Yesterday we decided that it was time have someone share their Scottish knowledge with us and so we booked a tour for today.

It was an early start - had to catch a bus into town at 8am!

It was there we met our driver - Graeme - and the tour participants - Chelsea, Nick, Jessica, Rachael, Bruce and Robyn. Yep! We managed to be the only attendees and that meant we were able to go in a car and therefore get to see a bit more. A private tour for the price of a general tour.

Our first stop was the cantilevered railway bridge over Firth of Forth. Impressive architecture for a bridge 130 years old. But there is a road bridge there - suspension - and they are building a new bridge, so there will be plenty of tourist opportunities in the future. We made our way through North Queensferry - where Queen Margaret provided ferry services for pilgrims to Saint Andrews in the 11th Century. A quaint little village.

We then drove to Stirling - not to see the castle but to visit the Wallace Monument. Only 140 years old, it was built to celebrate the life of William Wallace and its position in Stirling overlooks the Scots most important battle win with the English. 246 steps take you through three different displays (one of which holds Wallace's sword - 5ft 8 inches in length) and brings you to the top where you can see amazing views of Stirling castle and the area of Stirling.

From there we headed to Gleneagles golf course where the Ryder Cup (between US and UK) was played in 2014. It is the place a-listers regularly visit - but we didn't find any there.

The Glenturret whiskey distillery was next on our visit. It is an artisan distillery only making about 180,000 litres of whiskey a year (the larger distilleries make this much in a day). We followed the production process, which was interesting, and to taste the finished product - not a whiskey drinker before, not one now!

A quick bite to eat there before we headed into the highlands. Our original tour skirted the highlands but a road blocked by flooding meant we had to take a different route and that was into the highlands. Very beautiful. Very wild. Reminded of the scene from Skyfall where Bond is taking M to his estate. And it was very cold. We got to see snow on the mountain tops but not close enough to touch it.

We followed the River Tay on our long trip home - a lot wider than usual because of flooding. Quite close to homes in some places.

We stopped at a place called Ossian's Hall on the River Braan to see the river in full flood - it created awesome rapids here. The hall is an eccentric piece built to view the river and we were told that the original was used by its owner to sit and drink afternoon tea whilst contemplating the river. Would have been nice to do that but we were losing light.

Beside the hall is The Hermitage, a stone footbridge over the River Braan, which gave us another vantage point to view the river and rapids. These places are surrounded by Birnam Woods of Macbeth fame - amazing to put a place to a literary setting.

As our light was fading we had a quick drive into Dunkeld (saw a building there built in 1500s - I think) and then we continued our drive home skirting Perth and South Queensferry before arriving back in Edinburgh about 5.30pm.

A long day but an entertaining and interesting one. A great tour guide from Timberbush Tours.