Highlands continued...

Okay, so next up was Culloden Battlefield. (as a side note we used to live on Culloden St in Dunedin). For those of you who don't know this was the major battlefield in the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745/46. The Scottish got absolutely hammered by the British English Redcoats (the Jacobites/Scottish were undefeated up to this point), with 1500 Jacobites dying vs only 50 Redcoat casualties. End of History Lesson. The information centre there is really really awesome, full of interative panels and great tour guides. They even have a birds eye view video/projector of the battlefield with little red and blue men that you can see fighting.

Next up was Cawdor castle which was another lovely state home. Shakespeare set part of Macbeth here (the murder of Duncan) but it wasn't very sinister while we were there (the sun was very sunny). They had a holly labyrith but we couldn't go in because if they let everyone in it will destroy the holly (since its shallow rooted). We're turning into maze enthusiasts I think.

We then intended to drive a short distance to Brodie Castle but we managed take a wrong turning somewhere (i still don't know where) and ended up 10 miles in the wrong direction, having taken a rather scenic route. We finally found our way there and just caught the last tour of the day at 4:30pm. We were so glad we did because the tour and the castle were really interesting. Really cool to hear the familiy history from the tour guide and how it got transfered into the National Trust. I even got to play on the antique piano (only because the benefactor wanted music to always be played in the music room (they also have concerts there too)).

We spent that night in Inverness too. Not sure if Gem mentioned but we had really cheap rooms with really uncomfortable bunks. You could feel the springs all the time as though there was just a thin sheet of material above them and thats it. You get what you pay for really.

The next day (which was yesterday) we had a lovely drive up to Ullapool. It is fantastically scenic and I thoroughly recommend coming up this way to have a look. We had lunch at Corrieshalloch Gorge which means Ugly Hollow in Gaelic but its really not. Theres a big suspension bridge over a massive ravine, with a gigantic watterfall. Gem got a little freaked out when the bridge was swaying and was even more scared when we got to the wee viewing platform round the corner (which sticks out over the ravine). Its weird because I was fine here but I was quite shakey when we were ontop of the dome at St Paul's, and Gem was the other way around. Before that we had a little walk at Rogie Falls which were also very pretty with deep black water, unsurprisingly called the Black River. We managed to lose our way on the walk with some confusing colour coded signposting.

We got to Ullapool in the early afternoon and guy at the hostel suggested we take a drive further north to Achiltibuie. Up there we drove through some stunning mountain scenery and found a lovely white sandy beach. It was blazing hot so we stopped there for a while. Its definitely not what we were expecting to be doing in the Scottish Highlands. There were also lots of pretty wee isles dotted around the coast (called the Summer Isles i think). We had fish & chips for tea and sat on the beach at Ullapool until 9pm because it was so hot. Go summertime!

Finally today we drove from Ullapool to Torridon. Drove through more spectacular scenery (is this getting repetitive?) and stopped for luch at the Inverwe Gardens. The gardens are filled with exotic plants, way more tropical than you'd expect at the top of Scotland. They even had a Bamboosolem (haha funny word) with bamboo! We stopped at another sunny sandy beach and we watched a real funny dog playing fetch. He would bring a tennis ball back to his master and drop it while she threw another one away in the opposite direction, and he went tearing after that one. Meanwhile the first ball would roll to his master's feet. So he basically was on the run the whole time, never stopping. Someone should teach Monty to fetch balls like that! (Yeah right)

We mosied down lots of one track roads which are quite common up here. But they're not as bad as you might think. They have heap and heaps of passing places (unlike the ones in the lakes district) so its really good when you want to stop heaps and admire the scenery and people can pass you easily. Its much better than narrow two lane roads where there's no safe place to stop or to let people behind you pass.

Torridon is a really small place where the only shop is open only 1.5 hours a day. Just chilling out in the YHA at the moment (back in seperate dorms again :[ )

We're finding the sheep kinda weird over here. They all have tails for one thing (we even saw one wagging it like a dog today), and they wander all over the place. We passed through one little town which had sheep grazing next to the pub!

I think that pretty much catches us up. Next up we're travelling to the remote Isle of Skye so might not be internet again.

Toodle-oo
Gem and Jez