S2.
Exploring Beauly:
Kevin and Cathy’s Highland Highlights
Welcome to the fourth episode of Season two.
In this episode, Dawn chats with Kevin and Cathy from the YouTube channel Just Thought Lounge. The Canadian duo, who moved to the UK a decade ago, share their recent adventures in the Scottish Highlands, particularly their visit to Beauly. They discuss their exploration of the Beauly Priory, the charming local train station, and their visit to the village’s award-winning gift shop. The conversation also touches on their dining experiences and their brief trip to Dingwall. Kevin and Cathy reflect on their potential move to Scotland and the allure of the Highlands. Listen now to hear more about their delightful recounting of their travels.
FEATURED:
Kevin and Cathy- Just Thought Lounge
You can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00: Introduction and Welcome
00:02:05: Favourite Place in Scotland: Beauly
00:03:39: Clip from Just Thought Lounge Podcast
00:05:17: Connection to Beauly and the MacRae Family
00:06:59: Exploring Beauly and the Priory
00:20:16: Trip to Dingwall
00:22:27: Future Plans and Exploring More of the Highlands
00:23:08: Where to Find Just Thought Lounge Online
00:23:45: History and Facts About Beauly
00:25:17: Annual Events in Beauly
00:26:49: Conclusion and Where to Find More Information
Visit Beauly – The Beautiful Place
Beaufort Castle – Beauly – Parks & Gardens
Beaufort Castle Dounie Beauly Kiltarlity and Convinth Inverness-shire Highland Scotland Scottish
Beauly Priory | Lead Public Body for Scotland’s Historic Environment
Beauly Visitor Guide – Accommodation, Things To Do & More | VisitScotland
Beaufort Castle, Scotland – Wikipedia
BEAULY PRIORY: All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos)
HISTORY — Belladrum Festival 2024 – Homegrown in the Highlands
North Coast 500 – The ultimate road trip around the North of Scotland
File:High Street, Beauly – geograph.org.uk – 4168794.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
The Priory Hotel | Beauly | Official Site | Best Rate Direct
File:Floral display, Beauly – geograph.org.uk – 4168791.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
File:Beauly priory north side 29042008.JPG – Wikimedia Commons
File:Beauly Priory – geograph.org.uk – 3367209.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
File:The Priory at Beauly – geograph.org.uk – 5346819.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
File:Beauly Priory.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
File:High Street, Beauly – geograph.org.uk – 3364923.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
Old School Beauly – Shopping Heaven in the Highlands
Harry Gow | Your Favourite Highland Bakery – Always Baked from Scratch | Harry Gow
Scottish Digest Podcast is a production of cluarantonn.com
Hosted and Researched by Dawn
Edited by Erin Erin Ferguson (@erinfergus0n) • Instagram photos and videos
Map courtesy of openstreetmap
Images courtesty of commons.wikimedia.org/
Music:
Epidemic by ES_The Celtic Flavour – Alysha Sheldon & ES_A Sound Foundation – Airae
Production Company Name by Granny Robertson
Dawn [0:00 – 0:36]: Welcome to another episode of Scottish Digest. In this episode, we will be speaking to Kevin and Cathy from the YouTube podcast just thought Lounge, who will be talking to us about one of their favourite places in Scotland, Beaulieu. Okay, so, hi, Kevin and Cathy, welcome to the podcast.
Cathy [0:36 – 0:38]: Hi, Don. Thanks for having us. Yeah, good to be here.
Dawn [0:38 – 0:45]: Oh, it’s lovely to speak to you again. So, can you tell us a little bit about you and what brought you to the UK?
Cathy [0:45 – 1:32]: Sure, Don. Yeah. So we are originally from Canada and we moved to the UK about ten years ago so that Kathy could go to do her master’s programme was essentially what brought us over here and we ended up just really enjoying it and living in England and we decided to stay. So one short year turned into ten years and we’ve got no plans to leave. So, a little bit about us. We run the channel, a YouTube channel called the Just Thought Lounge, which is a true crime channel where we do many documentaries that are 20 to 40 minutes in length, where we just kind of consolidate and tell a story in a very succinct, distilled down way in a mini documentary format.
Dawn [1:32 – 1:46]: You’ve been very, you know, modest. It’s an amazing channel. And Kathy, I don’t know who’s doing what now, but Kathy was doing all the videos and they were beautiful. Couldn’t replicate that. Tried, couldn’t do it. Wow.
Cathy [1:46 – 1:46]: Thanks.
Dawn [1:46 – 1:48]: It’s very talented.
Cathy [1:49 – 1:53]: It’s been quite a lot. It’s been quite a journey with the channel, but we’re happy with where we are now.
Dawn [1:53 – 1:58]: Okay, then. So what we’re here for is to talk about your favourite place in Scotland where you recently visited.
Cathy [1:58 – 2:05]: And it is today we’re talking about Bewley, just outside of Inverness in north Scotland.
Dawn [2:10 – 2:41]: Like I said, Kevin is the host of the YouTube podcast just thought lounge, as well as working with Cathy to do everything else behind the scenes, the write, edit and produce the episodes for YouTube. They are both from Canada, but moved to England about ten years ago. However, they had thought about perhaps moving to Scotland in the future, and so they went on a wee holiday to a few areas in Scotland last year. But before we hear about their trip to Scotland first, heres a clip from an episode of Kevin and Kathys podcast, just thought lounge.
Kevin [2:41 – 3:39]: In March 2024, Riley Strain was on a pub crawl with friends down Broadway and Nashville, the popular main strip packed with shops, bars and restaurants. The 22 year old left his last bar of the night at just past 09:30 p.m. he seemed to vanish only minutes later, even with cameras retracing his steps through the city. There were gaps in his movements, witnesses coming forward that could not always be trusted. Clues were being uncovered that raised more questions than answers. And amager sleuths online were both helping and hurting the investigation. Hi there, Im Kevin and welcome to just thought lounge. Todays case has recently gone viral across social media. Amongst the mystery of Rileys disappearance is a family desperate for answers, bizarre clues that seem to defy common sense and a few outlandish theories.
Cathy [3:39 – 3:41]: Let’s take a look.
Dawn [3:55 – 3:59]: Why did you end up going? Why did you choose there? Why was that your place? You went?
Cathy [3:59 – 5:17]: So it was just recently, it was just in August, and we’ve recently been talking about actually making a house move and we’re looking at different areas still within the UK. And we’ve always really liked the Highlands in Scotland. We’ve been there a couple times, so, yeah, so we really like the Highlands in Scotland. Been there a couple times. So what we wanted to do before settling on any location was just kind of get a feel for the area, right, and kind of get a feel for up north towards Inverness. So we took a trip, started in Glasgow and took the train up past pit Locrie, past Avermore, took a little left at Inverness and we ended up in Beaulieu. We picked a couple spots along the way, pit lockery Avamore, just to kind of get a feel for the area. We had never heard of Bewley before. We didn’t know anything about it. But as we were looking at the area, we did have one sort of connection there, which. Which we thought was interesting, which I’m sure a lot of people say, but Kathy’s family name is McCray and the McCrays do have a link to that area. So we thought, if we’re going to be up there anyways, kind of scoping things out, why don’t we make Beulia a pit stop and kind of see what it’s all about? Do you have any Beaulieu facts?
Dawn [5:17 – 5:33]: A fun fact. The Beuley Priory was location mentioned in the Outlander book series written by Deanna Gabaldon. But I don’t watch that series to use. Do. Yeah, they love it. There you go. Beautiful.
Cathy [5:33 – 5:48]: Yeah, I was right. I had no idea there was a beauty connection, but I did in fact, read pretty much all of those books before the series started. So I have been watching it. Yeah, it’s very. It’s very cheesy. I mean, I’m not going to recommend it, but. Yes.
Dawn [5:49 – 6:01]: Yeah, very nice. And you actually sent me some photos before recorded. And it’s off. Well, it’s off the gravestone. McCrae gravestone. So what. So what is the connection then? Who’s James McCrae?
Cathy [6:02 – 6:59]: Yeah, well, James McCray is actually my father’s name. So I, you know, Google told me that the Beaulieu was the traditional home of the McCray clan. So we thought, well, we’re already heading up in this direction. This is a good area for us to, you know, just have a. Just have a look around. And I was probably at the train for, I don’t know, ten minutes before we ran into. Ran into an old resident that had my father’s name, which I just thought was, you know, so I. Whatever it is, whatever you take from that. But, yeah, I mean, the idea was to be able to view the area not so much as a tourist. They sort of get an idea of what the area would be like for locals and to live in. Of course. Though, interestingly enough, of course, you show up and, you know, with all of your luggage and the first thing you do is every touristy thing that you can because you want to get back to you what the area is and what’s interesting and what it has to offer. Essentially what we did.
Dawn [6:59 – 7:02]: So what did you do? Tell us some of the things that you did when you were there.
Cathy [7:03 – 7:51]: Yeah. So I guess arriving at Beuley worth noting is the train station. The Beaulieu train station is the smallest platform we’ve ever seen. It was probably about ten yards long. It was large enough to kind of fit one carriage on the train. You had to get off on the right one. Yeah. Basically two doors opened on the train. So that was, that sort of told us what we were stepping into was not maybe a commuter hotspot or really a happening place, but we just found that really interesting, that the planning of the Beaulieu train station was clearly. They also weren’t expecting it to grow over time. Right. They just kind of built it for that one carriage to stop, which was interesting. So.
Dawn [7:51 – 7:54]: So were you on the right carriage then, or did you have to make a mud dash?
Cathy [7:54 – 8:11]: They made sure. Yeah, they made sure that they huddled everyone forward to the right doors. To be fair, don, it was not a large train either. That’s fair. Yeah, that’s. Yeah, that’s personal. Yeah. There weren’t many of us heading that way. 50 50 chance to get the right door, I think.
Dawn [8:11 – 8:17]: So. This is great. The picture in my head, it’s like this little dinky train. This little dinky little.
Cathy [8:18 – 8:25]: We’ll send you over we actually. We got a picture of the train station, too. I’ll send that to you after and you can have a look at it. It’s pretty. It’s pretty cute.
Dawn [8:25 – 8:28]: Yeah, that would be cool. So whereabouts did you stay when you were there, then?
Cathy [8:29 – 8:48]: So we stayed right downtown on the high street. So right in Beaulieu, there’s a nice little square that basically has everything happening. And then there’s houses surrounding it. But right downtown on the high street, there’s a square, and we stay. They call it downtown. It was the happening area. It was the happening area. It was the happening. It was the high street.
Dawn [8:48 – 8:49]: Is that the only street?
Cathy [8:51 – 9:17]: Basically, state. You get off on Station Road, and you walk about a mile down station road, it turns into High street, and then you leave town. And that was basically it. But we stayed at the Priory hotel, is where we stayed. Right. Right in the square, which was really nice. Cute old hotel. Yeah. Got in there right off the train, dropped off our bags, and then were able to kind of do a wander around.
Dawn [9:17 – 9:26]: Oh, nice. And you said you went there about August. Apparently. The town, the square you’re talking about about that time. It’s full of flowers. Did you see all that?
Cathy [9:26 – 9:26]: Yes.
Dawn [9:26 – 9:28]: So did you?
Cathy [9:28 – 9:36]: Yeah, we spoke about the flower budget that Yuli and surrounding villages must have. It was really. It was very noticeable. It was very impressive.
Dawn [9:36 – 9:42]: Very. Yeah, it did. It said that that was their main event and it sounded like we got photos. Can you send that as well?
Cathy [9:43 – 9:53]: I. You know what? As much as we talked about the flowers, I don’t think we took any photos of them. I don’t think we knew it was special. We just thought maybe this was how it was done up all the time.
Dawn [9:54 – 9:55]: It was special.
Cathy [9:55 – 10:19]: Cathy, if I’d known, I would have some of those photos. Yeah. I feel a lot better about noticing it now and talking about it, but, yeah, it was. Yeah, a lot of flowers. Really. Yeah. Really cute square we ended up. And that’s actually right on the square there is just beside our hotel, is where we found the priory. Right, yeah. Hence the priory.
Dawn [10:20 – 10:26]: Is it on the same sort of site? You’re just next to it, or your hotel almost right next door.
Cathy [10:26 – 10:44]: Yeah. Sort of jaunt across the car park. And then. And then you could go. And then you could go in and see the. The ruins. And of course, it was a cemetery, hence the photos of the gravestones. But that’s probably the first thing we did once we dropped our luggage, was just explore those. Those ruins. Really picturesque. Really pretty. Yeah.
Dawn [10:44 – 10:46]: Was it a nice day? Did you have a good day?
Cathy [10:46 – 11:33]: It was good. You know what, the whole. The whole week we were there in Scotland, I remember the weather forecast was calling for rain basically the whole week. And it held off for us the whole time. I think we got. We got rain at one point, right at the end when we were in. When we were in Dingwall, but we’ll. We’ll talk about Dingwall shortly. The only rain was in Dingwall. But no, yeah. First stop was the priory. And. Yeah. And we just kind of wandered through there. We didn’t, again, didn’t know anything about Beaulieu, so didn’t know it was there, but just really. Yeah, really nice building, old building. And then that’s where we found the. The gravestones. The McCray gravestones were actually in the priory in the building. They weren’t just on the grounds, they were actually inside the building, which was really neat.
Dawn [11:33 – 11:45]: Oh, okay. So tell us, so what was it like walking through there then? Was it. I can see you in the picture. You’re right. You’re in the middle of there. Tell us about what it was like. Was it quiet? Is it eerie?
Cathy [11:45 – 13:10]: No. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was pretty quiet. There was maybe half a dozen or so other tourists there. Right. So it was pretty quiet. You could see the different sort of gravestones in the floor of the priory, as you kind of see in different abbeys and things like that. They had, just beside the door on the inside, I remember they had a really old. It was like a stone bowl attached to the wall where they put holy water in there. And so that’s where. That’s where, you know, that’s their old bowl that they would go in and sort of everyone on their way in or way out would. Would dip their hands in that bowl. So interesting seeing those little details that have lasted over time. Yeah. You could tell that the building itself would have been when it still had a full roof cover, an impressive building. But as a result, the walls that remain, the structure that remained was quite impressive. And it really struck quite a scene walking through. What was the story? They used the stones for the. From the priory to build a building in Inverness, was it? Do you remember that? Yes. Yes. So they repurposed part of the building so you can actually. And it has. So it has a connection to another area. I wish we had written that down. Yeah. There’s a. I think there’s a tower. There was a building, a clock tower. Yeah. A building built in Inverness from the stones of the Priory. And the only thing remaining of that secondary building is the clock tower.
Dawn [13:10 – 13:18]: I think I’ll look into that. Did you happen to see the 800 year old elm tree located in the priory?
Cathy [13:18 – 13:23]: I’m sure we didn’t notice it, but I’m sure we saw it.
Dawn [13:24 – 13:26]: Like, how big must that have been?
Cathy [13:27 – 13:31]: Yeah. Yeah. No, not that we noticed, unfortunately.
Dawn [13:32 – 13:37]: Oh, that was my other fun fact. It’s a fun fact.
Cathy [13:37 – 13:41]: Now I’m sad. We sort of missed it. We’ll cheque it out next time we go.
Dawn [13:41 – 13:48]: Are you planning on going? So you said you were going up that way to look for possible places to move to. Were you thinking about it or is it not for you?
Cathy [13:48 – 14:09]: Beaulieu itself? No, no, not for us. I think we were looking for something a bit more in the highlands. Right. A bit more scenic, a bit more with the hills and the landscape, which I don’t think Beaulieu necessarily had. I think that was. I think we kind of got out of it a little bit. So, no, Beaulieu did not make our shortlist.
Dawn [14:10 – 14:13]: Oh. But still beautiful nonetheless. Is it still.
Cathy [14:13 – 14:26]: Oh, gorgeous. Yeah, gorgeous around and getting up there is absolutely. The trip. The trip up on the train is, you know, in and of itself is. Is a great. A great destination. Just. Just taking the train up there is fantastic.
Dawn [14:27 – 14:37]: And what about food? Because I know, Kevin, you’re same as me. You’re vegan, aren’t you? And I know you saw on your socials, you commented that there was a nice vegan place there. What was that?
Cathy [14:37 – 14:44]: Yeah, so we’re actually both. We’re actually both vegan. So Cathy’s. Kathy’s the one that pulled me along on that. On that trip.
Dawn [14:44 – 14:56]: Oh, Cathy, I’m sure you were there, of course, because you were the one about the restaurant down in London. Yes, I got that wrong. You. I got that the wrong way around, didn’t I? I thought it was you, Kevin. That was the dabbler still.
Cathy [14:57 – 15:51]: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Yeah. We went to unity diner in London. Right? Yeah, yeah. Food and Beaulieu, we ended up. So we were only there for a short time, but after. After sort of the priory and everything, we went for lunch at a little cafe in the square. It was called the corner on the square cafe. And it was. It was. Right, yeah, right on, right on the square corner. It was very busy. I mean, it was the type of small, little cafe that you knew the food was good because of how, like, they were overflowing with. With everyone popping in. So to, you know, either take food to go or I’m amazed we even got a table. So it was that sort of a spot, which was nice. And they had quite a few options for us, too. Yeah. Yeah. With how. With how quiet the town was. With how quiet Beaulieu was. Yeah. I couldn’t believe how many people were in there for lunch. It was just. It was like, it was the place to be, apparently.
Dawn [15:52 – 15:56]: And did you stay there? Did you have your tea there as well? Or did you just head off the next day and didn’t hang about?
Cathy [15:57 – 16:02]: We ate at the hotel, I believe, before. Yeah. For our. Yeah, before we left. Yeah.
Dawn [16:02 – 16:07]: I’m so nosy. Am I giving the itinerary, the full itinerary?
Cathy [16:07 – 17:33]: No, no, but no. So what we actually did, Don, before worth mentioning, because I think it’s a big draw for Beuley, is before lunch, after we. After we saw the priory, there was a gift shop just down the way. And it was an award winning gift shop, apparently, that they pride themselves on. And that was the old school Beaulieu gift shop is what that was called. And, yeah, we just. We went in there and it was. It was one of those places where you go in. And my first impression was there was a lot of sort of trinkets and local products, you know, people. People knitting scarves or sweaters and stuff locally and putting it in. And it was neat. It wasn’t anything really special at first glance. What I was in, what I ended up doing was I left the gift shop and I stood outside for a second and I couldn’t find Kathy. And I didn’t know. I didn’t know where Kathy went and I didn’t know how I lost her in this tiny little two room gift shop. And so it wasn’t until I went back in that I realised that the back of the gift shop opens right up to a very large bookstore. Yeah, a bookstore. And, yes, some pet supplies and some, you know, like, children homeware. Yeah. So it really. It really opened up and there was so much more to it than first meets the eye. But I almost. I almost missed. I almost missed the whole thing.
Dawn [17:34 – 17:35]: You lost Cathy.
Cathy [17:36 – 17:39]: You lost me in the back of the books.
Dawn [17:41 – 17:44]: That’s what I’m going to be. Did you buy anything as a souvenir then?
Cathy [17:45 – 18:22]: I actually think I left without anything. And I. And I recall actually carrying around quite a few different items. And I actually have photos of books. I took photos of books I wanted. I determined that it was a really, really well curated selection. There were so many of the books that I was looking through that I would have actually wanted to take home. But I have problems with indecision if there are too many things that I’m interested in. If it had been the type of gift shop that was two rooms. So there was one item I liked, I thought, oh, that’s perfect. That’s what I’ll take from Beaulieu. But I wanted maybe a dozen different things and none of them were going to fit in my suitcase. So I just took photos of items that I wanted for later.
Dawn [18:23 – 18:36]: That’s a good top tip there. Yeah, I would probably buy them and then just carry them about the rest of the holiday. So tell me, where did you go next? You went to Dingwall?
Cathy [18:37 – 20:16]: Yes. Yeah. So part of the whole trip was, you know, seeing the area and seeing what was around. And we saw on a map that that Dingwall was just a short train trip away. So we decided to head on up there. As a coastal town, we didn’t know much about it. We assumed coastal towns would be a bit lively. But we ended up, we ended up catching the bus and we took the bus up. It was maybe a 20 minutes bus ride, not too bad, and got to see all of the areas along the way, which was really neat. But when we got to Dingwall, it was a bit, the high street was closed up a bit, sort of run down. Unfortunately, it looks like it’s had some hard times. So we had a wander around Dingwall and that’s when it started raining on us. And we just did. We just did. We just did a walk around. We were maybe there for maybe an hour and a half, maybe 2 hours, just kind of a big loop around, saw what we could see and then ended up back at the bus station, at the bus stop and caught the next bus home. But what was funny was, and I think it speaks to how small some of these communities are, is that the bus on the way back we had the same bus driver that had dropped us off 2 hours earlier. But then not only that, I get bus drivers, you know, they have routes and so you’ll see them multiple times. But the one other person that was on the bus with us on the way to Digwall was also catching the same bus back to Beaulieu. So we basically had the same driver and the same passenger with us on the way there and on the way back. Yeah.
Dawn [20:16 – 20:25]: Oh, that’s really sad about Dingwall because I have actually been there. I used to go there regularly and, oh, I mean, it’s quite a small place, but yeah, that’s a shame.
Cathy [20:26 – 20:28]: What did you used to go there for?
Dawn [20:28 – 20:42]: It was just. With my previous partner, he used to just do lawnmowers and he was just. He would go to the caravan sites and, you know, service their lawnmowers and it was just. I remember it being a lovely, quiet but beautiful place. So. That’s sad to hear.
Cathy [20:42 – 20:57]: I. Yeah, it seemed like a lot. A lot was boarded up. What they did have there, though, which we saw a couple times, was a bakery. And you might know these done that. We had never seen them before, but they were gao. Is that what it was, a gao bakery?
Dawn [20:59 – 21:00]: God, I don’t know.
Cathy [21:00 – 21:16]: G o w. But the reason I bring it up is because we saw one in Avomore and then we saw another one in Beaulieu and then we saw the third one in Dingwall. So it seemed like it was a chain. Harry Gow. Harry Gow bakery is what it was.
Dawn [21:17 – 21:20]: Oh, God. I’ve never heard of him. It must be up that week.
Cathy [21:22 – 21:27]: It seemed pretty funny. It seemed like every. Every town we stopped in, there was a. There was a hairy gow bakery.
Dawn [21:29 – 21:33]: I wonder how popular that is. If he’s in all the small places, he must get the tourists.
Cathy [21:34 – 21:36]: Yeah, I guess. Yeah, maybe that’s what it is. Yeah.
Dawn [21:37 – 21:48]: Okay, then. So that was your visit to the Highlands. So do you think you’ll go back? Have you got your eye on anywhere else or in the area or see anything on the buses when you were travelling?
Cathy [21:48 – 22:25]: Well, we’ll definitely go back. Which areas we’ll choose next time. I’m not sure. I think that the next trip is going to require a car. We did this entire trip by train and that really did dictate sort of the stops and the areas that we could. That we could explore. So when we have been. Previously, we’ve driven around, you know. Yeah. So we have done that before, but we chose this time to just go by train. So if we go back up again, I think we’ll probably. We’ll map out some more smaller areas to take a look, go off the beaten track again and pretend that we’re not tourists and then end up doing touristy things.
Dawn [22:27 – 22:33]: Why do you want to pretend you’re not a tourist? It’s luckily being a tourist. It is. It is.
Cathy [22:33 – 22:42]: No, it’s. It’s. It is. It is fun, but it’s also. It’s hard to get an idea of what it’s like to actually live in a place when you are a tourist surrounded by tourists.
Dawn [22:43 – 22:51]: All right, then we’ll. That’s it. Thanks very much for telling me all about your time in the Highlands. I look forward to hearing from you again, if you go again.
Cathy [22:52 – 23:08]: Absolutely. It’s been fun. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having us on, Don. It’s been. This is, this is our. This is our first podcast that we’ve been on, so it was very, very exciting and fun. So, yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for having us. We’ll take better notes next time.
Dawn [23:08 – 23:14]: Yeah. But can you tell everybody they can find just thought lounge and you.
Cathy [23:14 – 23:40]: Absolutely, yeah. So we are just thought lounge on YouTube. So if you just kind of look us up there, all of our socials are kind of connected to that. We’re also on. On Instagram, primarily just on there. So if you want to see some pictures of our travels around Kent and specifically our two cockapoos, then make sure you find us on Instagram, which is just thought lounge there as well.
Dawn [23:45 – 27:11]: According to Wikipedia, beaulieu is a town in the Highlands, located on the river Beaulieu and is 12 miles, or 19 kilometres, about a 20 minutes drive west of Inverness. According to visit Beaulieu, Mary Queen of Scots visited Beaulieu in 1564 and stayed overnight, with many believing that the town got its name when she stated, pardon, my friend, c’est un Beaulieu, which means what a beautiful place in French. Although others believe that it is more likely the town’s name came from french monks who had a base in Hampshire in England called Beaulieu. Again, according to visit Beaulieu. The town is centred around a square where you will find many award winning independent shops and places to eat. And in the spring, visitors will come from far and wide to see the annual floral displays. Beaulieu is also a great base to start the north coast 500, from which is according to Northcoast 500 dot Comma, Scotland’s ultimate road trip, a route that covers 516 miles, or 830 kilometres of the North Highlands, where you will pass some breathtaking scenery, beautiful sandy beaches, rugged mountains and quaint fishing villages. An experience that you will not forget. For more information and to see the route, visit Northcoast 500 Dot. We talked a lot about the Beaulieu Priory in this episode, which was founded in 1230. And as I mentioned, there’s an 800 year old elm tree located in the extensive priory. And so now on to the annual events that take place in the Beaulieu area. Well, there’s actually quite a few. There’s the Beaulieu gala that takes place in July each year and the Highland Cross finishing line is at Bewley. The Highland cross is a 50 miles, being 20 miles on foot and 30 miles by bike duathlon that traverses the Scottish Highlands from coast to coast, west to east, ending like I say in Bewley. But the event that really caught my eye was the Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, which takes place every year just a few miles from Bewley in 2024. It will take place on the 25th to the 27 July and tickets are on sale now from tartanheartfestival.com. the Bella Drum Tartan Heart Festival was first established in 2004 and has become one of the most unique and anticipated music festivals in Scotland, with a record breaking 20,000 people attending in 2022. It brings a diverse range of music genre together, from indie to folk, as well as showcasing local and international talent. It has also won many awards, such as an award at the scottish e awards in 2023 for best festival. It sounds like it would be a fantastic weekend. If you’d like to find out more or buy tickets then visit tartanheartfestival.com. so that’s about the end. If you’ve enjoyed the episode and would like to hear even more of Kevin’s delightful voice, then you can find just thought lounge on YouTube. A link to this as well as everything mentioned in this episode will be in the show notes as well as on our website, clurintornous.com scottishdigest that’s cluaranton.com Scottishdigest so we hope you join us next time for another wee slice of Bonnie Scotland.