Scotland Vacation October 2023 - Dalmuzie Castle Hotel

We made it to Dalmuzie Estate and Castle Hotel in the late afternoon of day 5 in Scotland. Dalmunzie, was originally built as a shooting lodge with the original Dalmunzie Castle lying south of the Glenlochsie burn. It sits on a 6,500 acre estate with its first written records dating back to 1510. Dalmunzie can claim to be Scotland’s highest hotel and sits on a little plateau between two hill burns. 

We settled in to the Ogilvie Room. 

Each guest room was given a name and had a sign outside the door telling the history of who the room was named for.

We explored the castle before heading to the dining room for dinner.

Day 6 in Scotland started off cloudy, windy, and misting. My husband had a stag hunt scheduled for 7 am so I went for a walk. The hotel provides a list of walks ranging from one to twelve miles. The list tells how long each walk should take and what kind of walk it is - easy, moderate, or serious. I walked down the road behind the castle and went to walk the munros. The scenery was stunning! It was misting when I started my walk and two hours later it was absolutely pouring. The wind was so strong that it was practically pushing me backwards. If it weren't for the increasing wind and rain, I would have walked for hours. Walking through this area was the highlight of my time in Scotland.

It started raining harder and I was getting pretty cold, so I headed back to the hotel. I dried off and then went into the sitting room and chatted with some of the other guests. They told me there was a storm on the coast that was bringing in the bad weather. It was called Storm Babet. There were wind advisory warnings with 60 mph gusts of wind and pouring rain. Warnings for people to stay off the roads because of falling branches/trees, wind, and rain. A hotel employee told us that during the last big storm, Storm Arwen, 127 trees fell on Dalmunzie Castle’s driveway, that storm had 110 mph gustsof wind.

My husband came back from his hunt in a miserable state. The outfitter he worked with, should have called off the hunt because of the storm. After we returned home, he ended up getting most of a refund for the hunt. 

We spent most of the afternoon hanging out and exploring more of the castle. I think the hotel entrance area to the lobby is really neat looking.

We found the lounge area and played a couple of card games and had some snacks.

We found the game room and played a couple rounds of Bar Billiards.

After several hours, I started feeling cooped up so I decided to take an afternoon walk while my husband took and afternoon nap. 

I was complete soaked through all of my waterproof clothes by the time I returned to the hotel. I warmed up before we headed down to dinner. We had a special treat at dinner, one of the other guests was a bagpipe player and he played a song for the room.

After dinner, we played a few more rounds of bar billards and chatted with some of the other guests before heading to bed. One of the hotel clerks let us know that the electricity might go off during the night. The hotel had been running on a generator since the storm disrupted their power in the early afternoon hours. The clerk said they were making sure to keep the fireplaces in the sitting rooms going all night in case it got too cold in the rooms. They were also going to "organize hot tea" if the generator went out during the night.