Day Trip to the Highlands

I booked this tour before we came to Edinburgh. I was told we need to see the highlands, and since Scotland isn't all that big (relatively) I booked the tour that covered the most ground in one day.

This was our route, only we didn't pass through Glasgow. We left at 8:00am, and returned about 8pm.

First stop was a cute town called Pitlochry, and it's the "last stop" before we hit the rough highlands, where only sheep live. And some people but there aren't any actual rest stops until you get up closer to Loch Ness. Pitlochry was nice, we grabbed a coffee, cookies and sangwidges for our boat ride on Loch Ness. We were told there isn't any food on the boat ride. The coffees we bought 'to-go' had shitty lids I'm bored of this post now.

Pitlochry. OOOHH! we got coffees to go, but apparently the Scots haven't mastered 'take-away' lids. Burning spillage.

The scenery was beautiful, we were in the bus most of the time. And of course we sat in front of these Dutch guys who wouldn't STFU the entire time. I've never know a group of young men to talk so friggin much, and even over the tour guide as he spoke about the different things we passed. So annoying. If they didn't look like a Norwegan black metal band I might have asked them to be quiet. RUDE. The bus was cramped and stuffy and people were coughing... ugh I better not get sick.

The sky looks extra green because I took the photo from inside the bus.

a damn dam.

The scenery was full of lots of green, lots of pretty mounatins, lots of clouds and mist and many sheep along the way. Cute fat sheep that are used to make all the lovely wool knitted things at the stores we stopped at.

Loch Ness is nice, it's a huge lake and very deep. Loch = Lake in Scottishese, by the way. We decided to take the hour long boat tour, it had whiskey and beer on it and I ate my egg salad sandwich which offended Jamie. No regrets. I tried the 'whiskey of the day' and I don't know why I bother because I struggle to drink whiskey and makes always me gag. I figured I'd try it since I'm here, though. The tour was nice, the guy taught us about the sonar they use and there was a screen that showed the depth of the water and the fish below. We were told to 'watch for a big red thing' and if we see it we were to call him! OOoooOOHH! He told us a story that some news station made this full on mechanical Nessie, with textured skin and moving parts. It was brought up beside this boat which was touring some people around and apparently not one person took a photo of it. They were all in shock apparently. I was staring at that screen for a long time, I didn't see any big red dots though. Damn I was hoping this would be the day. It was cold up in Loch Ness, and windy. Felt like Toronto in November. Yuck.

on Loch Ness

Sonar stuff. The black area has specs in it, those are fish. The red/pink is the ground and types of rock n shizz.

That's the boat we took.

That's a real life photo of Nessie. I was scared.

After Loch Ness we went down to Glen Coe, it had beautiful huge green mountains - not as huge as out in Vancouver of course, but these were the biggest mountains I'd ever seen. I forgot to mention there were many pretty little creeks and waterfalls along the roads and in the distance. I didn't see anyone climbibg any of the mountains, but I wished I could climb up one. I feel like it's hard to gauge how far it actually is to the top, it doesn't look to bad but I'm sure if I were to do it, it would take forever. Give me one of those walking sticks, a snickers bar and good shoes and I'd climb one. I'd complain along the way but I'd do it. We stopped at a lookout point for photos then went on towards Stirling.

very large. pretty ravines and such so fourth and so on.

It was cold and wet out.

BIG. Hard to tell but.. BIG.

Stirling is all about William Wallace (Braveheart - which was filmed in like 1995!!). The tour guide told us a quick story on it and drove us up to Stirling Castle (so cool), which is a full on castle we will be visiting on Wednesday (can't wait!!) I asked the tour guide if there was a throne. I want to see a throne! There is, so it is officially on the agenda. I hope this satisfies my castle craving for the trip.

King Bruce statue and Stirling Castle in the background.

The doors to Stirling Castle.

an ominous crow!

It was rainy and cold by the time we got back to Edinburgh.. I'd say it was 9º. We found a pub and had dinner, it was good.

That was my calamari. I can only eat so much calamari, it grosses me out after a while. I asked to take it home and she said ok, then she came back and said I'm not allowed to leave the premises with food (??). ok.

That be all.