Heartland Travel Highlands Tour

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Last weekend, I went on one of my favorite trips of my time here in Scotland. I took a 3-day tour of the Scottish Highlands with a group of 15 other people and the best tour guide ever, Nory. He made friends with everyone almost immediately and really made the trip, because he was determined to make sure everyone had a great time. He told vibrant stories and played music along the way to keep everyone entertained and make sure everyone understood the history behind the sites they were seeing. The tour started on Friday morning and picked us up at the university. From there we headed to Doune castle for a quick look around the place Monty Python and the Holy Grail was mostly filmed. We continued north from there, stopping to grab sandwiches for lunch. We ate the sandwiches while overlooking the Three Sisters of Glen Coe, which are three spectacular mountains aligned with each other. From there, we continued onward for a hike to a spectacular waterfall that also had a rope bridge that we used to cross over the river. After that, we visited the ruins of a castle that William Wallace had stayed in, and then we continued to the gorgeous Eilean Donan castle, which is the most photographed castle in Scotland. This is due to the fact that it extends out onto a loch which makes for great views. Onwards from Eilean Donan, we made our way to the hostel we would be staying in for the weekend in the wee town of Stromeferry. It was as remote as you could get, with only a few houses and a single train station. This just added to the charm, and it overlooked Loch Carron which gave it an unrivaled setting. On our first night, the hostel owner hosted a bonfire for us and made us all feel right at home. On our second day, we went to one of the most incredible places I had ever been in my life; the Isle of Skye. There were towering, rounded mountains, and ominous, jagged mountains that created an unrivaled landscape. We saw the Old Man of Stoor, which is a prehistoric rock formation, the Fairy Glen, which is a miniature valley and a mystery of how it was created, and the Fairy Pools, which are said to give eternal beauty to whoever enters them. My favorite part of the day was getting to eat lunch on the cliffs of the island overlooking the vast Atlantic Ocean. We were lucky to have a gorgeous day, as this was an experience that groups rarely got to have. We also saw Kilted Rock and an incredible valley with peculiar and jagged rock formations. Our day on the Isle of Skye ended with a trip to the brewery and gift shop and we headed back to the hostel to rest up for our last day. Our last day started with a morning scallop fishing trip on the loch just below the hostel. It's a sea loch, so there was a wide array of creatures we got to see drudged up from the bottom, such as starfish, hermit crabs, spider crabs, coral, sea urchins, and of course, scallops. Our boat captain opened them right in front of us and we got to eat them raw, and he also pan fried them right on the boat (which was much better). After the fishing trip, we sadly left the hostel that had made us feel so at home the past two nights. We continued on through the Highlands and came to Fort Augustus, the village that overlooks the famous Loch Ness. We had lunch there, and then a few of us brave souls (me included) jumped into the forty degree waters of Loch Ness for a swim with Nessie. It was definitely worth it. Our tour finished with a trip to Glenfinnan to see the famous Harry Potter bridge that was used to depict the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter movies, and also see the Bonnie Prince Charlie monument. By the end of the trip, everyone in the group had become like a family and we were all excellent friends with each other, including the guide. Very few tours can give you an experience like that, and I am so fortunate that I got to do this trip while in Scotland. It made me feel like I had genuinely experienced the true country. As you can imagine, I took a lot of pictures so rather than upload them to the blog I created an album on Facebook which you can view here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1019055464773613.1073741828.100000075082330&type=1&l=4bdce0affc

I just got back from a weekend in London (my last trip while abroad) so I'll be posting about that soon!

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