What a day it has been. Of emotions, sunburn and filling in gaps in our knowledge of events of old.

The day dawned warm and clear with amazing blue skies. Debbie started the day off at the Buckie fishing and heritage centre.

The lady at our campsite reception recommended this as the place to go. She was armed with the knowledge that George Forbes Stevenson , her Great Grandfather was a butcher whose young son Alexander would become her Grandfather. George had a shop and we had an address. The entire family emigrated to new Zealand on the White Star Line ship Athenic departing Southampton on the 29th January 1926.

I don’t know about you but when we find out information on our ancestors it gives me a sense of wonder.

Georges shop is the property with the brown facade. It is now apartments. The building is unchanged from the day the family left it and headed for their new life in New Zealand. We filled in some gaps but the one question we wanted answered we did not manage. Why did a successful businessman in his 50s sell up and move to New Zealand? He had no known connections that we know of with New Zealand before going.

The shop would have been busy. It was right next door to what is now Buckpool and was the original harbour in Buckie. It can be seen just behind the house. It is now redundant when a new harbour was built further east. The old harbour has been filled in but the old walls remain.

We know the town prospered. I snapped this from a notice board in the town.

There was no more to be done in Buckie. It took us just a little over an hour to drive west to Culloden battlefield. On the way we chatted about what Debbie had found and what she had seen.

Culloden on the other hand is like many old battle fields around the world. It is now just a field. It is hard to imagine the horrors that took place in the very short 40 minute battle between the British Government troops and the Scottish Jacobite men. It was utter carnage and as you look out over the moor we both struggled to imagine the scene. It was a peat bog of muddy and wet heather and shrubs. In April. The site does its best to portray the scene. Stones mark the mass graves engraved with the Clan names.

You can only sit and look out at the line of red flags that marks the line of the Government troops and the blue flags marking the line of the Jacobites. It is a moving place.

We returned home thinking of the days events. There are still more questions to be answered. There always are. Tomorrow we start our journey south. There are still a few outstanding items to do though.

Todays distance: 110 miles

Total Distance: 2099 miles.