Backblog #6.5 - Ullapool to Perth

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Ullapool to Perth

Ok...so it has been a while since I last wrote anything...busy at work with a new job, etc etc, blah blah blah - you don't care, you just want to find out the excitement of our adventures!

While 'adventure' may not exactly be how you describe our trips, it was still fun to look at so, so many waterfalls, mountains, sheep, ferns, castles and rocks.

One trouble we found while dondering around Scotland, was the lack of post boxes. We came across this lack of said items on our way from Ullapool to Perth - Mum had a letter/postcard to send home to Dad and no where to post it from. Luckily, we found while driving along - the bright red does help to spot them - and it also gave us an opportunity to take some photos of a rusty old bridge nearby. Awesome!

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but on the way to Ullapool we saw a sign for a gorge with a lookout, and, being lovers of lookouts, we wanted to go and have a look. Somehow we missed the turn off and decided we would do it on the way back. Thankfully we remembered and found the turn off. Corrieshalloch Gorge is just on the road on the way heading south from Ullapool. It has a car park, and then a bit of a walk to the actual gorge and look out. The look is one of those free standing ones - the type that make you think that if a light breeze happened to blow you would surely go crashing to your death a gazillion miles below. It didn't and we didn't. Good.

We ventured out, the ladies more cautiously then myself, and took some photos (very carefully so as not to drop the camera). I may have got in trouble for walking to fast/heavy/purposely wobbling the lookout, but all in all it was ok. Lovely view, but would probably be much nicer after a good bit of rainfall.

We headed off, pleased with our morning find, and decided to head to Fort George - a now museumised fort north of Inverness. I don't recall much about the fort - it was old and stone and I don't recall finding it that exciting. There were rooms to look in that showed what life was like living there and training as a soldier (all shown, of course, with nicely battered mannequins!) and a chapel, which was quite cute - I don't recall going inside though. What I do recall is wanting to leave, I was probably tired, but the others enjoying themselves and wanting to stay longer - so we did. Which is good, it was an experience I won't ever get again.

From Fort George we headed off in search of possibly the most famous monster in the world, Nessie. We headed on down through Inverness (not stopping cause it is quite touristy) and found a car park near Loch Ness. Sitting on the "beach" of Loch Ness we ate our usual sandwiches with ham, mayonnaise, tomato and crisps with a donut for dessert. The "beach" at Loch Ness is made up of rocks, not smooth pebbles, pointy hard rocks. AND they are pink. Odd. I touched the water - not to tempt Nessie out of her slumber, but to be able to say I "swam" at the "beach" at Loch Ness. Lunch ended and we trundled back up the steps and headed for Urquhart Castle.

Urquhart Castle is 13th century castle now in ruins - which is good cause it sets a lovely scene with Loch Ness in the background. Visitors are allowed to walk around and in it. Other than the castle there isn't heaps to do at Loch Ness unless you head to the Loch Ness Monster museumy things, which we didn't cause no one else wanted to (I did, cause it is intriguing). There is a trebuchet that we had a quick look at and tried to use - it doesn't work anymore, but has the stone balls and whatnot with it.

We left Loch Ness and the castle behind and headed on towards Perth, stopping at Laggan Dam (which is attached to Loch Laggan, and down the road from Loch Lochy - ha ha ha!) - again, not much to see, but lovely views.

We got to our accommodation in Perth which was a hotel, rather than our usual B&B. It was chosen cause it was cheaper than staying in Edinburgh. I'm not actually sure that we have pictures of our rooms, which were opposite each other across a courtyard (we could, and did, wave at each other out our windows) but from what I remember they were normal rooms with nothing exciting to speak about.

We slept. End that leg of the journey!

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Photos

GIANT slugs at the Gorge
You can see how big they are based on the camera lens cap...massive!

Corrie Shalloch Gorge
The bridge