Tragedy struck: Kingussie is pronounced King-YOU-see and not kin-GUSSIE. I am still going to say it like the King’s bussy and nothing can stop me. The Gaelic for the town means “the head of the pine forest.” There are a lot of pine trees around here – living up to the name!
Bussies aside, it’s really lovely – nestled along a river and in between the mountain-esque highlands. There’s shockingly a lot of stuff open until 9 or 10pm, as it is also a tourist town, just not one that slaps you in the face with kitsch, souvenirs, and camp. It has an avid hiking & biking club with lots of little trails all over the place, and it’s just up the road from a lot of other attractions, restaurants, and parks.
This place surprised us by being aggressively dog-friendly – every shop has dog treats, dog bowls, and so many doggy souvenirs. One dude trying to enter the folk museum with his dog was turned away, as they have animals and don’t allow dogs. He said that was “a load of shite.” Sir, calm down.
The dogs are all incredibly well-trained, especially in off-leash areas – they ignore other people, keep to paths, and do what their owners say. What is this alternate dimension I’ve entered, filled with largely responsible people?! A dog sniffed me once when I went for a walk and the owner apologized for the dog’s bad behavior!
Our first day, Monday, is a leisurely one – we get a late start and enjoy some scones and tea for breakfast. I forget that they call golden raisins ‘sultanas’ here and that scones with sultanas in them are called fruit scones. Mostly, I have missed clotted cream, which I enjoy immensely. They don’t sell it in the States since it’s unpasteurized, and I vow to smuggle a small bottle back with me this time.
We mosey to the Highland folk museum. I am a sucker for a good open-air folk museum and Kingussie is home to Britain’s first. They have homes that range from the early 1900s, back to ones constructed of stone and thatch (blackhouses) that are from the 1700s. They largely preserve homes that are in danger of demolition, and many of them are relocated from elsewhere and rebuilt piece by piece onsite. In the oldest part of the village, they have actors present who tell you a bit about the place and the buildings.
It kind of blew my mind to learn that the homes with thatch roofs are from as recently as the early 1900s, though the style dates back centuries. I guess if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? The doors are low, ripe for bonking your head. I wondered if people were just shorter back then, or if they kept the doors small to keep the heat in.
Oh – and they had coos! Hairy coos!
Many of the homes showcase crafts and occupations and history of gaelic games of the area. There are a number of textiles produced in the area, and the museum had a blacksmith, lumber mill, and a woodshop, too. Kingussie has a very powerful Shinty team, which is a modern forebear of hockey.
The highlight for me was a reconstructed village that’s located through a pine forest. They had a large collection of the little blackhouses that were outfit with all manner of farming and animal husbandry tools, and they keep a little peat fire burning in one at all times. The buildings are dark and small and I wondered how many people died from lung cancer from breathing in all that smoke constantly.
By 330 pm we are all hangry. Every restaurant we tried which google said was open was, in fact, not open – largely because they were located in hotels and there is no clear way on there to delineate when a hotel’s hours differ from the restaurant inside? I dunno. It was frustrating. We ended up at a place that served really good small plates and mocktails.
After we got back to Kingussie, I went for a little hike up a nearby trail. There are footpaths everywhere and signposts about the area’s history. The leaves are basically at peak fall leafiness right now, so my walk along the river that ran through the tiny gorge was a pleasant one. Kingussie was home to a flax mill, but when the mill polluted the water too much, locals complained and it had to be moved. As it should be. Today, there’s a small hydroelectric dam in the river.
And of course, we solve our mysteries here: through some determined Sunday night googling from our group, I learned that the incessant speed-related beeping in the rental car, Beep Boop, is related to an EU regulation that requires cars to warn drivers when they’re speeding. It is very annoying. I also figure out how to turn it off. The car is still called Beep Boop.
