It was a cold winters' night.....the cows were saying...'Moo', 'Moo' ....'Moo'!!! The ducks were quacking really loudly!!! VERY LOUDLY!!!!! a little too loud in fact and that was before we hopped on the bus for the adventure.
Now that I've set the scene i can tell the story, firstly the bus driver was about 30mins late cause the bus was having issues, well thats what we were told. Myself being a special passenger was picked up from the hostel before we picked everyone up from the companys designated pick up point in the city. All aboard and apologies from the driver we were off on this great trip of discovery.
Heading out of the city wasn't really that exciting and even our first stop wasn't thrilling because we hadn't yet reached the highlands but we could see yonder hill down the bonnie road. In the highlands we drove through Glencoe looking out the windows at the (slightly) snow capped mountains all around us, the landscape is really quite amazing and the change from the lowlands very sudden. In this area we were told of how the Campbell clan slaughtered the MacDonalds in their sleep after bumming off their resources for 10 long days, we drove through the valley (Glen) of where the MacDonalds once lived. Here's a little picture of 2 of the 3 sisters just down the road a little more. The 3rd sister is just to the left of these two but i was getting in the snow from the peak inbetween.
Like this one most of the larger mountains were slighty hidden in the clouds.
As we drove through the glens we were told a whole bunch of mythical stories by a guide who had self confessed verbal diorhhea but luckily for us he really knew what he was going on about. We got the whole Scottish hate story of Braveheart the movie and were told the real version as we went through the battlefields by Stirling Castle. The whole day we learnt interesting facts about how an english man invented the modern kilt we know today and why underwear wasnt worn (it wasnt invented yet) and just things which took apart the stereotypical view of the kilt wearing bagpiping red haired scotsman atop a mountain.
Ok, so down the road a bit we passed Ben Nevis the highest mountain in the UK and went onto Loch Ness. Unfortunatly there were no monsters afoot but some of the Australian girls on the trip were doing quite a good impression of something I didn't recognise that was scary! We passed the Mansion were they filmed Monarch of the Glen. Up the way a bit was a beach on one of the Lochs that had been left there by the glaciers of old, in the summer its meant to be really quite large and people actually go swimming there....a was a bit cold for us.
More importantly on the way back from the monster infested Loch we visited the Whisky Centre and sampled some of the produce, some tastier than others! This time when we passed Ben Nevis (we backtracked about 20 miles or so from loch ness) we stopped, streched our legs and got some snaps...
Thats Ben Nevis to the right going up into the clouds. At this stage up in the sky some jet streams had caused half of the scottish flag to appear in the sky. Also we saw some oldstyle jets and big bomber looking things flying through the valleys during the day presumably belonging to the airforce on some training exercise, still it would have been good to be in the cockpit checking out the views.
Heading back to Edinburgh a different way to the way came up we drove higher into the mountains and took a bit of a bushwalk checking out the forest and how they think it would have appeared all those years ago when there where still bears and wolves roaming the lands, thats true by the way.
mmm..... a RIVER!
It was after this mighty bushwalk that we drove higher still into the mountains. We were actually higher than some snow for a short while but alas this was not one of our stopping points so no snowball fights were had :(. The last image of the highlands we have is driving through a gloomy valley as the sun was starting to hide and the shadows were starting to rule, or as the guide told us, as the ancient people thought, the day spirits were going to sleep and the night spirits were coming out to play. It was an impressive looking place anyways.
Getting back onto the lowlands and the end of our trip, most people decided that it had been a long days travelling and it was time for a snooze.....me included.
Thanks to 'Highland Experience' and its guide Chris + trainee Marty for a great day out, the sights and the stories!! Everyone use this company!
We made some interesting discoveries around the island including these fungi and............
A Dolphin (or whatever) that was on the beach, don't know how it died but i'll put up a nicer picture without any yucky bits. Its' flippers were gone and it was a bit pecked on the other side.
