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Published: October 26th 2005
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Scotland Berries
Wild Berries in the Highlands of Scotland. Sorry it took me so long to update my blog but here I am to inform you all of my adventures in the far north of the UK. I returned to my flat at around 8:30am on Monday after a torturous 13-hour bus ride.
For those of you that don’t know, I went to the highlands of Scotland. We stayed in a castle that was donated to the Scottish Youth Hostel Association. The castle was said to have a “haunted” room but we didn’t get to stay in it. Scotland was so beautiful! It was so peaceful and calm. The people there were really kind and laid back. We only visited four small towns, well one was a bit larger than the rest but not too much bigger. We had a four-hour wait in Inverness for our train to Culrain (where our castle was) so we ventured around that town and got some chocolates from a Belgium store with a cute, round, Belgium man and had some coffee. We then proceeded onto our hour-long train ride to Culrain where we were dropped off in literally the middle of nowhere.
It was pitch dark out when we arrived at the
The Castle
This is the Castle that we stayed in, Carbisdale Castle. I took this picture as we arrived. ‘train station’. The ‘station’ consisted of a small platform and one light. The walk out of the train station led to a country road with a sign. The sign had three arrows: Inveroykle 9 miles, Culrain, and a picture of a house and a tree. We assumed that the picture of the house with the tree was the castle. So we then proceeded down a dark road towards what we hoped would be the location of the castle. Luckily there were three other people besides us five girls that had flashlights otherwise it would have been a dark walk. It was pretty funny to be dropped off at this remote location to walk a ½ mile to a castle in the pitch dark.
We arrived to the castle on Friday evening (we left Thursday/Friday at midnight on the bus). On Saturday we started walking towards (well we thought was towards) a trail that would led us to Shin Falls but we headed the wrong way and ended up walking four miles to a town called Bonar Bridge. On our way to Bonar Bridge we walked through some woods in a cow pasture because we thought we could cut through
Longshot View
This is a long view of the Castle. You might have to squint to see it but it's there. I took this on our way to Shin Falls (rapid). the field and meet up with the road and save a lot of time, WRONG! We didn’t save anytime but we didn’t get lost, SHOCKER!!! We just wasted time trying to cross through mud and trees, but it was fun.
When we arrived at Bonar Bridge we got some tomato soup and tea then rented mountain bikes and rode 13 miles to Dornoch. Our objective was to see Dornoch Beach (the North Sea, I think) which we did see, for about 15 minutes but then we had to turn around and get heading back to Bonar Bridge before it go to dark. The bike ride was pretty intense because it was all up and down the mountain. Our legs were burning on the way back.
Poor Katie got a small, crappy bike. The thing just wouldn’t go and there were only 2 gears when it said that it had five. Katie, being so sweet, didn’t say anything about how bad the bike was, rode it all the way to Dornoch. We decided that on the way back we would all take turns on the bike on the way back, but then after we all tried to ride the
North Sea
This is another picture of the North Sea at Dornoch Beach. bike we decided, HELL NO! We called the guy that rented us the bikes to come pick up a person and the bike. This leads to another funny story. The guy that rented us the bikes wasn’t actually the owner of the bikes or business, the owner was on holiday and he was just house sitting for him. So he rented us the bikes for 8 quid for two days. He never took our names or information, I guess he just trusted us. But before I continue let me tell you how we found these bikes to hire. While we were eating our soup and drinking our tea, I saw a sign on the business across the road about hiring bikes. So Michelle and Stephanie went to investigate. Nobody was at the business that actually worked there but they directed them to a house about four doors down to hire the bikes. It was just funny, guess you had to be there.
Well, the guy came and picked up Katie and put the bike in the bush, he apparently wasn’t that worried about it. When we arrived at the house he welcomed us to come in and warm up
Me Playing around with the Waves picture
I was just fooling around on the computer with this picture. by the fire then his son gave us a ride back to the castle. It was so great; they were all so nice and funny!! It was entertaining to hear them converse with each other, they have some other kind of form of English. It’s really hard to understand anything they say to each other.
We slept very soundly on Saturday night and got up somewhat early on Sunday and went to Shin Falls (we went the right direction!). It was about a three-mile hike to Shin Falls. We heard that we had to see it but seriously, it was just a rapid. It wasn’t a Fall at all. We were all very disappointed but it was a nice hike, we found a cute dog that couldn’t get enough attention! We went to Tain after we left the castle. Just so you know NOTHING is open in Scotland on Sunday. We found a restaurant, got coffee and awaited the bus that would take us to the other bus stop to head back to good ol’ England. It was an interesting trip. The highlands are so amazing, much better than the Lake District! It’s so vast and with the leaves
Bike Tour
This was on our bike tour to Dornoch. changing colors made it even better! I think I’ve included everything about the trip, I hope. I’ll add more if I remember.
I just want you all to know that this will probably be my last adventure outside of England for awhile. I need to save money for when Jack comes to visit. I’m sure I’ll make some small adventures around London and this part of England but nothing too big. I’ll keep you all updated!!
Oh, yeah! For the Watson's. I found out that our surname has Scottish orgins. We have a symbol and everything. Watson comes from the son of 'Wat'. Wat was a nickname for Walter, so really the son of Walter. I think we had some royalty in our past too, I can't remember though. I was going to buy the little book but I didn't have enough money. Our symbol/name means "Trusting in my strength". I thought that was pretty interesting.
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Danielle
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Amazing
Your pictures are breath taking!!