Thursday, 10 April 2014

Balvenie Castle and the Cooperage

Hello again!

Today we had a proper road trip - a couple of hours up the road from my mum and dad's to Dufftown.


And what's to see at Dufftown?  Quite a lot, it turns out.

Dufftown is in a large area known as Speyside.  It's a beautiful place with lots of rolling hills, fields and stone walls.  The Speyside area is also well known for excellent quality water coming from the natural springs, which is used to make whisky.

There were, and still are many different trades associated with the production of whisky.  One of them is the making of the wooden casks in which it is stored.  Someone who makes casks (one type of cask is a barrel) is called a 'cooper'.  A place where coopers work is known as a 'cooperage', and casks are still made and repaired by hand by skilled tradesmen today.  We visited the Speyside cooperage, watched the coopers making and fixing casks, and had a go at putting together a mini-cask ourselves.  I wasn't very good at it...

This guy is a pro - much better than me!


After the cooperage, we took a tour of one of the many local distilleries, where they make the whisky.


Next we decided to take in a Scottish castle.  There are castles EVERYWHERE in Scotland, and every one of them is a bit different.  Today we visited Balvenie Castle.



Time for a mystery picture: I took this at Balvenie Castle.  Where or what do you think it is a photo of?  Post your ideas in a comment...


Keep up the great work on those amazing maps, Room 5!  The picture Jules sent me shows some really impressive effort.

12 comments:

  1. I'm not sure what that picture is. It looks like a hole in the ground. Or it could be flat.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Its looks really interesting, could it possibly be something like a formation, pattern of the castle perhaps not really sure. It looks like you're having a great time though!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think that you might have taken the picture underneath a turret. Scotland looks so awesomely amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. WoAh!!! ThAt Is AmAzInG.... It looks interesting and as Finn said 'I think that you might have taken the pic under a tunnel' (is looks like it in one of your pics), and just wondering can you speak Scottish? Anyways SCOTLAND looks AMAZINGLY AMAZING...

    ReplyDelete
  5. That looks pretty amazing and it looks so fun as well and your pictures looks so interesting and cool and I hope you are having a blast Scotland :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm not sure, looks like a hole in the ground. Anyway looks like your having loads of fun. :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Beautiful photos. I think it is the inside of a stone roof.

    ReplyDelete
  8. LLLOOOOVVVEEEEEE IIIIIIIIITTTTTTTT AWESOME PLACE BETTER TAKE ME NEXT TIME. ENJOY IT U DESERVE IT FOR ALL TYHE HARD WORK U HAVE DONE, BY THE WAY WHERE IS A PICTURE OF UY AND YOUR NEPHEW?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. WHAT WERE YOU DOING UP IN 2ND PIC WITH BARRELL I THINK.

      Delete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think that it is a turret too

      Delete
  10. ABBEY IS AWESOME!!!5 May 2014 at 18:52

    i really have no idea?/????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

    ReplyDelete