Ticket to Ride

Let me tell you, the train revelation was a good one.  Here's an addition to it's awesomeness:  the train station in Inverness is right next door to the Bus Depot!  I know!  So adding to my riding of public transportation in foreign lands ability, I added a bus trip to the Culloden Battlefields.

Beauly Train Station

On the bus

Here's how it goes:  drive to the train station in Beauly and catch the 10:19 train to Inverness.  Then take a right out of the train station and wander around a bit.  Ask for directions to the bus depot.  Follow directions to the bus depot, stand in a long.. slow.. moving.. line.  Ponder the possibility that while you are standing in said line, you may be missing your bus to the Culloden Battlefields.  Once it's your turn, inquire about a bus ticket and inquire where to pick up the bus (very important!) because it is not at the bus depot.  It is somewhere else.  Go to the somewhere else and check out the buses as they go by.  You need the 5A.  You see the 5A.  You don't just get on it and hope for the best, you ask the driver, just in case, if he is indeed going to the Culloden Battlefield.  He responds, no, but he is going near it.  You can take this bus and I'll drop you near the battlefield.  It's a five minute walk.  Or you can take the next bus in 20 minutes.  Near or next...near or next...near could mean anything.  It's near...right through that cow pasture, on the other side of that river, past this next town, down that giant hill.  I ask him if you can really walk to it from there.  He assures me it is a 5 minute walk and hastens me to make my decision.  Fine!  I purchase a round trip ticket from him and get on, trusting in his five minute walk.  And away we go!
The last stop the bus makes is at Cumberland Stone, next to a stone.  Really.  A real stone.  Anyway, he motions for the rest of us on the bus, here's the stop for Culloden Battlefield.  He points us down a small hill.  You can see it from there and there is a sidewalk all the way to the front door.  Being impatient pays off.

Culloden Battlefield is a museum on the cite of the battlefield where the Jacobites and the English fought over the sovereignty of the king; the King of England or the Stuart King from Scotland.  There's a whole lot more to it than just that.  Google it if you want to learn the whole story.  It is a complex matter rooted in all kinds of political intrigue.
At the museum, the displays take you through the entire story from both points of view, the English and the Jacobites, with a collection of memorabilia to add to the story.  They have a 360 degree room where you stand in the center of the battle and witness it firsthand.  Once through the museum's displays, you can go outside and walk some paths along the battlefield.  They have a row of red flags marking off the English line and a row of blue flags marking off the Scottish line.  You can barely see the one side from the other.  It is quite astonishing how large a battlefield actually is.  I couldn't imagine the amount of soldiers, horses, and canon that filled the place on that day.

The pointy rock nearest the bottom is the rock I set on the stone

As you follow the paths, there are markers where certain people fell in battle or where they stood in line.  I found a spot where the Macdonalds fell and took a photo of the memorial stone.  It is customary to leave a small pebble on the stone as a rememberance, so I did.
There is something sobering and sad about the place; not just that it marked the deaths of so many soldiers, but that it also marked the death of a way of life as well.