Advertisement
Published: July 20th 2009
Isn't it odd how songs that you have heard and can remember some of the words come flooding back to you when you travel and visit places that are in a songs name or lyrics.Well we think so anyway as it happens to us all of the time.Songs like "Get your kicks on Route 66"(when we travelled that famous road in the USA),"24 hours from Tulsa"(a Gene Pitney hit about a US town in Oklahoma),Abilene(can't remember who sang it but the town wasn't much in Texas(?) and Luchenbach Texas(a song by Waylon Jennings,we never did find the town) and the list goes on.
The singer of the title of of this blog was a Scot(of course)called Andy Stewart and he had a lot of hits back in the 60's(we guess it was then,showing our ages!!).He had another song that has been going through our heads since we have been driving the highlands of Scotland and that is "Donald !!,where's you're troosers".
So while you are reading this ramble,please feel free to sing,whistle,hum or whatever to those tunes,if you know them,close you eyes occasionally and join us in beautiful Scotland!!!
Anyway we digress!!
Its time to move on from Ullapool but we
are staying on the western side of the country and heading for the Kyle of Lochlasch a town on the water where you can drive over a bridge to the Isle of Skye.
The sun is back and it looks like its going to be a good day for driving and sightseeing.With the sort of hill/mountain and coastal scenery in this part of Scotland it is definitely better not to be raining to get the best pictures of the views and not have rain hiding the tops of the hills.
We are taking a bit of a tiki tour to get to our destination so we can take in Loch Ness as we missed the loch when we came across from the east being a little too far north at Inverness.
The hotel is buzzing this morning at breakfast with a bus load of Spainards in for the night so we headed down a bit earlier for breakfast just in case they were hungrier than us!!
WE took the only road in back out again towards Inverness the A835 but turned off at Contin onto the A832 taking us south to a point on the loch where the cruise boats
go from.
We have decided that we must try our luck to see "Nessie" or the Loch Ness monster,the mythical creature that only a select few can "say"they have ever seen.
Travelling back over the road has given us another chance to snap a few photos of places we missed on the way up to Ullapool so breaking our rule of driving different roads is not so bad on this occasion.
We knew we were back in amongst the tourist crowds when we reached Drumnadrochit(try and say that after a whiskey or two) as there were buses,vans and cars everywhere and people wandering looking for lunch at the 2 small cafes and buying tickets for the one hour cruises that several companies offer.
We chose a cruise for 2pm so had some time to fill in.Our Historic Scotland passes gave us entry to Urquart Castle ruins on the side of the loch so we joined more throngs of mainly elderley tourists many of who struggled with the steps and pathway to get to the ruins.We are so glad we took this adventure before we get too old to walk unassisted!!
The castle has a commanding spot on the lake edge
which juts out giving wider views up and down the elongated lake.Clearly when it was built it would give the defenders a better view of an attack from the water.
There has been a structure here since about 1100 although most of the castle dated from the 1500's.There is actually not much to climb around on as the castle has decayed so much but it postion is very photogenic and worth going in if only to take photos of the loch.
Then it was back for a leisurely lunch under a sun umbrella at the small village and wait to be picked up for the one hour cruise to find "Nessie"!!
The boats that go out on the loch are all,bar one,small and ours took just 14 people.The owner had been in 40 years in the area and was full of knowledge about the history of trying to find the monster.The boat was equipped with a depth sounder and when we got to the deepest part of the loch at 230 metres he turned the boat and sailed down the loch as people who say they have seen "Nessie"reckon it has come out of the deepest part.
Sadly for us
he/she didn't appear.The best we could do was to watch a video he had put together of his investigations over the years including film from an underwater camera he uses.
He was an interesting guy and for one that has been searching for 40 years he didn't seem to be at all nutty!!
So we had given it a go to try and find "Nessie"but to no vail.
We have decided one thing while we searched for "Nessie" and that this lark is a very good financial one.
As we will be unemployed when we get home we have decided to start up our own "hunt for a monster"business.We calculated the small business we went with today earns about GBP125,000 a year based upon 6 months business and with little overheads.
So as long as we can convince tourists to Tauranga that there a taniwha at the bottom of the Tauranga Harbour we will be in the money.....right??!!
Time to move on with dreams of our new venture in our heads and we took the A887 to the A87 and headed back towards the west coast and the Isle of Skye.
This road had probably the most dramatic scenery we
have seen in Scotland as we drove through the valley known as Glen Sheil with towering(or at least they seemed like it)hills on both sides.The faces of the hills were so steep that although there was grass growing on them we reckoned there was no way you could climb them.
As we neared the summit of the road one of those truly amazing experiences that have happened on this adventure every so often occured!!An RAF jet appeared over the summit out of nowhere and screamed over us at what seemed like no more than a couple of hundred feet.It can be a frightening but thrilling experience!!
With that behind us the ride down the other side after the summit was very tame,except for the continuing dramatic hills and we soon reached Loch Duich and shortly thereafter the Kyle of Lochalsh.
Our stay tonight is in a B&B and our host Murdo Matheson(now there is a real Scottich name for you)was there to greet us.
The B&B is just out of town and overlooking the channel to the Isle of Skye.It has a view to die for and it is easy to understand why Murdo and his wife have lived all
their lives in the area.
The seacsape and the island in the background with its small hills at one end and taller ones at the other make for a scene that one could sit and look at all day.
Murdo had suggested a number of restaurants for dinner so opted to drive the short distance to Plockton,not at all a Scottish name for a town,but a pretty seaside town all the same again very photogenic.On the way there we came across the highland cattle Gretchen had been waiting to see except these ones were in the middle of the road.Huge beasts with shaggy manes covering their eyes and large pointy horns.They presented a good photo opportunity and eventuall they walked off the road so we and the other cars queued up could continue our journey!!
We checked out the pubs and chose the Plockton Inn which seemed very popular by the number of diners in there.
Gretchen opted for the local prawns while I had the Highland venison stew.Gretchen had knew she would never get through the mains version of her chosen dish at 20quid !!.However the German moman next to us did plus a starter!!Man she must have been hungry although we didn't stay to see if she finished the huge plate of seafood.Of course Europeans are enjoying holidaying in the UK with the level of the Euro to Sterling being as good as it is.
We ended the day on the seat in front of the B&B looking out towards Skye and waiting for the sunset at nearly 11pm!! only to be driven inside by the midges which appear as the sun goes down.The sunset wasn;t spectacular as we had hoped because of cloud.But perhaps tomorrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.071s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 11; qc: 36; dbt: 0.0369s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Chris
non-member comment
Highland cattle
Having seen the highland cattle you'll be wanting the family heirloom picture of highland cattle from Grandma.