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Published: August 6th 2005
Hamish
The best fed Highland Bull ever!!!Next on to Loch Ness which is the deepest body of water in the world and also the most famous. The water is very dark and you can't see 10 foot in front of you. The rain washes the colour our of the peat on the hills and into the water.
In the depths of the Loch lives cannibalistic trout called Ferox, which have been known to grow up to 2.54m long and 68kg. We took a trip on a boat on the Loch Ness with a marine biologist who went on to tell us that the first sighting of the Loch Ness Monster was in 565 AD which is recorded on the archives at the Vatican. Apparently many years ago a priest blessed the monster and said that he would no longer hurt people and no people have been hurt by it since... I'm not sure I'm a believer, even after seeing the sonar readings and alleged pictures of a skeleton of the monster on the bottom of the Loch...
The biologist believes that 18 monsters live in the Lock, they don't breed as they know that there isn't enough fish to feed anymore of them. They say
At the Pub
Making friends with the locals!! the fault line on the floor of the Loch formed when part of Canada broke off (I think it was Canada anyways!!!) and hit Scotland trapping ocean between the Loch. The Loch is now fresh water. The guy has a pHd and has been studying it for 22 years and is backed by NASA. He has used his sonar's to map the whole Loch at the one time and says he has counted all 18 of the monsters... He says that they are A sexual and are a warm blooded, skin breathing, reptilian - there were five of these types of animals in the dinosaurs and he says that the monster is a relative to one of them. The monster is said to consume 1.4t of salmon and 64,000 other fish. The biggest Monster ever recorded is 3.3t and 11.2m long...
We went and listen to a talk on how the clansman lived back in the day and I have to tell you it wasn't pretty. They lived in black houses as they had fires and no chimneys as any holes in the roof meant that the roof would be torn off during severe winds in the winter... It
Doing Battle
Learning the fighting ways of the Highlanders... wasn't unusual for these families to have 10-12 kids. A lot of these kids died before the age of 5 with bronchial problems and asthma. We saw the traditional dress and were told how even when they were brand new they were first coated in animal fat to make them water proof. These outfits were made out of 7 meters of material and were worn for 6 months at a time and these people did not shower.... yuck!!!
At night the animals were brought into the house to protect against predators and theft. These people were born fighters - they were vicious and used weapons that were so grusome and fired that sometimes sent the red coats running without even needing to fight.... they used various other weapons that were unique to themselves and one in particular used to take the legs straight off horses... The theory was a 3 legged horses falls down.... They were vicious fighters and when time permitted were quiet fond of torturing their victims rather than just killing them....
Had my first straight single malt whiskey - when in Rome and all that... It is considered offensive to mix it with soda or
Braveheart
Freeeedddoooooommmmmmmm!! ice. It was a tough drink seeing I'm not a whiskey drinker at the best of times!!!
We listen to Scottish music which just sounds like irish music - all Gaelic I guess...
Stayed at Port Augustus and next day drove past a man made lake called something I'm going to remember soon!!! which was used for hydro electronic purposed. They paid all the Scottish people off many years ago to move and they just flooded it. They didn't both to pull down any of the houses as they weren't intending to drink the water. They say that you are allowed to dive in there and swim amongst the houses.... We followed along this road for awhile - the road that leads to Ireland...
Went to Eilean Donan Castle and had a look inside. It was originally built in the 12th Century and eventually taken over by the English who realised it stored a heap of gun powered so they took what they wanted and since they'd had no luck penetrating the 14ft deep exterior walls with their cannons they light the gun powder and blew it up from the inside. A descendant of the castle married
Edinburgh Castle
Imposing sitting on volcanic rock a rich woman and they spent 25 years and 250,000 pounds restoring it off a dream he had, which after finding the copies of the original blue prints turned out to be 98% correct.
Made our way to Isle of Skye which is 67 miles long and has a population of about 12,000. The replaced the ferry across with a bridge some years ago. Bridge was originally supposed to cost 8 million but ended up blowing out to a massive 32 million. It was designed to look like seagulls but to me just looks like a bridge!!! The first language on this island is Gaelic. They protested the bridge toll as it became the most expensive toll overnight being £5 each way. Eventually tolls were removed and it's now free to travel back and forth.
The water surrounding the bridge is full of Basking Sharks which are massive but fortunately vegetarian, which migrated from Wales.
We stopped at a river where a woman was riding to meet her new husband which was to stop the war between 2 clans, the McLeod's and another clan I can't remember sorry!!! but her horse threw her on the bridge and
Edinburgh Festival
A couple of performers. she fell off and hit her hear messing her face up and nearly loosing her eye. She didn't want to keep her husband to be waiting so she got back on her horse and rode on. When she turned up to her awaiting husband he thought it was an insult by the other clan to send a woman in such a state, as she was supposed to be beautiful, so he cut out the eye of the boy, horse and dog that accompanied her, she was sent back to the clan devastated, but stopped on the way back at the river and fairies wanted to know what was wrong and she explained so they put fairy dust in the water and told her to dunk her face in the water for 5 seconds and she would be beautiful again... we stood there listening to this story with horizontal rain blowing over us and we were getting drowned thinking he was crazy and that this story had better be worth us looking like drown rats!!! Then the guide made everyone dunk their faces in the stream for 5 seconds before we could leave. One man fell in up to his waste
Stacey & I
In front of the harsh view where Stacey works. with his video camera which looked pretty funny but really wasn't!
Saw Old Man of Storr which is a single rock rising up out of the hill and there is a story that goes with that also that I wont bore you with!
Saw another small waterfall along the way and the guide wanted us to drink the water and make a wish then run down and touch the yellow haggis bus so that it would come true... Maxamillion, an American on the tour, decided to take the challenge and did it, got covered in mud and I still don't know how he managed to stay upright through out the steep decent whilst running like a maniac, but at the end he couldn't stop and his shoes got in the mud drain and then slammed straight into the bus!!! All the others had mud up to their calves but i'm used to looking for wet patches and managed to walk around them!! Can't believe all the other people continued to walk the same way after watching those sink in front of them!
Sheep run free here much like in Ireland making the winding roads quiet dangerous. Farmers
mark them with paint in different symbols and once a year the farmers come together when it's time to shear them and they divide them back to the original owners. Isle of Skye is the only place in the world where farmers each own a parcel of land and they rotation it with other farmers from year to year so that if you don't have a fertile piece of land you will get one the following year!!!
Visited Kilts Rock with waterfall in front of Quiraing Pass which is a very step and dangerous road, we stopped to look at the mountains and a Canadian girl and we were talking about mountains and she asked if we had them in Australia and I said yes that we had the great dividing range, then she said oh yeah, you've got that other lot, and started indicating three sides of a square and I felt like I was playing charades!!! Figured out that she was talking about Ayres Rock!!! She thought it was a whole mountain range!!!
Coming back down the Quiraing Pass we had to take crazy hair pin bends which required 3 point turns in our yellow bus!!
there were a few scary moments, while our tour guide described Scotland as 'Sexy' and the weather as 'atmospheric' and 'Mood Weather'. So today I got my first Scottish soaking!! a trip wouldn't be complete without that!!
There's a hill near where we put our faces in the water and we were told that there is an annual race there and we were asked how long we thought it would take to run down the road climb to the top of the summit and run back down, across the road and order a pint - it's one monster hill and we were told an Aussie was there visiting before the races started and there were a heap of joggers from all around the world in proper jogging outfits and the Aussie was in jeans and joggers and decided that he would have a go and did it in 57 min and set a new record that lasted years!!! Go Aussies!!!! It was broken this year and reset at 47min which I think is just incredible and I'm sure if you saw the size and distance of this track you'd agree!!!
Went to Saucy Mary's for dinner, got some
prawns, said they came as 10 with salad, when they arrived they looked like mini lobsters?!?! with roe still attached - wasn't sure what was going on and they tasted more like crab... very strange indeed.
Had a few drinks with people from the other 2 Haggis tours and met up with the girls I met in the hostel the 1st night and drank way too much beer, rum and shots, took up our tour challenge to make new friends and score points by hugging 18 Haggis tour people from the other buses and 8 locals!! There were a whole heap of things that scored you points but I wont go into that!
Next morning we visited Loch Garry which looks like the map of Scotland.
HIghest mountain in the UK is the Ben Nevis mountain at a staggering 4,406 feet. More people have died on this mountain than on Everest.... Due to the sub zero temperatures all year around and 3,000ft shear drops off the edge where people just literally walk off the edge when they don't know where they are going...
Saw the porridge pipes which ran into houses - They are massive pipes down the side of the mountain. They said that many years ago there were 3 taps in most houses a hot, cold and porridge tap as porridge was part of the staple diet.
Visited Glencoe and the spot where the Campbell's massacred the Macdonald's - still have signs on the pub door that say no salesman and no Campbell's. The seem to be the most hated clan in the whole of Scotland. There was a treaties to be signed back in the 1600's to acknowledge William of Orange, who was a Dutch prodistant royal, had taken over from King James who was dethroned as they didn't want a Catholic king anymore so he was exiled to France. McDonald Clan didn't sign treaty by the due date as they went to the wrong spot so he sent their arch rivals, Campbell's to their houses and Highland hospitality law was that if someone came to your door looking for help you couldn't refuse so they took them in for 2 weeks and gave up their beds and fed them and treated them like one of the family. Then William of Orange wanted to make an example of the McDonalds and reconfirm his power so he ordered the Campbell's kill them. They woke at 5am and started putting them all to the sword including kids. They stripped the wife and put her outside in the snow naked to die of hypothermia.
British army lit a fire at both ends of the area they lived between and waited till those who ran towards them after hearing the screams, and then killed them. They killed 40 people pretty much wiping out the whole clan. It was dark and the mountains were snow covered. Some people tried to run to the hills, only a couple survived. This incident wrecked southern hospitality for good.
There aren't many trees to be seen whilst traveling around. Scotland used to be covered with trees but over the years they have cleared 98% of the forest. There used to be wolves and bears here but they were hunted into extinction.
Saw the Loch that Shaun Connery owns. Even though he is the ambassador for Scotland, he only lives in Scotland for 2 days a year so he doesn't get taxed - he lives in tax fee countries for the rest of the year and I guess you can't blame him for that!!! Shaun Connery used his own voice recording to announce each level the lift stops at in the Parliament house!!
We stopped at a pub call Green Welly for lunch and that patted Hamish the Highland Bull who I'm sure is the best feed bull ever!!! It's said that if you touch the horn then you'll have great..... well a good love life!!! hehe!! Apparently this is Scotland's answer to Viagra!
Went and saw William Wallace Monument (from Brave heart) and we were told the rest of the gruesome story that they didn't tell you in the movie in vivid details.... the torture was terrible and worse than you could even imagine as they did unspeakable things to him... and to top it off he was given a potion that was supposed to take away the pain, by the Princess, before the torture began but it was actually a potion to ensure that he didn't pass out during it.. After he was tortured he was hacked into 4 pieces and his parts were sent to the furthest parts of the English Counties. It all started in the 12th Century when they formed a plan to over throw Kind Edward the 1st of England out of Scotland so William Wallace recruited 500 like minded warriors and took out a bridge with sharpened pencil like spears after he observed their behavior for a week discovered the weakest point and launched an attack, killed a lot of English cavalry effectively running them out of Scotland.
Out tour ended back in Edinburgh and I caught up with Vanessa off the tour for drinks and some Thai which made everything feel better!
Met 2 Australian boys in the hostel hall and ended up talking till about 1am - one of the guys said that he had been traveling for 5 weeks and had barely seen any Aussies, don't know where he has been!!!
Today I caught the open topped bus and took a guided tour around the city taking in the Castle, Palace, Lava Hills and the Old & New towns. Was going to catch the other bus down to the water but it was getting pretty cold.
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Janine
non-member comment
looking good!
Hey there! Good to see you back in the REAL old country. none of this english nonsense. The boys are asking when you are coming back and I said NEVER!!! I would not come back if I were you. will write more in a proper email Luv Janine.