We arrived in Edinburgh after a 24 hour trip from Dublin (stopping in Holyhead, Manchester and Glasgow) and were greeted by our wonderful friends Trav and Dweebs who had us at their place for the week. We have been very busy trekking around the magnificant country that is Scotland. We have seen so many gorgeous sites and met some really lovely people! We also joined a 5 Day Macbackpackers Tour of the Highlands! Here is what we have been up to...
EDINBURGH
This gorgeous city has provided us with countless options and we have spent most of our time wandering around, visiting the Christmas Markets, seeing famous sites like the Castle, Authur's Seat and the Princes St Gardens but the most interesting was finding out about the dark history and creepy happenings of times gone by! EJ had a great day for his birthday on the 10th and we took part in the annual Charity Santa Run on the 11th!
DUNKELD, DALWHINNEY WHISKY DISTILLERY, LOCH NESS
We stopped at Dunkeld on our way up to Loch Ness on the first day. We had a look around the old cathedral and the fast flowing river! It was already snowing and it looked like a winter wonderland :) We stopped off for the customary whiskey tour and tasting. Scotland sure makes a great wee dram lol.. We went Nessie spotting at the famous loch, but no site of the famous monster haha!
INVERNESS
We continued on to Inverness, a lovely city in the Highlands! After slipping down the hill on the ice we had some dinner and some more drinks in the city! Next morning we visited the iconic Battlefields of Culloden and saw the Black Houses in which they used to live. There was so much snow here and we froze our buts off!
CLOOTIE WELL
We visited Clootie Well, which is a traditional 'Happy Place' and visitors bring pieces of cloth to the well in the hope it will heal them or a friend. It was an amazing site as the whole area had thousands of pieces of different cloth on it! After this we did a forest walk to a waterfall and it was a gorgeous site, all the new snow offsetting the bare and brown trees.
We detoured to the Castle of Eilean Donan and then onto the Isle of Skye. We stayed two nights here and explored the Isle on the middle day. We went to Port Ree and bought some sleds which we would then use to fly down a mountain (once we made the incredible climb!). We had a great time here and then EJ dipped his head in the Sliganchan River for eternal youth haha... We also saw the Kilt Cliffs and it was starting to get very windy!
Port Ree
Sliganach River
FORT WILLIAM
We set off to Fort William in 165mph winds and in the middle of Cyclone Bawbag haha!! What a name for a cyclone lol, but all jokes aside we were crapping ourselves haha.. We got to Fort William and couldn't go any further as there was a landslide where we needed to go and a snow storm where we had come from haha! It was very exciting and our driver Graeme has been credited with keeping the bus on the road :)
We ended up spending the night here and there was one supermarket left open so we had dinner and booze too lol! We made it out of Fort William the next morning but we were now a little off course. We visited the Glenfinnian Viaduct (aka the Harry Potter Bridge) and the Boonie Prince Charlie monument! We drove through Pithlochry (still shut) and on to the Willam Wallace monument.
We arrived back in Edinburgh and Graeme took us to the pub and we had a massive night lol!
We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Scotland, trying Haggis, crumbed Brie and hanging out with Trav and Dweebs!
Back to London now then the US!!
Only 4 and a bit weeks left xxxx
EJnRHE xx
