Inverness and Loch Ness
The Pictures!
Monday, March 31, 3002 (cont.)
So the bus, part of the MacPackBackers Jump On Jump Off (JoJo!) tour, didn't end up leaving until around 2. Let me stop for a minute and explain how great these bus trips are. They cost about the same (sometimes even less!) then the public buses we had been taking, but include so much more. All the guides are Scottish and the male ones wear kilts! They stop at really neat sites, as you'll see, and tell local legends and stories along the way. We learned so much more and were so much more entertained this way. If you ever come to Scotland, I *highly* recommend these guys. OK, back to the trip. Out first stop was Queen's View, Queen Victoria's favorite view in Scotland. (See picture) Next was the Pass of Killiecrankie, the site of the first Jacobite rebellion, led by Bonnie Dundee. The Highlanders were victorious against the government forces, but Dundee didn't survive. We piled back into the bus and headed off into the Highlands. We toasted our arrival with a slug of Edradour whisky and continued our trek towards the Ruthven Barracks. The barracks were built right after the 1715 Jacobite uprising since the government wanted tighter control on these crazy Highlanders. It's very windy up there! And since we were following the trail of the Jacobites, we stopped at the Culloden Battlefield, the site of the last Jacobite rebellion, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, and the last major battle to be fought on British soil. The field is virtually unchanged and has a very eerie feeling to it. At this point, we were pretty close to Inverness, but we still had one more stop to make: Loch Ness! The day had turned out to be really windy and stormy by this point. The location of the Loch is such that it creates a wind tunnel effect. It's absolutely huge and not really what I was expecting. It's beautiful though. Totally worth the trip altogether! Hoo boy! We were all given the opportunity to go swimming (!) but only two of the guys went. Brrrrr! Time for more whisky! By this time, it was 7 pm, we were tired and hungry, so we headed for out home for the next couple nights. Of course, since the whole bus had to check in, getting our beds took awhile. But we got settled, found the local Tesco, made dinner, and headed off to the pub to meet up with the rest of our group for some Ceilidh (cay-lee), which is scottish dancing. After a pint we were ready to join in. It's so much fun! Lots of swinging and turning and meeting new people. They even had extra St. Patrick's Day goodies to give away, and I managed to 'win' Andy the coolest souvenir. :o)
Tuesday, April 1, 2003
Being so close to Loch Ness, of course the first thing we wanted to do was explore it! We also heard there was a castle on the shores so the first thing we did was go to the TIC to find out how to get there. They explained which bus to take and where to catch it. On the way out of the building, this lady stopped us because she had overheard that we wanted to go to the castle. It turns out she was a tour guide and her bus was leaving in two minutes, with three empty seats. She offered to give us discounted student tickets, so we took her up on it. The itinerary of the tour is online, so I won't go into huge detail about it here. It was a lot of fun, our guide Alison was really informative and eccentric. It was a great way to see Loch Ness again, and Urquhart Castle like we wanted to. Our "excursion" was to the "crofting community," which was only a little cabin that sold hand-made pottery. It wasn't that great, especially since it starting raining (one of two days of our trip!). The scenery around it was nice though. The pictures starting from Nessie and ending with Nessie are all from the tour. We saw the prettiest rainbow ever from the castle, and the picture came out really well! So did we see Nessie? You tell me! Getting back to town around 3:30, we decided to explore the Ness Islands, which are in the middle of River Ness. They're only 10 minutes from our hostel, and they're all connected with fun suspension bridges! It was a pretty tiring day, so we got dinner supplies and ended up hanging out in the lounge all night.
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
While on the tour yesterday, we heard that one of the top 10 scenic railways was from Inverness to Kyle of Localsh on the west coast. (We're not sure if it's top 10 out of Scotland, or the UK, or the world, or what.) We head straight for the train station to inquire about tickets and find out that it's only 15 quid round-trip and the next train leaves in 4 minutes. So we get our tickets and run to catch the train. I can understand how this trip was rated in the top 10. The moors and mountains are absolutely gorgeous. It's pretty much along water the whole way, including Loch Carron and then the ocean. The trains are pretty comfortable. Every few rows there are four seats facing each other with a table. We tried getting one there, but almost the whole train was reserved for a huge tour group. We got one on the way back though. Kyle of Localsh is a really small town, and little did we know that we'd be spending lots of time there in the coming days. We wandered around and caught the next train back, half an hour later. We got back around 2:30 and found a TK Maxx (not TJ!) and did a little shopping. Then we ended up going to the kilt-making museum in Hector Russell. They have the actual kilts from Braveheart and Rob Roy, and we saw the women making the kilts. Did you know they are completely hand-made, even the pleats? Amazing! Again we got dinner and played some Trivial Pursuit when we realized we could still make it to the pub for some more ceilidh. They had a bagpiper this time, and Deanna and I didn't dance until the very end, the same dance that won me my prize last time! The fiddler was very surprised that I already knew how to do it. The crowd was smaller than the night before, but the people were certainly more, um, interesting. We all slept very well that night!
Thursday, April 2, 2003
Another nearby attraction we wanted to check out was Fort George. So off we went to the TIC again, to find out about buses. We got the info and went to the bus station, only to find out it was the wrong place to catch the bus. So we missed the first one and had two hours to kill. The Inverness Library was right behind the station, so we went there and abused their *free* internet. We caught the second bus to the Fort with no problem. It turns out that everyone gets a free audio tour with admission, one of those headphone deals that you usually have to pay extra for. So Deanna and I head off, hearing all about the different sections of the fort. It was really interesting, especially since it's still used today! We felt really weird walking around with our headphones with guys in uniform everywhere. The views were really nice, and I guess the dolphins are seen often though we weren't that lucky. Oh, I forgot about the dolphins! Inverness has a family of dolphins that live in the mouth of the River Ness. I believe it's the northern most colony of wild dolphins in the world. We caught the bus back into Inverness and went to see the exhibit in Inverness Castle. This castle isn't a normal Scottish castle; it was only built in the 19th century and is used as the city's courthouse. There was a cheesy history exhibit in the back and I think it just opened because the rooms were kind of lacking, in many ways. It's kind of hard to explain. By this point, I think we had had enough history for one day, so we went to the mall! Check out the picture of our dressing room adventures. Mari's J-Lo! :o) Our last night in Inverness was spent hanging around and playing cards. We had to rest up for our trip to Skye!
Next Stop - Skye!
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