Scottish Adventures

Helloooo :)
So this post is gonna be kind of long because I have A LOT to share from our trip to Scotland this weekend! Carly and I left Newcastle on Thursday afternoon and we got  back Sunday afternoon.  There are many great stories about the gory history of Scotland as well as some hilarious things that happened to us on the trip so you're definitely going to want to read the whole post if you can! And the very final bit will serve as a warning to all who don't heed the advice of their Scottish tour guides.

Thursday - Arrival in Edinburgh
Carly and I decided to visit Edinburgh after we heard from some of our other international student friends at Newcastle.  They recommended a great hostel and awesome tours for us so we jumped at the chance to go.  We left a few days before they did so we were able to do some touring/exploring on our own (my apologies for the rhyme).  Here are some pictures from the train ride to Edinburgh, our hostel and the surrounding area when we walked around after we got set up in the hostel

Click Read More for more pictures!



On the way (scenic views of the North East):

I happened to get a picture of a cow so I thought that was worth sharing.

A view of the North Sea from the train

A small English coastal village

Edinburgh is only an hour and a half train ride from Newcastle so we arrived pretty quickly.  We got lost for about an hour on the way to the hostel because our 3G phones were failing us and everyone apparently failed to mention that Edinburgh was build on top of an inactive volcano so half of the city is on a 30 degree incline making carrying suitcases across cobblestone streets a true test of endurance.  We eventually made it to the hostel and proceeded to climb 3 flights of stairs to our room.

Caledonian Backpackers Hostel. If anyone plans on visiting Edinburgh and doesn't mind staying in hostels I would definitely recommend staying here. You can see from the pictures why we liked it. The only negative thing is that it is a bit of a walk from the main attractions.  The hostel was beautifully painted in every room and hallway.

Our bunk beds! We had 3 pillows each and the beds were surprisingly comfortable

NOT the 4 founders of Hogwarts as I had originally thought from a quick glance...

Crescent!

Angry penguins!

Shenanigans are to the right (On the left of the bar entrance. Yup we had a fully stocked bar in our hostel.)

On the right of the bar entrance

So you can see that this hostel was the perfect atmosphere for young travelers such as ourselves.  After we got ourselves situated, we decided to take a few hours and explore the city! You can see these pictures on my Facebook :)

Friday - Loch Ness and the Scottish Highlands
Friday was an early morning for us! We had to wake up at 6:50 to be at the bus on time for our Loch Ness/Scottish Highlands tour.  We boarded the bus on time and were off immediately.  Our tour guide's name was Kenny and he was born and raised in Edinburgh and he was very knowledgeable about Scottish history.

Our first stop was a town called Pitlochry.  We only stayed there for 20 minutes so we could use the bathrooms and get a quick snack for the ride up.  It was a 2 hour drive to Pitlochry and then a 3 hour drive to Loch Ness.  I tried to take as many pictures of the scenery as I could so here are the best ones:

Sheep.  There are sheep EVERYWHERE in Scotland.

Cattle. There are also cattle EVERYWHERE in Scotland.

Marine Training Ground
Our next stop was the memorial for the British Marines who use the Scottish Highlands for their endurance/survival training since it is a particularly difficult area in which to live.

Loch Ness
We finally arrived in Loch Ness! For those of you who may not be familiar with the legend of the Loch Ness Monster (you know who you are!) In the 1930's when a major highway was built connecting the Highlands to the rest of Scotland, more and more people had access to the relatively secluded Loch Ness (Loch means lake in Scottish).  Many reports started surfacing that a large prehistoric looking creature was living in the Loch.  Tales of a large animal living in the Loch had already been part of local folklore for generations.  Over the years many supposed photos of the beast named Nessie have been taken and proven to be hoaxes and only the photos of Robert H. Rines have not been proven hoaxes...until now. Behold, the Loch Ness Monster and her baby as photographed by me:

The monster exists lol.
Anyway here are more pictures of the Loch:

Loch Ness is 23 miles long

At it's widest, it is 1 mile wide

The Loch has the largest volume of water of any loch or other body of water in the UK.  All of the water in all of England and Wales' rivers and lakes could fit into the loch with room to spare.

The water of Loch Ness is black because it is saturated with peat particles from the surrounding land.

The Well of the 7 Heads

On our return trip from Loch Ness, we stopped by some more interesting sites. This well has a particularly interesting story.  In 1663, 2 sons of a clan chief were murdered (by their uncle and 6 cousins) in order to stop the 2 sons from ruling the clan with a more enlightened viewpoint, instead of just with violence and strength,as was Scottish tradition.

The clan chief was so enraged by this that he ordered 6 of his finest men to go to the neighboring castle where the uncle and cousins lived and kill the 7 men for their crime.  The men were all decapitated and their heads were washed in the river that used to run where the monument now stands.  In the early 1800's, the clan chief at the time constructed this monument, complete with 7 heads in the likenesses of the 7 murdered men,as a warning to all that the clan had the right of justice to rule the area.

The inscription tells a brief story of the history of the 7 Heads in French, Gaelic, Latin and English.  If you follow the footpath down the side of the monument, you can see where  the smallest bit of a river still flows directly under the monument.

It is the same river where the victims heads were washed almost 400 years ago.

Inverlochy Castle

This castle is the oldest surviving example of a 12th century castle with no later additions.  It was allowed to fall into ruin.

Film Scene: This is where the train used as the Hogwarts Express travels in the movies!!

We met another lovely dog!

Glenco

Our next stop was a valley-like area called Glenco.  I forget why this was significant because I fell asleep while the historical tapes were playing in the bus but it's still really pretty. I also managed to master the 'panorama' setting on my camera to get full views of the glen.

A small river flowing from the top of the glen to a river in the center

Memorial for Glenco

Now, I'd like everyone to take a close look at this panoramic picture I took:

See the couple making out near the right of the photo? Yeahh this is the couple we lost in the glen.  

Our tour guide warned us that we shouldn't go down into the glen because we were only going to be there for 20  minutes but this couple didn't listen.  We realized they were missing about an hour and a half later because the driver and a few other people thought they were sleeping in the back of the bus but they weren't.  They were lost in one of the most remote and deserted areas of Scotland.  There's only the highway where we stopped and there is no cell service.  This goes to show that you definitely don't do what your tour guide in the Scottish Highlands tells you not to do! And it's also a case for better tour management.  The couple was sitting behind Carly and I but neither of us realized they were missing since we couldn't see them anyway during the trip.  When we realized they were missing, the tour guide called the tour company immediately and reported their disappearance to the police.  We weren't able to go back to the glen to search for them (since we were already an hour and a half away) so the tour company told the guide to come back to Edinburgh.  Hopefully the police found these people or someone was able to help them to the nearest town or telephone.  Since the couple was no longer behind us and it was now dark, I took the opportunity to recline my chair and nap a bit before we got back to Edinburgh.  

The next part of our trip will be posted tomorrow!