Advertisement
Published: December 29th 2007
Edit Blog Post
The Drive Up
The beginning of the drive to the Highlands... I'll take the sun beams s a good sign. Hello All!
Sorry for the delay but we have been quite busy and lazy with Christmas and food galore.
Hope everyone had as wonderful a day as we had and I'll share the Christmas goodness in a future post but I need to catch you up on the trip to Aviemore that John and I took.
A few facts... Aviemore is about a 2 1/2- 3 hour drive depending on how lost you get and is the in Scottish highlands in the mountains and lochs. It is undoubtably one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen and looks and feels just like Winter Park Colorado if you forget the accents for a moment. The mountain is called Carigngorn Mountain.
The drive up was magnificant as we got in the highlands just about sunset and I tried to take as many pictures as possible. They of course don't capture it but are BEAUTIFUL anyway...
When we arrived we located the outdoor store that John had an interview at and of course were in heaven looking at all the overpriced outdoor gear. John spent about an hour talking to the woman who in the end spent
Perth
Thats Perth... under the bridge. We drove by it twice. Long story most of the time trying to talk John into taking the job. It would be beautiful up there with the mountains and a free lift pass for the skiing (although there is not much snow and its very hard) but its a very expensive little town. so we'll see.
After that we went to check into the hostel we stayed at and had a dinner of sausage rolls and other random things. It was a nice hostel overall, a large communal kitchen, tv room etc but thee bed rooms left much to be desired... no on suite bathroom and the one that was down the hall smelled a bit but we made due.
The next morning we got up early (earlier than the town apparently) and were wondering around at about 8:30 to find breakfast and no one was open! Our plan for the day was to head up the mountain on the "Funicular" (the train that takes you to the top) so we decided to go ahead up there and get some breakfast at the resturant at the top.
The drive up the mountain was absolutely beautiful and we stopped along the way to take some
The River Tay
This river followed us up and down the highlands pictures of the very very frosty morning over the loch (lake).
When we got to the top we just couldn't stop taking pictures and marveling at the view and beautiful mountain air. It was nice to be up there without feeling like a few steps were takign the wind out of you like we did in Colorado about 2 miles above sea level. Anyway, we geared up and got all warm in snow pants and the whole kit and wondered into the building to buy tickets. While we waited we took some more pictures and read various signs and then clibed onto the train to head on up.
The journey takes about 8 mins and they have an ingenious system for the trains so that there are 2 on the track and as one climbs up the other goes down. They balance each other out and so use miniaml energy and often produce engery which is put back onto the grid for the local town. The one thats going up keeps the one thats coming down from going to fast. GENUIS!
Of course when we got to the top we ran out to get some more
pictures and played around a bit. You can see for about 50 miles and the day we were up there is was clear as a bell. No fog or clouds or anything! Here I will insert some more pictures b/c it's no use describing, you just have to see for yourself.
After that we went into the resturant to have breakfast and they made us sausage and egg rolls (sandwichs) that were very good and we hung around the mountain for a good while.
Next on our list was going to the Carigngorn Brewery to pick up some local beer to bring home for Christmas and a wonder around the town. The town was pretty and fun but not really anything interesting to write about except a LOT of overpriced outdoor gear shops and a loacl butcher with AWARD WINNING haggis! Thats right... award winning haggis. So we decided to pick up a very large haggis for Christmas dinner and had fun playing football with it for a little while. (the thing weighed about 5 lbs and is shapped like a football fyi). Next we drove out to the brewery while in fact was not very big at
More Highlands
The clouds were a giant mass... all and more of just a store attached to a big shed but it still had big bottles of the beer and we picked out all the differnt kinds to put in a box to bring home for Christmas.
After that, we started back home and had another little adventure....
Once we were out on the road marveling at the amazing beautiful scenery and the fact that my camera had run out of batteries we were overtaken by the increadible fog that came out of nowhere.
But overall we arrived home safetly and had a wonderful time. Definatly a place to visit if you ever get the chance. Much love and Happy Holidays.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.071s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0413s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb