EDITOR’S NOTE: Great Escapes is a series about how sometimes travel doesn’t go as planned — and what happens next.
Niki Ghofranian surveyed the view from atop the stone walls of Dunstaffnage Castle, hoping, against the odds, to find a way out.
The walls stood some 60 feet above the grass below. Jumping would be ill-advised, perhaps fatal.
In the distance: hills, lochs, islands. Nearby: forest, greenery, water. Not a person in sight.
The views were undeniably beautiful. Breathtaking — the picture-perfect Scottish landscape that American tourist Niki had always dreamed of seeing.
“There are worse places to be trapped,” she thought to herself.
It was after hours. The 14th-century gate was padlocked shut. And Niki and her sister Ritta Nielsen were stuck in a Scottish castle.
It was June 5, 2019, and Niki and Ritta were on a special vacation to mark their birthdays — Niki’s 55th and Ritta’s 66th. The symmetry felt worth celebrating.
“We thought, ‘Okay, let’s do something spectacular,’” Niki tells CNN Travel today.
The two had always wanted to go to Scotland.
“We have Scottish blood in us from our mom’s side,” explains Niki.
They’d long daydreamed about seeing rolling hills, dramatic lochs and imposing mountains. And, of course, Scotland’s array of ancient castles.
They arrived in Oban, in the west of Scotland, excited to explore Dunstaffnage Castle. Parts of the fortress date back to the 13th century. Once the stronghold of the MacDougall clan, the castle was captured by warrior king Robert the Bruce in 1308. In the 18th century, young Scotswoman Flora MacDonald was held at Dunstaffnage for aiding in the escape of Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Today, it’s all imposing stone walls, ruined turrets and formidable views over the water. One section is covered up, but it’s largely open to the elements.
“It was beautiful ruins,” says Nikki.
“When you approach the castle, it’s sitting on this huge mound of a rock,” says Ritta. “It’s very imposing looking.”
The sisters arrived by taxi mid-afternoon — later than planned, but Scotland’s known for its long summer daylight. The day still seemed to stretch ahead of them.
They stood outside for a moment or two, admiring the first glimpse of the castle standing over the water. Then they headed to the visitor center to buy tickets.
“It’s about 150 yards or so away from the actual castle itself,” recalls Niki. “When we walked in, the woman told us about the castle, and she took our money, and then she says, ‘We close at six.’”
It was about 4 p.m. Plenty of time.
“And I’m an American,” says Niki. “When places close here, they tell you they’re closed. They don’t just close.”
Entering the grounds, Niki and Ritta were blown away. History visible on every surface.
“Niki marched along the battlements with iPhone in hand, posting and envisioning a history she had read about, while I searched every nook and cranny,” recalls Ritta. “God, what a stunning structure!”
Time seemed to stand still. The two sisters had Dunstaffnage more or less to themselves.
After a while the two separated – Ritta heading outside of the castle walls to take photographs of the exterior, Niki climbing onto the ramparts. She stood there, taking in the choppy water and hills. There was no one else around, no noise, beyond the wind and water lapping in the loch.
“It was very peaceful and beautiful,” says Niki.
Niki exhaled, taking in the tranquility. Then, the silence was interrupted.
“All of a sudden I hear Ritta yelling at me,” she recalls.
Ritta had wandered over to the castle entrance, tried the enormous door and realized the gate was shut.
Not just shut — “locked, with an impressive bolt system.”
They were trapped.
“The door was closed … bolted from the top and at the bottom. Heavy-duty bolting and big heavy duty locks. So that did give me a rush of panic,” she says.
“It was clear we had made a blunder.”
The moment Niki and Ritta realized they were locked in
Ritta left the gatehouse and tried to find her sister. She spotted her on the ramparts.
At first Niki couldn’t quite hear what Ritta was saying.
“What?” she shouted down.
“We’re locked in!” shouted Ritta.
“What are you talking about?” shouted back Niki.
She assumed her sister was joking.
“Really. We are locked in! The gate is shut,” yelled Ritta.
Niki sensed the panic in her sister’s voice, but assumed it was a misunderstanding.
“So I go down,” recalls Niki today. “And sure enough, the castle doors … were shut.”
Niki stared at her sister in disbelief.
There hadn’t been any announcements, or at least none they had noticed. They started laughing. Nervous, incredulous laughter.
“We’re looking around like, ‘Okay great. We’re locked in here. This is unbelievable.’” recalls Niki.
Upon realizing they were stuck, Niki did the first logical thing: She pulled out her phone.
“But it was very, very low battery left, and I didn’t have a charger,” she says.
Ritta didn’t even have a phone with her. So, she began inspecting the castle for escape routes.
“I just circled the environment looking for options of where and how we could get out of the castle on our own,” she says.
Niki figured her less-than-15% battery was enough for a phone call.
She Googled “Oban police” and dialed the local station.
“So I called and tried to tell them where we were,” recalls Niki. “The person I was talking to did not understand what I was saying. I don’t know if it was the way I was pronouncing the castle’s name or what, but she asked me to spell the castle’s name to her, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, we are really in trouble now, because they don’t know where we’re at…’”
“Dunstaffnage” is, after all, not the easiest word to say or spell — whether you’re American or Scottish.
Next, Niki messaged her wife, Martha, thousands of miles away: “I can’t use my phone but we are locked in Dunstaffnage Castle and hoping police can come let us out.”
The reply came almost immediately. Martha assumed her partner was “drunk.”
“No, it’s true!!” replied Niki.
“Do you need me to call the police?” asked Martha.
Niki explained she’d already called, but she wasn’t holding out much hope.
Niki and Ritta try to shoo some birds and call the police
Her phone battery was fading fast. The sisters’ prospects of escape looked no better than they had 30 minutes earlier. They were facing the possibility of a long night in a 13th-century castle.
They didn’t have much food, just some alcohol-infused chocolates Ritta had bought at a sweet shop in Oban. Better than nothing, but not ideal. They both had coats and sweaters, but they knew they’d get cold once darkness set in.
Much of the castle was exposed to the elements, but there was a small room inside the gatehouse — a possible makeshift bedroom.
“But there were pigeons in there, so my sister kept going in there and trying to shoo the pigeons out,” recalls Niki.
Each time Ritta flapped her arms, trying unsuccessfully to chase the birds away, Niki struggled to contain her laughter.
“She was trying her best to shoo these birds, and that was the most comical thing I’ve ever seen,” says Niki. “The way she was acting with those pigeons … she must have been panicking.”
Ritta thought the keep, the castle’s main tower, might be a better bedroom option. At least it was bird-free.
Niki was also open to the idea.
“I was not panicking, because to me, it was still part of the adventure. I love castles, and I honestly would have happily stayed the night,” she says. “It would not have been a problem for me. It might have been a little bit cold, a little uncomfortable without a bathroom, but it would have been a great experience.”
Still, they knew this was a last resort. In a last-ditch attempt to get help, Niki climbed back up the ramparts.
From the castle walls, Niki once again admired the spectacular rural landscape. What an experience, she conceded. Spending a night locked in Dunstaffnage, she thought, was something many people might pay good money for.
Then she spotted a young child running out of some nearby woods.
“I yell down to the kid, ‘Hey, we’re locked in the castle!’ And the kid looks at me probably thinking the same thing my wife was thinking: ‘What is wrong with this person? They’re locked in the castle? Sure.’”
Still, Niki pressed on.
“Go tell your mom!” she shouted. “Tell your mom we’re locked in the castle. Go get your mom!”
The kid ran back into the woods without responding.
“What parent is going to believe their kid when their kid comes running to them saying, ‘Hey, there’s people locked in the castle, they’re telling me they’re locked in the castle?’” Niki thought.
But minutes later, the child returned with a woman she assumed was their mother.
“She’s yelling up at me, saying, ‘What do we do?’” recalls Niki.
Then the woman mentioned Historic Environment Scotland, which manages Dunstaffnage Castle.
“I’m going to try and get hold of them,” shouted the woman below. “Maybe they can come and reopen the door.”
She disappeared back into the woods, phone in hand. Niki walked down and found Ritta sitting in the gatehouse with the pigeons. She updated her sister, and they split the remaining chocolate.
Time passed. Neither is sure how much.
“The timeframe … who knows, actually,” says Ritta. “We didn’t even know how long we had been in there. The bird episode, in memory, did seem like it was a long time.”
Hope started to fade. Then they heard sirens, and shouting.
Flashing lights appeared and police cars pulled up.
“They’re yelling, ‘We don’t know how we’re going to get you out,’” recalls Niki. “‘Go see if a window is unlocked!’”
There were a couple of small windows in the castle’s covered gatehouse, but they were screwed shut. The police said they were going to call the firefighters.
Firefighters arrived soon after, unraveling long ladders.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘Okay, are we gonna have to climb down?” recalls Niki. “It was pretty high, the castle. The walls were pretty darn tall up there.”
Instead, the firefighters proposed breaking down the door.
“I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’” recalls Niki. “‘I love history. I love castles. Don’t you dare break that door down for us like that.”
She would rather wait until morning, she told them.
“And anyway,” she added, “if the castle has stood for that many years, how can you break the door down? I mean, aren’t castle doors pretty strong and fortified?”
The firefighters regrouped. Ritta described the hinges on the inside while they assessed the situation from the outside.
“It was humorous in a way for me to be talking with them through the gate because they were telling me, ‘Well, yeah, this castle is impenetrable,’” says Ritta. “It is known as the impenetrable castle.”
The firefighters helped Ritta move various latches while they applied pressure on the door from the other side.
“They just coached me through it. And it was so cute, because they were encouraging me. ‘You can do this,’” says Ritta. “I think they all rammed into the door and broke the lock.”
The sisters finally stepped outside — to cheers from the emergency services.
“It felt wonderful, absolutely wonderful to be free,” says Niki.
The relief was also tinged with embarrassment, adds Ritta, who recalls feeling “guilt-ridden, mortified.”
Rod Campbell, Monument Manager at Dunstaffnage Castle, later told CNN Travel that “no damage was caused to the castle by the emergency services.”
“They were able to prise the two adjoining entrance doors apart and our manager, who was called out, locked it again,” he said.
Campbell said a staff member walks round the castle each night at closing time shutting doors and “jangling the keys” to alert visitors. There is no bell or loud-speaker system in the castle, he added.
“On this occasion, the two visitors were not spotted, and the main door locked with them inside,” he said. “Clearly after an incident like this, the manager reiterated the procedure with the team and it hasn’t happened again!”
Campbell sympathized — because he’s experienced something similar himself.
“I’ve been locked in a castle in Portugal … and a church tower in Sicily, both at lunchtime,” he said.
Everyone involved in rescuing Niki and Ritta seemed to see the humor of the incident.
Before leaving, the sisters posed for photos with the firefighters in front of the castle.
The police were also in good spirits.
“Oh my god, this is the best thing we’ve seen all day,” Niki recalls one police officer saying. “This is really fun.”
Still, the sisters couldn’t stop apologizing.
“I couldn’t believe we caused the police to have to come,” says Niki. “We caused the fire brigade to have to come. We caused a big, gigantic mess. And it was uncomfortable to me that we did this … but they all were laughing and happy.”
Niki and Ritta were then given a ride to their Airbnb in a police car.
“I’m sure the people that lived in the houses there probably thought, ‘Oh gosh, who are these hoodlums? They’re getting out of the back of the police car,’” says Niki, laughing.
The sisters never discovered whether their call to the police, the mother and child, or Niki’s emergency text to her wife ultimately led to their escape.
Nearly a week later, while they were in Dublin on the next leg of their vacation, they discovered they’d made the news in Scotland. They were interviewed by local reporters, feeling simultaneously intrigued, baffled and embarrassed by their 15 minutes of fame.
Back home in the US, Niki has a framed Scottish newspaper article in which, to her amusement, the sisters’ misadventures feature on the same page as a photograph of Prince William. An Oban resident sent her the report after they connected on Facebook.
Since then, Niki and Ritta have continued to enjoy traveling — now paying close attention to closing times.
“That’s really what I took from it,” Niki says. “Not to mention all the resources that were spent to try to get us out. I mean, that was a lot of time for the police that could have been doing something else. The fire brigade could have been doing something else instead of trying to get these dumb Americans out of their castle.”
Ritta has even purchased a watch that she programs to tell her when it’s time to leave a location.
“If someone says they’re closing in a certain hour, make darn sure you’re done by that hour and exiting the building,” agrees Niki.
The experience cemented Scotland as a vacation the sisters will never forget.
“It does make me want to go back,” says Ritta, who says she would love to volunteer for Historic Environment Scotland.
“I think that would be really, really delightful to volunteer and just be in the space, because the environment was so palpable … There’s a kind of energy, the history still seems very alive.”
“I can remember everything like it was yesterday,” agrees Niki. “But I cannot go on a vacation again to this day without somebody telling me, ‘Careful, don’t get locked in a castle.’ I will forever be the girl who got locked in the castle.”
Additional reporting and video by Max Burnell, CNN. Imagery in video courtesy of Niki Lee Ghofranian, Randi L “Ritta” Nielsen and Getty Images
