Sightings of the Loch Ness Monster and other adventures

where were we up to? thats right we were in Torridon last time we wrote.

we drove from Torridon to the Isle of Skye the following day, again the scenery was pretty stunning and the weather was really hot!!! i now have the worst tshirt tan line cos i forgot to pack any singlets for this trip not expecting that it would get hotter as we went further north!!

At Torridon we realised the we has no bread left for breakfast so we drove on hoping that we'd go through a town with a bakery or store where we could get something yum, the only place we went that had anything vaguely suitable was a really small place and the best we could get from the general store was waffles, now these werent any ordinary waffles, they were small and hard but had caramel syrup in them so they wer so sweet and almost sickly after having two each for breakfast!!!

we stopped at the Strome Castle ruins to have a look around, this was a bit of a disappointment to jeremy cos its the friest ruins we'd been to and jeremy was expecting a big stately house like all the other ones we've been to. the ruins were cool though and on a rocky outcrop with great views up and down the sea Loch Carron.

The next place was ruins once but has been rebuilt to look like it was ages ago. the most photographed catle in scotland and appears on every scotland calender!!! Eilean Donan Castle. it was pretty spectacular form the outside and it sits on a island in the Loch accessed by a pretty bridge. the inside of the castle had heaps of crazy passageways in the really thick walls but was teeming with tourists and the information boards were really randomly laid out!!!

We drove over the Skye Bridge to the Isle of Skye. unfortunately we didn't get much of a chance to look around Skye because the main road was closed for most of the afternoon so we were stuck on the bottom half of the island and all the interesting bits are at the top half, including where we were staying!!! by the time the road reopened we were pretty tired and all the castles and museums and other stuff had closed so we made our way to the skyewalker hostel. it was a really cool hostel and had heaps of starwars charactter cutouts all round the place wearing tartan scarves!!! even the carpet was tartan as was the duvets and pillowcases on the bunks!!! the chap there suggested we go for a walk after tea up a local hill to look at the sunset. this was a beautiful view and the sunset was lovely. we did get eaten alive a wee bit by the midges.

midges are a native scottish bug like a very small sandfly and there are heaps of them . the night after our first encounter with them i even dreamt they were getting me and i hardly slept at all i was so itchy!!!!

in the morning we had to catch the boat back to the mainland quite early so only had time to quickly look at a prehistoric round tower ruins before driving to Armadale to catch the car ferry. we did a wee forest walk while we waited and saw some seals on the rocks, apparently you can sometimes see otters there but we didn't. :(

the ferry took us to Mallaig and the next bit of coastline was completely surprising. white sandy beaches with super clear blue water, it was so tropical looking and very different to everything else we'd seen. we had lunch at the beach but even tho it was hot the water was freezing still so no swimming!!!

after that we headed inland towards fort william, we stopped at Glenfinnan where there is a monument for the place the Jacobites raised their standard in 1745 and the Glenfinnan viaduct which was on the harry potter films. the monument we climbed up, it was a very narrow spiral staircase and at the top you popped out a small trapdoor and climbed out onto the roof.

Fort William itself was not particularly exciting we just got some supplies and looked around the outdoor market and headed further along to Fort Augustus where we were staying. Fort Augustus is a cute wee town with a canal and some tourist shops.

Okay, Gem is tired after that mammoth bit of writing, so I guess its my turn to take over. Where were we? So running through the centre of Fort Augustus is the Caledonian Canal. It was built in Victorian times to connect Fort William on the west coast with Inverness on the east coast. It was great to watch in action and really tickled my engineering bone (yes i have an engineering bone).

But back to our travels. We stayed at a hostel in Fort Augustus which had nice rooms but the kitchens and dining room was really gross. And there was a creepy staff member who was drunk/high who kept coming up and trying to have weird conversations with us.

Anyway, the next day we headed back west and travelled along to Glen Coe which is another scenic wee area with lots of walks. We took a Gondola ride up Aonoch Mor (a mountain) which is a ski field in winter. It was right next to Ben Nevis which is the tallest mountain in Scotland at 1343m (for comparison, Mt Cook is 3754m). We couldn't see the peak of Ben Nevis since it was covered in clouds. We also looked at the ruins of Inverlochy castle which is a pretty classical square fort with round towers at each corner (the kind you'd make out of sand on the beach, at least thats the shape i make my sand casltes). That night we went on a boat cruise on the Loch Ness and even got of shot of Nessie herself!

The day after was the last day of our highlands trip. It was (yet again) another stunning day and we went to Urquhart Caslte (ruins again!). These ruins were much cooler than the ones before because they've put some walkways and floors back in so you can clamber all over the castle. Its quite sprawling and you can easily visualise medieval life back in the day. Afterwards we went to a Monster exhibition in Drumnadrochit where we saw all the photographic evidence of the Loch Ness monster. From there we had a nice scenic drive up through Glen Affric which was doublely nice because it got us away from all the tourists again.

Finally we drove back up to Inverness to complete our circuit and after driving through the 5pm traffic we dropped the car off, grabbed some quick Macca's for tea and jumped on the train down to Pitlochry. The End.