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Published: October 27th 2009
Sweeeet Delicious Haggis
Sarah's House, Pitlochry, ScotlandSo... where was I?
Leaving Edinburgh in the afternoon, we jumped on a bus and headed for Pitlochry to meet Sarah, one of my friends from way back in Airlie Beach in 2004. We arrived after an absolutely magical bus ride, the scenery so beautiful with all the reds and yellows of Autumn coating the countryside. Sares was excited to see us, and shovelled us off home to me her parents, Sandra and David. They are such a wonderful family, and live in a beautiful home amongst a bunch of family owned chalet lodgings that they rent out to travellers. It was great to see Sares again, and we stayed up yakking until 1:30am.
The next day we had a big tour planned with Sarah behind the wheel of her little Vauxhall Corsa: she was driving us up through the middle of the country to Inverness via Loch Ness! The drive was absolutely STUNNING, as I think I have mentioned, and we travelled through a bunch of places that I forget the names of, but we’ll get Sarah to tell us so we can label our photos.
We saw Ben Nevis from a distance, but the weather was
shite, so no climbing for us! Loch Ness in all seriousness is just a bit puddle of water, no different to all the other Lochs around the country. Sure, it’s big, and sure it has a “Nessie Visitor Centre” with all sorts of touristy crap for the tour-bus Japanese onslaughts, but that’s about it! It is beautiful with the likes of Castle Urquhart on its banks, but not the most beautiful Loch in the area. As we had our local tour guide extraordinaire, we got to go to places like Loch Morlich - a lake where the woods come down to a sand beach that runs into the clear but cold lake. We drove through Inverness and stopped at Comet to buy our Netbook, which Aleks was very excited about (AW: Nemo badgered me into it), and had ourselves a nice cheap lunch at the Snow Goose Inn. Tasty soup, Welsh rarebit and cannelloni abounded! After that it was time to do the bolt, and we headed home in the fading daylight at around 5pm - those days sure are getting shorter.
The next day Sarah showed us some of the sights of Pitlochry, Aberfeldy and surrounds. We cruised
Dam It!
Near Pitlochry, Scotland by J.K. Rowling’s house, and got to see a fish ladder at Pitlochry dam. Yup - a ladder for fish, to help the salmon go upstream. We saw the crannog at Kenmore - a type of ancient Scottish over-water bungalow. At Fortingall we saw what was reputed to be the oldest tree in the world - a yew tree somewhere between 3000 and 5000 years old. Unfortuntely the tree is a shadow of its former self as collectors have removed it from the site piece by piece - so that what was once a massive tree with a trunk diameter of 17 feet now just looks like a couple of large shrubs. It’s a travesty.
Here’s an interesting fact: there is a mountain called Sheihallion which was used by scientists to determine the approximate weight of the world.
We glimpsed Blair Castle and looked out on Queen’s View over Loch Tummel (Queen Victoria proclaimed it the most beautiful view in the world) but the highlight of the day was without a doubt the Edradour Whisky tour. This is the smallest distillery in Scotland that makes about 15 barrels a week of highly specialised single malt whiskey. I’m not
View Across The Glen
Near Pitlochry, Scotland a big whiskey drinker, but we were given a free taster and by GOD it was a nice dram! And to get that up close and personal to the process of making it was amazing; it was great because it was so small, and the guy taking us around was a complete hoot, a classical old Scottish bloke in the full kilt, sporran and tartan kilt socks…. And… IT WAS FREE! The most expensive bottle of booze in there was a paltry £999, a 32 year sherry barrel aged single malt whiskey. Wow. Unfortunately due to the fact that we have limited space, especially for glass, we decided not to buy anything.
That night was a big deal for us, because it was our first experience with Haggis! How exciting and terrifying at the same time! As long as you don’t really think about what Haggis actually is, it’s really exceptionally tasty, and black pudding as an entrée was tasty too. If you don’t know what either of these are, Sarah summarised it by saying that Haggis is sheep‘s gut, filled with offal and black pudding is offal and blood made into sausage. Sounds delicious, huh? We wolfed down
A Church With A View
Near Pitlochry, Scotland dinner and then Sarah took us out to a local micro brewery called The Moulin, where I tried a couple of different beers that all tasted the same, and then we retired home for a final wee dram of Bell’s Scotch and Edradour Cream Liqueur. The next morning was to be an early start for the whole family, as Sarah and Sandra drove us to Perth while David stayed home and tried to shut the dog up. It was a misty morning, and our connection to Glasgow decided to turn up 20 minutes late… Not good when you have a 15 minute period before the bus leaves at the other end. Bollocks.
Somehow through some good turn of fortune we managed to get on the bus just before it left at 10:07am, although the driver was a little bit miffed. Have I mentioned where we were going yet? The Isle of Skye, renowned across Britain for having dramatic landscapes and shite weather. The bus trip was great, albeit 7 hours long, and I got a wee kip in while Aleks stayed awake and vigilant. The bus took us all the way up to Portree from Glasgow for a paltry
£11 each one way, so we were happy with that. Once we reached the town square, we found the Bayfield Backpackers Hostel and booked in with a very rude front desk chick, moving into a four bed dorm by ourselves. The place was basic but very nice for £14 a night, and is owned by a bloke called Murdo who was a totally helpful guy, even though he had a mullet and three teeth in his head.
The next day we decided to hire a car. Oh boy, was that a bad idea. The car was a Rover 45, which I was told after I paid for it, and my heart sank. This is possibly the worst car in the world, bar none. My Datsun 1500 paddock-basher at home had less mechanical faults than this thing, and the Datsun didn’t have brakes or a speedo or even a key. Everytime you finally got the car to go into reverse an alarm would sound. The brakes would fail going downhill, and go CLUNKCLUNKCLUNK just as I needed them to work, which proved quite terrifying on an 18% gradient. The radio was code-locked. The foam in my seat had broken down
Commando Monument
Spean Bridge, Scotland on the right hand side, so I felt like I was going to slide out my door. The general build quality from a 2003 model car was 10 times worse than my 93 Corolla, and that’s saying something. Damn you, Rover, I’ll never drive one of your cars again.
That being said, the car did get us around to see a lot of things on the Island for £35, such as Dunvegan Castle (closed for maintenance), The Old Man of Storr (a one hour walk either way up a huge hill, which had Aleks beaten), Leaty Gorge, Quireach (?spelling) where we had a BEAUTIFUL view down over the valleys and hills from 700m straight up, Neise Point & Lighthouse, and many more. We covered about two thirds of the place before the weather went to shite and we turned tail for home - besides I didn’t trust that car as far as I could kick it, and we were tempting fate just being on the twisty turny roads full of sheep. When you only have one lane a car width wide, with sparse “passing areas” here and there, and your keep meeting cars just as your brakes fail, it’s
Urquhart Castle
Loch Ness, Scotland time to give up. 6 hours, 170 kilometres, and some great photos. Twas an early night checking ticket prices and weighing up our (limited) options for returning back to the mainland the next day, but we happened to meet a young Aussie lad called Matt from… well… from EVERYWHERE. The kid’s been all over the world hitchhiking and couch surfing, and has really covered some ground.
Today as I write we are sitting in Kyle of Lochalsh, a lovely little town with stuff-all going on in it on a Saturday afternoon. We’re waiting for our 14:35 train, and while travelling today we’ve met a strapping Danish bloke called Torben: he’s sitting next to Aleks and I blogging on his notebook as well. Bus ticket costs back to Glasgow from Portree would have been an astronomical £84.50 and then £12 from Glasburgh to Edingow, so instead we’re heading home via Inverness. We would have stayed longer but to be honest it’s very bleak and remote, and the weather is getting progressively worse over the next couple of days. Deciding at the last minute that you’re leaving somewhere costs a lot of money as we‘ve discovered, so we’re doing the cheapest
Nessie? Where?
Loch Ness Visitor's Centre, Scotland route and caught a bus from Portree to Kyle (£5.40pp) and then a train from Kyle (£18.30pp) to stay at the Tourist Hostel in Inverness for the night (£8pp dorm). A bus back to Edinburgh with MegaBus tomorrow will cost us around £8pp and that will also let us have a look around Inverness, which is supposed to be a beautiful town. We’ve liked Skye, but it was a little similar to the Wicklow Ranges in Ireland in terms of flora, and the coast was nowhere near as good as Northern Ireland. But hey, if you never go you’ll never know right?
Massive thanks to Sarah, Sandra and David for having us to stay and feeding us stuff that’s not pasta and making us haggis (with tatties, no neeps), driving us around the countryside, being extremely adept tour guides and being a wonderful host family for us poor starving backpackers (who are now fatter than ever).
That’s all folks, hope your weather is better than ours!
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