We woke up to yet another beautiful sunny day. Lucky! The natives tell us this weather is rare here. Hard to believe from our experiences thus far.

Today, we will try to find another famous Hutton rock outcrop. It is within Edinburgh city limits, and we found a university narrative to help us get there. This afternoon, we take the train to Inverness to meet up with our field trip with the Geological Society of America and the Geological Society of London.

Yesterday on the way to Siccar Point, we were persuaded to purchase the “historic Scotland Explorer Pass” at Tantallon Castle. It gets us into lots of castles for one price, like the Gold Pass for our National Parks. So, today we will explore Edinburgh Castle, a short walk from our hotel. 

This is Tantallon Castle from yesterday. We wandered all over, inside and out. Bass Island, a steep mound in the firth and visible from the castle is the home of 20,000 nesting pairs of gannets. The top of the island is bright white, and from the highest point we could climb in the castle, we could see many white birds swimming on the water surface.

We had High Tea in Edinburgh Castle. Fancy, eh?

A full day is not enough time to absorb all the stories of this castle. Magnificent! Artifacts from pre-Roman times were found at the site, but the rock walls were constructed from the 1300’s through present day. A lot of human history is present. This is a real Castle Rock!

View of castle from north. Our room is to the west of the castle. It’s all uphill to get there.

View from castle, looking north toward the Firth of Forth.

A Church in the castle.

View of city from road going down from castle.

My favorite part was the Renaissance Musician who played 7 ancient instruments and told stories about them and about himself. Some instruments looked difficult to play, and the sounds of others were strange to our current-day ears. The most complicated one was the hurdy-gurdy which sounded a little like the bagpipes. He started and ended his act with that one.

Fun costume!

Reading about the castle prior to arriving here, I had the impression that it dominated the city’s skyline. It might have, historically, but now it is difficult to see from many places, including the area around our hotel. Perhaps it was hard to see in the past, too, because the topography is astonishingly variable and STEEP. Bridges have been built between mounds of rock. The castle sits on a 340 million year old volcanic plug, possibly the throat of a volcano. It stands high, but other volcanic plugs nearby are just as high. Our old friend from yesterday’s excursion, James Hutton, described the volcanics in his studies of the area.

Back to the castle and what we saw today.

Some gold on the outside, was bright in the sunshine today. 

The Great Hall stored hundreds of swords on the wall and tens of coats of arms. This was also the room where the musician played. The back wall was decorated with guns!

Would you call this a gun wheel? There were several in that room.

St. Margaret’s chapel, one of the oldest buildings within the castle wall, had stained glass windows.

Brian standing in a guard alcove (sentry box?) 

Pub outside of castle. We could have stopped there, but we had to pick up laundry. Good night. 🙂

We found it! And a college geology class did, too. No surprise in that, the surprise was the cliff we had to climb down to get to the outcrop. Hutton was smart to get there by boat. But we brought my camera today, which the iPad understands, so:

Look at them all, from Darby College, England, wandering around looking for what to our eyes is an obvious unconformity. The professor was happy to meet geologists from Colorado who travelled so far “just” to see these rocks. He used us as an example for his students to realize how important this spot is to the whole world.

Brian said today we got a great car, but since I didn’t drive, I can’t say. What do you think?

Yup! That is a Jaguar. Powerful. Wrong side of the road. Man car. 😉 

But before we went to Siccar Point, we visited a castle. What was he doing there?

Taking pictures of wildflowers! We are enjoying ourselves completely. Good night.