Author: Kirstin Uhlenbrock

Arm balance fun & restorative & Nidra session

27th November 2022 1.30 pm at Realm Chiropractic, 52 Crossgate, Cupar with Gwen Joubert & Kirstin Uhlenbrock

Join us for a few hours of joyfully exploring our mental and physical capabilities followed by a soothing session of restorative and Nidra yoga conducted by Gwen.

We are privileged to be able to host this session in the wonderful studio at Realm Chiropratic.

Costs: £25 per person

Get in touch to book 07446112672 or email Kirstin@starfishtravel.scot

Click HERE for nore information

I reported earlier on the tremendous fun to be had when participating in the 2022 Scottish Field Whisky Challenge. The panel of ten was allowed to sample 34 whiskies in total.

In the morning we had a knock out round and after a gorgeous (and much needed) lunch we re-tasted the remaining contenders again to create appropriate tasting notes.

Not only was a fabulous day being so previleged to blind taste all these amazing whiskies but also to meet everyone else on the panel and share our experience with each other.

This month’s Scottish Field Magazine (November 2022) announced the winners, which is always very exiting to the panel as we are not aware what we were tasting on the day. I am happy to annouce that I am quite content with the results, though I have to admit that I knew nothing of the Silver Angel’s Nectar till I found an article in “The Scots Magazine” a few days ago (I added it to the very bottom if you are interested).

On a personal note John Boyle kindly let us try the first bottle of a new Scottish Field Whisky Series, which I bought and shared with my clients who agreed with me that this is a lovely bottling of a Dailuaine distillery which is quite hard to get your hands on.

As most of my clients know I am a bit of a peat head and my natural home for whisky is Islay especially Bunnabhain (Moine!!!!) but I love to try all the Scottish Whisky Industry has to offer.

Curiostity might kill the cat but only if you consume too much at any one tasting. Drink responsibly and enjoy!

Last but not least I obviously offer whisky tasting tours all over Scotland for more click below:

Contact

I was fortunate enough to be part of the panel in 2019’s Scottish Field Whisky Challenge as well, click the link to read that article. You can apply for 2023 if you like the idea!

Please find below also the full article taken from the online edition of the Scottish Field Magazine

Harvest Fest at Falkland was blessed with beautiful weather so participants could meander between venues in bright sunshine. The event had a fascinating programme and my only regret was that I could not attend all it had to offer. Some of it was filmed so hopefully I will be able to delve into all I missed.

Ninian Stuart started the session in the big tent

This morning session welcomed Jenny Anderson from Really Regenerative, Professor Seaton Baxter (Natural Design) and Gordon Mole, Head of Business and Employability, Fife Council as speakers and each of them as well as Ninian highlighted intresting points. I especailly feel in love with the phrase “the mind can be anywhere but the feet need to be somewhere.

I also wished I was able of shorthand as Professor Seaten Baxter left with an amazing poem. He actually invited the audience to write a poem as the act of doing so engages one with one’s own emotion. I did try this last night together with my boyfriend which was a lovely experiement.

I ventured on to listen to Joe FItzpatrick’s “Revelations of archaeology of Falkland Hill’ which was fascinating and very engaging, especially as we were allowed to examine some of the finds. I also love and adore the engagement of local people.

The lunch in itself was to die for, both main dish and cake and not to mention the amazing apple juice produced onsite.

After lunch I attended Gary Young (The Mindfulness Enterprise )& Madhu Mastan’s session “The healing & restorative power of mindfully connecting with nature”, which was insightful and also fun. Madhu, I will do some drumming!

If you attended any of the other sessions let me know and I will happily add your input here.

The exhibitors were also well selected: Reforesting Scotland, The Scottish Sawmill Services, Newburgh Handloom Weavers , The Falkland Society and the Falkland Estate itself promoting their barley which is being used by NcNean Whisky Distillery.

Also check out the Chidren’s Parliament for information on how the future generations are involved in the power of place that Falkland is. Not to mention their poems page.

Falkland truly spreads its magic: everything is connected, everything needs to go somewhere, nature knows best and it is the place to be.

I also met some amazing people and feel real gratitude for all I was able to experience.

I have been blessed with a very busy summer and much more importantly with diverse, interesting and truly lovable customers from all over the world. Including one lovely dog!

My whisky inspired tours brought me to Mull of Kintyre- or rather Campbeltown, several times to Islay and almost uncountable number times into the lovely Speyside.

The tastes of customers varied widely but on conclusion: If you do not like whisky you simply have not found the right one for you.

For some of my valued clients this meant that matching whisky with chocolate made all the difference and others aspired a taste for the heavily peated by adding cheese or cure sausage to the experience.

Many wee drams were had at a beautiful spot and that is just how it should be.

Equally popular have been Outlander tours which offer almost unlimited options with over 200 film locations with the six seasons out at the moment.

Some of my clients knew much more about Outlander than I ever will but I am indeed willing to learn from you too (this is a big part of what I love about this job!).

I was very lucky to offer some private tours at Glencorse estate (Thank you, Sarah!) and Falkland palace with the current keeper (Thank you, Ninian!). Both options were much loved by you.

Most of our tours were a mixture of what Scotland stands for: breathtaking landscapes, packed with history and innovation, meeting Scotland’s ever helpful people, divine food and drink experiences and most of all emerge oneselve into solitude, nature and wildlife.

To keep it interesting I had a number of one day (occassionally even half day) tours from cruiseships as well as tours as long as ten days. All this adds not only to your experiences but also mine. Each of these tours offer a different connection with you.

Group sizes also varied and on one occassion it numbered 13 plus 2 drivers (Thank you, Jim from Alba Private Hire!). This was a little out of my comfort zone, especially as it was relatively early in the season and booking restaurants and accommodation was still quite an issue. It did, however, work even though not everybody was always entirely happy as we catered for ages from 16 to 70.

I am very honoured by each of you placing your trust in me to make your travel memorable and fun.

Lastly, I learnt a lot from all of you. Thank you!

Whether you educated me on your countries, history, beliefs, traditions and culture or provided me with bourbon to try and learn about its creation process, whether you challenged me on vegetarian options, antihistamins, accommodation requirements it has always been fun and has certainly added to my portofolio for future guests.

With the quieter season approaching I will still be out on tour but I will also turn my focus back on practising and teaching yoga, including some workshops. I do apologise to my yoga crowd for not being able to teach all my usual classes throughout the season. I have been very lucky to get help from Gwen (Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!), who is much loved by you.

I am also planning some trips to researchs add-ons for next season, so watch this space!

I would also like to apologise to all of you who I could not accommodate this year. I take ad-hoc bookings but am lucky enough to have most of my clients booking in advance. I will fit you in on short notice if I can.

As soon as the season kicked in my blog posts as well as social media twiddled away. I was and still am just running with it. I have been loving every moment of it and had so many amazingly interesting people joining me.

It feels so good to get back to “normal”, being able to engage with people and have a good time together exploring beautiful Scotland.

Things, however, are not how they were prior to Covid. Businesses everywhere are short of staff and the remaining members of each business do their utmost to keep it up.

One roughly 40 bedroom hotel was run by two full-time members of staff and two part-time employees, who were attending the reception, the bar, the restaurant, the breakfast and the cleaning. They were totally overworked but still remained amazingly friendly.

I heard elsewhere that Ullapool’s hospitality businesses were sharing the few employees they still had left and agreed to close shop certain days of the week to make it all work.

Whether this is due to the pandemic or Brexit or a mixture of both is really not relevant. The fact is that people on holiday are not well catered for by overworked members of restaurant or hotel teams. Not to mention how awful the situation is for the workers themselves. You simply cannot serve the public with a smile if you are worked into the ground.

My whisky endevaours lead me to all five of Scotland’s whisky regions and Islay and Campbelltown were outstanding.

Speyside was lacking staff and booking got difficult as spaces were taken well in advance. Some exceptions of the rule proved to be: GlenAllachie, Glendronach and Glenfarclas. Glenfiddich would always acccommodate you as well. Thank you all so much! This is obviously not an objective analysis as I have not been to all Speyside distilleries.

There is one in the area and (if you know me you will know which one) which simply does not appear to be interested in visitors.

Some were sadly closed, such as Edradour, Glencadam, Fettercairn and Talisker. The latter two are open again I understand.

Dalwhinnie always accommodates visitors and there are two newcomers I really adore: Lindores and NcNean. Both are providing fantastic whisky and offer a really unique experience.

Remote restaurants were occcassionally difficult to find especially if the group was bigger than three. However, wherever I have been the food was outstanding and the staff were amazing.

I have heard of numerous businesses who had to close, most of them I will really miss and I do hope that there is a solution to the staff shortages and also the spiralling costs of living.

Scotland is such an amazing place, always interesting, never boring, sometimes rough but always breath-takingly beautiful.

Keep up the good work! Here is one tourguide who truly appreciates all your hard work!

I was very honoured to be selected as part of the panel for the 2022 Scottish Field Whisky Challenge which took place on 29th July 2022.

This year’s challenge entailed the blind tasting of 38 whiskies. After introductions the morning started with a knock out tasting to limit the number of whiskies for the afternoon tasting. It was lovely sharing tasting notes with so many real whisky aficionados, which truly enhanced the experience. It was also quite difficult to “spit” some of these amazing whiskies but everyone wanted to keep a clear head to write the tasting notes in the afternoon.

Scottish Field provided a lovely lunch so we all felt sober enough to face the afternoon tasting with detailed tasting notes and ratings to be decided.

It was a glorious summer day in Edinburgh so after we had all handed in our ratings and tasting notes, we ventured out to enjoy the sunshine and cocktails before we said our goodbyes and headed home.

I still have no idea which whiskies I was allowed to sample and await that revelation with great exitement.

The entire experience will be rounded up with the awards dinner which will also be hosted in the Sharaton on 28th of October 2022. Surely, more whisky to look forward to!

Scotland has in excess of 3000 castles, many can be visited and I will feature a few of my recent visits and of course all time favourites, such as Stirling or Ediburgh or Eilen Dunan Castle.

Cawdor Castle is privately owned and very well maintained. It is a true pleasure to visit. Be my guest and view these lovely insights:

Without thinking I pressed the update buttons for WordPress and the Word Theme which resulted in a critical error on the website. Luckily, it still displayed the landing page but that was about all the functionality it had.

My sincere apologies to anyone who tried to look something up. These things never happen at a good time and as I was quite busy it took a while to be rectified and actually only happened because of the most patient person in the world: Robert from DotScot. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I was on tours two days in a row; day one a wee tour from a cruise ship and up to MacAllan whisky distillery the following day. This is such a privilege and such a rewarding job: you meet new and interesting people every day, you still discover new things in beautiful Scotland and most of all you always learn. It is a never ending joy.

MacAllan is currently only open to the public on the weekends and provides private tours during the week, which last about three hours. My guests took five hours so it must have been good.

You are never short of things to do in Speyside, even if whisky is not you main theme I may add. While my guests were looked after by MacAllan I visited the The Cooperage, Aberlour Whisky Distillery and Glenlivet Whisky Distillery, went for a walk outside Aberlour and ended up have the most amazing Thai lunch at The Croft Inn, which I very highly recommend!

As stated earlier in this blog I had the privilege to participate in the Creative Mindful Retreat hosted by Visualising Scotland, Rebecca on the Wing & and Mindful Routes.

This wonderful retreat included one day on your bike, which was a true pleasure. Back home I went on a 14 mile walk for the Siobhan Trust followed by a day tour down to Kelso which was blessed by wonderful weather and customers.

Just before the season begins for real my usual mode of transport, the four wheeled Viano, required some TLC, so the aircon got serviced on Monday, it had a valet on Tuesday and has since been away to get the paintwork tidied up.

The garage who serviced the air conditioning kindly provided me with a courtesy car

It was very weird sitting so low to the ground and felt a little retro too. I went to investigate Linlithgow a little on what turned out to be a rather rainy day.

The car was finished in time for me to get back to Cupar to teach my yoga class.

The day the car got a valet while I took my bike to teach two yoga classes which let me cycle 15 miles. On Wednesday I loaded the bike into the Viano to dropped the car off at the paint shop in Dundee and cycled 13 miles back along the coastal path.

I had to have an ice cream break since the weather was so stunning. While the Viano was at the paint shop I got on my bike another two days and summed up 60 miles of cycling for the week.

It is my birthday today so I filled it with yoga and some pony riding. Normal Starfish Travel tour guiding duties will resume as of tomorrow

3rd time lucky and not only that we were presented with stunningly good weather to conduct the 14 mile walk from Tentsmuir Forest all the back to Siobhan’s residence, Birkhill Castle. There was also the choice to opt for a 4 mile version as well as a meander through Birkhill’s garden.

I had a leisurely start at 10 am and had the company of Lucazs and Fran. We took an extended lunch break with cheese, crackers and port and helped to clean up and take the tent down.

We only returned to Birkhill Castle at around 5pm and were welcomed with BBQ food and more port.

The walk had good attendance and hopefully will have raised plenty of future funds for all the good the Siobhan’s Trust does.