Ayrshire, Scotland

On our second day in Ayrshire, our friend picked us up early and took us out to the southwestern coast of Scotland in the Ayrshire county. We visited several castle ruins that were standing along the coasts on the beach and the wind was whipping about ferociously and the rain that fell was quite cold. The first castle had a band of gypsies parked on a small piece of land opposite the castle. Somehow they were casually relaxing in an open air tent with the strong, cold winds and rain. The castle had an entranceway that led inside the castle but some of the steps up to the second story were gone but I was able to use a rope hanging from the top to pull myself up and take some shots of the water and views from the upper level of the ruins. As usual, dumb kids had left their marks everywhere by spray painting different stupidities inside the castle. We left and drove on to another set of castle ruins a little further up the coast. These ruins though, were actually protected by the Scottish Heritage something and had fences up inside to prevent people from going into the dangerous parts of the castle. The Heritage something had put up a board outside the castle that described what they thought each room served for and who had previously lived in the castle. Around a small bend, a group of conservationists had put together a labyrinth in 2008 that, to me, looked like a giant mushroom. After this, we set off for another castle called Culzean Castle and this one was quite well kept and of course, closed to visitors to walk inside. The grounds had a deer field, where one brave deer had ventured up to the fence to be rubbed and scratched by gawking tourists. We walked around the grounds, which were immense and found an old gas chamber that was built. It wasn't a room for killing people but rather a room where they were able to siphon natural gas off of things in order to heat the castle. One thing you notice in Scotland as well, even though they are part of the United Kingdom, you never see the Union Jack flag flying, only the Scottish flag flying alone. After our castle tour, we headed out to a small but famous town called Turnberry. Turnberry is home to a famous golf course used by the Open Tour for major tournaments and boy did they know they could milk that. The hotel was quite spectacular, with its castle style looks and the course looked amazing and on that cold, blustery day, it would cost you a mere 95 pounds to play or $160 for a round of 18. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through Ayr as our friend had wedding duties of his girlfriend's sister. We later were taken to the wedding party where we were able to see some interesting wedding party traditions Scottish style and the whole wedding party of men was dressed in kilts of the military regalia as the groom was a soldier. Everyone at the party was super nice to us and just interested in the fact that we were having a great time in Scotland and we were. Thanks again to our friend Darren for taking care of us our first few days in Scotland.

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