Scotland at Last

Eilean Donan - A castle at the meeting of three lochs. A fully restored castle dating from the 13th century.
We spent the night just beside the castle and in the morning I saw a Golden Eagle. Pretty special!

For some reason Scotland has always seemed so much like a mystical fairy-tale country

(like the land of Narnia) that I’ve read so much about and the prospect of visiting it filled me

with awe - and now I’m really here! And it has met my expectations - it’s so wild and desolate

looking, especially with the rain and wind whistling around the hills.

We drove up north and through the Lowlands to Edinburgh during the night and in the morning we

parked in a suburb on the outskirts (free parking for a change!) and rode our bikes through a pretty

forest lined track on the side of the city to the center. We hadn’t researched too much about what to

see in Edinburgh and so were totally surprised and pleased to find out that we were in time to take

part in the city’s world famous Arts Festival! Of course this did mean the streets were extremely jam

packed with people and we were constantly bombarded by people trying to get us to come to this or that show which was on that night or the next. Most of the day stayed dry but when it rained oh boy

did it rain - the hard sleet-ish kind with wind buffeting inside our coats, but the actors, comedians and

musicians just kept on performing and we stayed on watching the street performances till it was

getting dark and then braved our bike ride home through the cold rain. Luckily we had the incentive to

keep us going of some deliciously hot fish and chips to devour once we got back to Musselburgh.

The Royal Mile in Edinburgh

And then when the rain began..

The following day dawned overcast with a little sun (a great day by Scottish standards) though sadly

we spent most of it stuck in a traffic jam on the road to Inverness. Apparently there were three major

crashes all within a few miles of each other in all different directions which blocked the only roads in

and out of Inverness. There were miles of cars and trucks blocked up from 11am till 6pm! But luckily

we had our home with us so got stuck into schoolwork, reading our next Narnian book and chatting

to the people queuing next to us. Josh also fitted in a bike ride to a local hermitage so it was not

really a bad day stuck in traffic.

Noa at work in the traffic jam.

On a hillpass in the Highlands

We reached Inverness late that night and the next day visited the site of the famous battle of

Culloden (1746) - the battle between the Jacobites (mostly Scottish and some French followers of

‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) against the English who slaughtered the Jacobites in under an hour (due to

various unfortunate circumstances) and therefore changing the course of history dramatically for the

Scottish clans. The museum we learnt all the facts from was another National Trust gem (yay for

us!) and was cosy and warm, although pretty disturbing in it’s information, but outside where the real

battle took place it was a miserable expanse of boggy moor - too cold to endure the walk around the

memorial stones - but that was the point I suppose - it was a day probably much colder than the one

we were experiencing when the battle took place, and it was about fighting for your life and clan, not

sight-seeing!

The beginning of the highlands. I seem to have only taken photos of Scotland when the sun was out - which wasn't all that often. When it rained the fog came down and there wasn't all that much visibility to take a good photo.

Life in the campervan is going ok for us, though of course we’re still having our ups and downs.

Because it’s so much colder we often can’t wait to get back to the coziness of being inside there

with a cup of tea, and it soon warms up with all of us crowded in. Though there have been more

breakdowns of the essential equipment. We now have a terrible leak when we use the water pump

so we can’t have showers or use the tap. So we’re currently carting about 15 water bottles around

with us to use for cooking and cleaning and we are having to go without showers for longer periods

of time than one would like! Luckily for us we haven’t been sweating because of the heat!

Our arguments about who is in whose space are a lot less frequent thank goodness, though we are

still at our best when we are our walking through the forest or on a beach somewhere. But overall I

think most of us are ready to go home now. We are seeing some fabulous sights of course - like

Loch Ness, which is where we’ve just spent a few days looking out for Nessie (no luck there) and to

the Isle of Skye which is where we are headed right now. But I have been dreaming of being back in

my bed and my garden and seeing my terribly missed family and friends! Only 6 weeks to go now!

(Written on the 29th of August)

Loch Ness

This is the head of the Loch closest to Inverness. Here the stones were a beautiful red and purple shade and very evenly graded from small to large. Quite a work of art. 

We took a hike up into a real Narnian looking forest on the side of Loch Ness and came across this beautiful Tarn on the way.