrews is quite interesting.  The courses are public and operated by a trust, which preserves the rights of the locals to use the course.  It is difficult and expensive for a visitor to get a tee time there, though not impossible.  Part of the expense of golfing there is getting a caddie, because golf carts are not allowed at St. Andrews, except for people who are handicapped.  Even in that circumstance, only caddies are allowed to drive the carts.

There are wide walkways crossing the course -and there’s even a road that crosses from one side to the other in the middle of the fairways!  The course is closed on Sundays, but the grounds are not closed off to the public.  Instead St. Andrews becomes more like a public park for the day.  

Our tour guide was a local man who gets to golf on the course a lot and he was quite knowledgeable and entertaining about the history of the course, with stories from different Open Championships over the years.  One of the first things he did was take us up onto the clubhouse’s rooftop deck.  It had some nice views.

As he led the tour, the guide was conveniently steering everyone from the clubhouse in the middle of the course toward the side of the course where we’d parked our car -and after he had shown us the 18th hole green, which was next to the 1st hole tee boxes, we made our apologies and left the tour because we were just a short walk to the car in the parking lot. As we headed toward the car, Mike told me he knew a place where we could warm up for a minute…turns out it was the Travis Matthews golf store and someone wanted to shop!  

By then, knowing that we had at least a 1.5 hour drive back to Stirling, we had to ditch our plans to walk around the city of St. Andrews.  Our hotel in Stirling had a small “pick-up-stix” (i.e. no rhyme or reason) parking area -first come, first served- and we were hoping to park the car there for the night. The hotel receptionist had given me a general idea of the best time of day to find a parking spot, and if we left “now”, we’d arrive within that time frame.  So we hit the road.

As we pulled in to the hotel lot, we noticed a man headed for the hotel entrance, pulling a suitcase, and it appeared he’d gotten the last possible parking spot… womp!…womp!  The only other possible parking spot (questionable) was near a gate that had a sign on it instructing people not to park close to the gate.  While we were debating whether to park there or not, a hotel worker came by and said that he thought it would be OK if we squeezed in closer to the next car over.  So, we hesitantly parked there since we had no Plan B for overnight parking.  Just as I got out of the car, I noticed that someone was pulling out of a safer spot just behind us. Mike jumped back in the car and moved to the new spot fast -right as another car was entering the lot.  Wow did we get lucky! 

Categories: Scotland -2025, Stirling -Day 2