Scotland the brave!!!

we have spent a lovely 2 days in pitlochry with my (G) mum's cousin Elaine and Henry. pitlochry is a sweetly touristy village on the way to the highlands. there are loads of wee walks around the area and lots of lochs and rivers everywhere. the first night we were here we went for a walk up to the dam and looked at the fish ladder (which is a series of 30 or so pools that the fish can swim between so they can still swim upriver to spawn, even with the dam in the way!).

Its been soooo good to sleep in a proper bed. While we were in Comrie we were sleeping on a double air mattress which was alright but not the best of sleeps. but before that we were staying in youth hostels that only have separate girls and boys dorms so we weren't even sleeping in the same room! We're such a lame old married couple who can't sleep too far apart.

Its been really relaxing here which is great since we've been so hectic since landing in London. And we've still been able to look around since Elaine and Henry have been talking us out on walks around the area. We've only done two touristy things in two days which has to be an all record minimum.

We looked at Blair Castle on Saturday which is another cool Scottish castle. It was white and fairy tale turrets (round tower). I (Jeremy) always thought of Scottish people back in the day as those highlanders like in Braveheart, but of course they had nobles and castles and all that too, i just never really thought about it. There was a piper at the entrance because they were having a wedding there and there were lots of people dressed up in kilts. Oh and Blair castle is only place in Britain that is allowed to have its own private army. queen Victoria liked it when she stayed there so she said they could have an army!!! apparently its mostly made up of old men now but they parade each year!!! i don't think they go to war anymore tho!!!

last night we went for a walk to see the black spout, a local waterfall, it was a pretty walk through the woods. the woods are really different to the forests in NZ, they have big tall trees like beech and oak then just bracken and stuff at ground level so you can see through the trees. apparently in the winter time red deer come down off the hills into the woods around the town.

we have seen a wee bit of wildlife so far, loads of rabbits obviously, and lots of molehills all over grassy areas (like the golf course!!!)but no actual moles (they don't come out much and only at night), Jeremy saw a fox as it ran in front of the car in comrie, that was exciting. we have seen grey squirrels in England but no red squirrels yet, although Elaine and Henry get them in their garden sometimes. we saw an eagle soaring in the sky above Queens View today which was pretty cool. they have loads of cute wee birds here which we've seen quite a few of but have no idea what they are.



Today we went for a drive to Queens View, a pretty lookout point over Loch Tummel, which is where Queen Victoria enjoyed to picnic when she came to the highlands. we then drove along the loch and visited a Crannoch!!!!!

a crannoch is a wooden hut over the loch where people lived about 2500 years ago!!! the one we were in was a reconstruction but they have excavated all the debris under where they were and found heaps of relics and stuff. it was really interesting and the exhibition also had how the crannoch people did crafts. Jeremy had a go at making fire from two bits of wood, he got a wee bit of smoke but no fire, the guy made it look so easy but j said its actually hard work!!! we also got to have a go a carving a bit of wood using a wooden lathe.



Tonight we are going to a ceilidh. Meredith should know what that is. All I (j) know is that it is some sort of Scottish music/dance.

we have planned the next leg of our journey, we are heading up to inverness tomorrow then spending a week touring around the highlands. we will then return to pitlochry and will attempt to get work after that. we have no idea where we'll be based but we'll let you know.

Love Gem and Jez

PS to add to the bank saga from before when we got to keri's house we each had two eftpos cards waiting for us and two different letters with the pin numbers on them so we now each have two bank cards one for the normal account and one for the savings and when we're allowed to have credit cards they'll be a different card again!!! what a mission!!! and we still do not have internet banking!!! its pretty ridiculous really but that seems to be the way they do things over here. o well, now we just need to earn some money to put in all these accounts!!!!!