Inverness drop off, Halkirk cemetery (ancestor hunt) - 17 May

Big day today as we say goodbye to Jen - it's been fun getting to know her and learn about her 'Clan' ancestors as we travel through Scotland. We are ready to go just before 10am and our Host pops by to meets us before we leave.

She has outfitted her place (2 flats, one ground floor (Jens place) and one first floor (that was Sue and my place) with all things Scottish. She even provided heaps of alternative cereals, chocolates and 1lt of milk. Brilliant.

We had a great 2x night stay in Inverness, but now it was time to move to our next destination - Jen the Inverness airport and Sue and I to Halkirk. 30 mins later we've said our fond farewells to Jen and are 2hrs 45mins away from our first stop.

Today we are doing a spot of ancestral grave searching on my Mothers maiden name 'Clyne'. Sue has researched and discovered they were quite prolific within Thurso (top of Scotland) and 18 are buried in Halkirk Old Parish cemetery. After a fair bit of walking around in quite warm Scottish weather Sue lucked on our first 'Clyne' headstone. This set off a bit of a flourish and we ended up discovering about half of who is buried there - very exciting 👀👌👋.

Here's some of the graves we discovered with the brilliant idea from Sue's Mum to use white chalk to rub over the gravestone so you can read it. It does no damage and you can throw water on it or just leave it for mother nature to remove in her next rain. Here's us using that exact technique (side bar, note the blue sky):





Very satisfying afternoon and it leaves me with a few things to follow-up upon my return home.

Lovely accommodation place in Thurso, with a Lidl (Supermarket) across the street (literally).

Early start tomorrow as we catch the ferry to Orkney and spend the day driving around enjoying the sights.

Life is good 😉😉😉



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