Fiona Mackenzie Tourist Guide

19/03/2025

For photos of Scotland taken by professional tourist guides, follow Scotland Scene which has just published one of mine of the bridge at Carrbridge, taken in September last year on an extended tour.

And to show how small the world is, it turns out that the mother of a good friend of the French granddaughter of the folks who gave me my first job (in Brussels in the 1980s) helped to set up the annual chainsaw sculpture competition at Carrbridge. All roads eventually lead to Scotland 🙂!!

Carrbridge

This village tucked away in the Cairngorms National Park has a lot going on that may surprise you. Our Blue Badge guide Fiona Mackenzie will tell you that Carrbridge hosts the Scottish Open Chainsaw Championships as well as the World Porridge Making Championships - and of course there is the fabulous bridge. It was built in 1717 and despite the parapets being washed away in the 19thC it survives as a Category B listed building.

Image©️Fiona Mackenzie.

08/02/2025

Today, a visit amidst flurries of snow to the home of Lanark Blue cheese at Walstead Braehead Farm near Carnwath in Lanark. Errington Cheese was established in 1985 and continues today as a family-run business. The dairy farm has around 350 sheep and 150 goats, plus a herd of very characterful Tamworth and other pigs who consume the whey byproducts of the cheese-making process.

The ewes are nearing the end of lambing now, and the goats will give birth a little later in the season, so there are lambing tours at this time of year. We saw 24-hour-old lambs and a couple of ewes preparing to give birth.

Andrew, who runs the farm, talked about the livestock, feed and sustainability measures and then showed us the milking parlour. Around 80 staff hours a week are spent on milking (and the hygiene procedures required for working with raw milk that goes straight into cheese-making without pasteurisation). We were able to ask questions and learn a huge amount about the farm and how it works.

Our guide Craig explained how each of the sheep and goat cheeses that Errington produces varies with the weather and seasons and we were able to look through the windows of the cheese cellar and the dairy while he explained how they make some of the Errington products.

Then we drove a short distance to the nearby junction of the A702 to Edinburgh and the A721 to Errington's Barn where the business has a café and shop, to try out some of the cheeses on a lunch menu centred around produce from the farm.

Errington Cheese runs various tours that are bookable online and can be tailor-made by arrangement. They are visits to a working dairy farm, so appropriate footwear and clothing is essential. The business welcomes individual and group visits to the café and shop (call in advance for groups over 18 people) and we left with cheese purchases and happy feelings after a delicious light lunch, coffee and shared cake.

08/02/2025

Yesterday, a morning at the Great Tapestry of Scotland, the story of Scotland depicted in 165 panels designed by artist Andrew Crummy and embroidered by volunteer stitchers from all over the country. It is a monumental and awe-inspiring piece of work which you could visit many times over and always see or learn something new.

The Tapestry has a spacious permanent home in Galashiels, a picturesque train ride away from Edinburgh on the Borders Railway in the heart of the Scottish Borders, an area sometimes missed by visitors but definitely worth exploring. The staff will lend you magnifying glasses to admire the huge range of stitching techniques used to create this work of art. Or just soak up the story while enjoying the creativity of those who came together to tell it in words and pictures.

There is a cafe and a shop on site, various local car parks, or for the very skilled, on-street parking.

07/02/2025

This is the time of year when many professional guides expand their knowledge by visiting sites, attending talks or reading up on new developments or new topics. This was a small informal visit with fellow guides for a tour at the National Mining Museum Scotland, about 30 minutes' drive from the centre of Edinburgh. We took a guided tour with retired miner Jim to see this former deep pit, once one of the largest in Scotland, which mined the coal that fueled the textile mills in the Scottish borders in the late 19th and much of the 20th Century.

Miners led brutally tough and dangerous lives to keep their fellow Scots warm and to power the industries that employed them. And it is particularly good to hear the story from a guide who lived through the latter years of mining and can speak from experience. This was a fascinating, if sobering, visit and the museum also has good parking, a cafe, shop and a series of programmed events for children.

If you are local or visiting and passing Sheriffhall roundabout on the Edinburgh ring road, about 2.75 miles away, one of several deep underground tunnels of the pit reaches to there!
Scottish Tourist Guides Association Scottish Borders

01/01/2024

Wishing everyone peace and good fortune in 2024, and if you want to see Scotland together with a qualified Scottish Tourist Guide this year, get in touch. If I'm not available I can probably point you towards an STGA guide who is. Happy New Year!