Scotland in 6 Days *UPDATED*

or "Psycho Scotland"
or "The Tradgic Tour"

Wow. First time I've been able to net for relatively cheap! I'm here with Kyle, Kim and Shannon... I wonder if they are as tired as me!! (kyle says "aye!")

I'll start with where we went... Thanks for the suggestions (from those that know Scotland) but the tour was pretty planned and we didn't have much extra time. Anyways...

DAY 1

Edinburgh to Oben

We visited the Wallace Monument... William Wallace was the guy from Braveheart (which I haven't seen)... Actually that's the wrong way around... Graeme (the tour guide) would shoot me!

His sword was supposed to be huge (like about 5 foot)! You had to pay money to enter the monument (the largest to any single person in the world, a big tower thing), but I was saving money at that stage.

We had lunch at Loch Lubnaig, went past Rannoch Burn, and then went for a "wee walk" at Glencoe. We saw this "hidden glen" where the MacDonalds hid from the Campbells. The Campbells ("the dirty rotten pigs that they are... *spit*" -Graeme) went into the houses of the MacDonalds for 13 days and sponged off them (this highland law/courtesy thing where you give travellers food and shelter in bad weather)... then on a prearranged signal slaughtered them all!! Apart from the escapees in the hidden glen... it was a really beautiful place, but the walk took ages... like a few hours - the first of a few "wee walks" that are more like "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee walks"... I semi-sprained my ankle and kept re-twisting it. I think now that I'm in Poland and in the flat city It'll finally be able to heal!

We stayed at Oben the first night, and went to 2 different pubs... danced and drank... was a good night out! Had to drag myself out of bed the next morning... this last paragraph would have to be the recurring theme of the trip!

DAY 2

Oben to Skye

We went through Fort William, up Glen Nevis... walked to Steele Falls (which are really nice!) I shoved my head under the waterfall... it was so refreshing! Pretty damn cold though!

We went past Eileandonan Castle (which is rebuilt inside... and I believe was filmed for Braveheart?) and went on to Skye... we stayed at Saucy Mary's... which is a pub/hostel named after this princess who would flash passing ships from her tower on Skye!

Saucy Mary's in in Kylakin... I ate my first haggis! It was really tastey, actually... haha I think the meat is better quality than Aussie mince :-)

Afterwards we had a lockin at the pub... they kicked all the regulars and locals out at 11, and only us tour ppl were left. We drank tons... including spending only £12 for 3 jugs of cocktails (I think it would only normally buy one) and lying down on the bar and the barman (the manager) pouring shots in our throats! Whoa! Free alcohol is good... would hate to be paying for it!

Our bus driver Blair was cool... Geri (a girl on the tour - not her real name) flashed him... and he was so shocked that he ran into the toilets, fell over and nearly broke his nose! Then afterwards, he ran in again and nearly broke his arm! They ended up driving him to hospital for emergency x-rays. His arm turned out pretty OK and he was alright to drive though.

DAY 3

Around Skye

We went and took photos of hairy coooos, heard fairy stories at Sligachan Burn, saw kilt rock (after passing the kissing gate!) had haggis in a potato for lunch, then went for a walk into the clouds up this hill Quirang? My notes aren't all that good!

That night I drank a bit more... but not too much. It was kewl... there was someone from each of my hostels to that point. A BIG HELLO to Danny and David from Israel, who I knew from Earl's Court (my 1st hostel), Shan (who was also on tour and from my 2nd hostel) and Marissa (from my 3rd hostel)! So I was spread quite thinly... but that was kewl. I ended up on the roof talking to "Camp Canada" :-)

DAY 4

Skye to Carbisdale Castle

Running out of time... we heard more history, saw tons more scenery.

Skimmed stones at a beach with no sand... Our bus got bogged on the road to Carbisdale as we were driving around a car! We walked for an hour until a big truck rocked up to drag the bus out of the peaty ditch! I'll try to post piccies soon... we were on quite an angle!

Blair was pretty annoyed with himself, but supposely the driver of the car that he was driving around had done the same to a few cars beforehand. We got to carbisdale OK... it was amazing! We ate dinner as a group, then went off to the pub. When the pub closed, we went to a campfire and drank (what a recurring theme - although that night I was drinking more coke than anything else) and roasted marshmallows.

Just before bed we roamed the castle. The tower is supposedly haunted (someone from the tour can post it as I wasn't paying too much attention!)... but we didn't see any ghosts. There are tons of paintings and sculptures inside the castle.

DAY 5

Carbisdale Castle to Fort Augustus

We sadly left the castle, then did a tour of the Glen Ord whiskey distillery.

The Colloden battlefield was interesting, but sad. It's the last battle that the Jacobite forces fought against government forces. Bonny prince Charlie chose the battlefield really badly and tons of highlanders died!

After that, we went to a tacky ness shop at Drumnadrochait... haha they had so many useless trinkets! Then we saw a talk/demo about clan life at the Fort Augustus clansmen centre, which was really interesting.

OK... this bit is a bit strange. I SAW NESSY! BELIEVE IT OR NOT!, well, on sonar at least! The guy on the boat had *really* good scientific answers to any question... we saw only the 2nd contact this year... supposedly Haggis (the tour company's) busses have been going on the boat for ages and we are only the 2nd tour to have a sighting, so it's not like he's performing every week. The sonar picked up a large (4ft or 4m? I know there's a big difference!) animal that was surfacing waaay to fast to be a fish. The tour guide was this research scientist guy for a marine biology institute, except they wanted to capture one of the creatures, and he quit. He recons there's 18 "loch ness animals" in the loch... ?? Kinda weird...I'm still semi-sceptical, but I do believe we recorded the movement of *something* large enough to be a pretty impressive animal, nessy or no.

Afterwards, we went to the Poachers rest pub, heard Blair play his bagpipes (he used to do it as a job in the army) then to the Bothy, another pub with live music (PLAY 500 MILES PLAY 500 MILES PLAY 500 MILES PLAY 500 MILES !!) . A really good night!

DAY 6

Fort Augustus to Edinburgh

The last day... we were stuffed! I slept quite a bit... Some ppl swam in Loch Oich, we saw Glen Bogle (from a distance - a main road only 100m away!) We stopped for a group photo at Ruthven barracks, ate icecream at Dunkeld (really near Perth! :-> ), then arrived back at Edinburgh.

Phew!

This story continues with the "getting to poland" message!

Posted by Sam at September 20, 2002 02:26 AM