Scotland

Off to Glasgow

We had First Class tickets to Glasgow on Virgin Train, so we decided to show up at Euston Station an hour early to see what our extra money paid for ...

... which was free newspaper, small bottles of water, Tetrapak juices, and coffee -- not worth sacrificing an extra hour of sleep for! In addition to the First Class lounge, we got slightly wider seats on the train, no screaming kids or noisy passengers, a hot breakfast and light lunch.

Muffin chose a full cooked breakfast (sausage, bacon, the works) while I picked the smoked salmon. For our lunch, Muffin selected a prawn salad while I had a pickled carrot and Wensleydale cheese sandwich. I had particularly delight in envisaging the folks in Economy queueing for their food from the buffet car while ours came in a trolley ... :P

Luckily for us it was an uneventful train ride, and we managed to kill 4 and a half hours on the train easily. We arrived at Glasgow Central on time, and lugged ourselves up a steep *hill* towards our accommodation, The Old School House .

 

The Old School House costs £60 a night and we were given the front room of the building, right upstairs of the kitchen / dining room. Oily fried bacon smells would waft up to our room daily ...

 

After resting for a bit, we decided to do a bit of shopping at Tiso Outdoor Experience. We bought a very good wind and waterproof jacket each (Marmot) which would prove itself handy for the next two weeks. Also bought some head band cloth type thingy (which Muffin calls the Du-rag -- but in fact is a Buff Headwear).

For dinner we headed to Ichiban on Queen Street for some Ramen.

Going against the promise we made about stopping coffee for two weeks, we found a Nero before heading to the Cineworld to watch Bourne Ultimatum ...

Around and about in Glasgow

After a particularly oily full Scottish breakfast (I opted out of the black pudding) we caught the train to Pollokshaws West station and made our way to the Burrell Collection.

The museum was situated in a park so you can see the woodlands while you're browsing the collection.

 

We saw Rodin's Thinker ... neither of us could emulate the pose well enough ...

 

We had afternoon tea in the cafe (shared a nice carrot cake and a pot of tea) and then made our way to the Glasgow Science Centre.

 

The Science Centre looks like one of those giant slugs from Dune, I thought.

 

We bought tickets (paid concession prices for them because they were going to close soon) and went up the Glasgow Tower for a bird's eye view of Glasgow, then played with some of the displays at the Science Museum.

 

I had told Muffin that he could eat Fast Food only if he had vouchers or coupons for them. Since we got some when we bought our cinema tickets last night, we had Maccas for dinner that night :(

After resting for a bit, we headed off to the ABC for the Sonic Youth concert ... and I forgot to bring my camera! D'OH! At least I bought a T-shirt as a souvenir ...

Driving to Fort William

After our full Scottish breakfast, we made our way to the National car hire office to pick up our hire car ... and we were given a very sportage-looking car (Vauxhall Astra 1.8SRi). After picking up our lugguage from the B&B, we hit the road ...

Soon after, we were breathing fresh air ...

Here's something we haven't seen in a loooong time -- mountains and ... blue skies!

 

After dropping off our stuff at the next B&B ( St Anthony's, £60/night) we went for a wander in Fort William town, and had a Tesco lunch (egg sandwich) hoping to save our appetites for a nice dinner later that day.

To work up more of an appetite, we went for a walk in the nearby park in Inchree.

 

Suitably famished, we made our way back to the high street in Fort William, and went into No.4 restaurant.

Neptune's Staircase, Nevis Range

After a greasy full Scottish breakfast (this time with a Lorne sausage!) we headed off to Neptune's Staircase, which consists of eight locks leading to the Caledonian Canal.

 

As the walk wasn't rigorous / natural enough, we headed to the Nevis Range instead.

We caught the gondola up, then walked to around to check out the views.

 

There was some hairy looking mountain bike trails running down the mountain, which Muffin wanted to do ... but instead we opted for the relatively tame Great Glen Chair, which is a ski lift which takes you across the mountain. Since I was afraid of heights, this ride was scary enough for me ...

 

 

Soon it was time to check into another B&B (we couldn't book three nights in a row anywhere) ... this time in staying in Hillview Guesthouse at £55/night. This time, we were located right opposite the Loch on the main road heading to the Fort William town centre.

After a power-nap, we decided to head to town for dinner ... this time in a hotel's restaurant (or rather, in the pub area as there weren't any tables left) at Alexandra Hotel. Somehow we had a hankering for some hearty Highland dinner after all that walking, so we both ordered some steak and chips ... We haven't eaten a large tasty hunk of chargrilled meat for a while so it was scrumptious! We both ordered the local ale but I had trouble finishing my half a pint -- I find it difficult to down warm / room temp beers!

 

 

After dinner we went for a drive around Glen Nevis ... and saw a lone sheep grazing by the road ...

Glen Nevis

 

We had to burn off yet another full Scottish breakfast so we drove to the Glen Nevis visitor centre and asked for a long walk ... hopefully one where I could see some Highland Cows.

So we embarked on the Glen Nevis Forest and River Walk, which was supposed to take 4 to 5 hours ...

We scrabbled around the narrow path, jumping across streams and navigating around boggy areas ... found some grazing sheep and then some Highland cattle!

Other walkers soon joined us in admiring the cattle and treading carefully around them (sharp horns and massive droppings) ... but somehow or rather, I was seperated from the group of walkers and one of the huge bulls decided to turn around and moved towards me ...

 

I heard one of the women go "Oh my god" and I wondered if I should be panicking. As there were no trees for me to climb and I was penned in all direction by huge cattles and a barbed fence (and everyone else has safely gone to the other side of the fence through the gate) ... So I squashed myself against the barbed fence and tried to appear calm ...

 

Lets just say I've survived to tell the tale -- but I've had to step in a huge fresh puddle of pee to get to safety ...

Safely on the other side of the fence, I continued taking photos ...

 

... and Muffin keeps playing with every bug and slug he found ...

Besides bugs and slugs, there were plenty of mushrooms and flowers in the woodland ... I also found a tiny tick on me (before it managed to sink its fangs into me) ...

Along the way we we got lost and unnecessarily climbed some steep hills, our walk took over 5 hours before we came back to civilisation ...

By then, we were weak and hungry ... and my shoes were uncomfortably soggy. After a whole day looking at the cattle we had a craving for steak. So we made our way to the town centre and went into Grog and Gruel.

I had a Chicken Quesadilla while Muffin ordered steak and curly chips. They had an extensive list of ale so we tried some. We even managed to eat a pudding for dessert ...

 

On the Road to the Isles, and around Duirnish

We woke up to a wet foggy day ... and after our full Scottish breakfast we made our way to Mallaig where the car ferry which would take us to the Isles of Skye would be.

Along the Road to the Isles, we stopped by the Glenfinnan, paid some ridiculous amount for the "entrance fee" (the monument was outdoors) and car parking ... As you can see it was too foggy to take any good pictures. The "Harry Potter" train came by on the viaduct, but our photos were lousy since it was hidden in mist ...

 

About an hour or so later, we were in Mallaig. We decided to grab some light snack at The Tea Garden ... I ordered half a pint of prawn salad, while Muffin had a Cullen Skink (which is a soup made from smoked haddock). The Mallaig "prawns" were very different to the types we were used to eating -- their shells were very hard and spikey! They weren't as tasty either.

Then it was time to get to the car ferry ...

 

 

After an hour or so on the ferry, and a couple of hours driving, we arrived in Portree, then drove on to our B&B in Treaslane, called Auchendinny Guest House which costs £60 a night.

 

After lazing about a little we decided to go for a drive to check out the local (wild) life ...

 

A lot of the roads on the Isles of Skye were single laned with these "passing place" areas where you're meant squeeze past oncoming traffic.

We drove to the Neist Point, Skye's most westerly point and saw some huge cliffs, a lighthouse, lots of sheep and nice views. We had to walk up and down many steps to get there and by the time we got back to the car our legs were buggerred.

We drove back to Portree for dinner, but couldn't get a table at the restaurants we wanted. So we settled for some fish and chips (from the shop down at the harbour) where there was a queue outside. We ate the fish and chips in the car, washed down with Irn Bru -- Scotland's other national drink.

 

The Storr, and around Trotternish

We were running low on clean laundry so we went to town to get our laundry washed. This was probably the most expensive coin-operated laundrette we've ever been to ... We bought a copy of the Observer while waiting for the laundry, and then moved to Cafe Arriba for some coffee and cake while we finished our paper.

To walk off our full Scottish breakfast (plus cereal, this time!) we decided to climb up to The Storr.

 

After parking the car, we walked through along the steep and slippery path through the pine forest before reaching the foot of the Storr. We walked through the gate and past the warning signs and continued the steep climb up ...

The path was rocky and steep, but the views were rewarding. We saw lots of rabbit burrows on the hills. It was pretty windy so we had to put on our jackets.

 

 

Since we couldn't scrabble around the top, we decided to head back down once we'd had our fill of sights. We headed back to the car and continued driving along the coast, stopping at various vantage points along the way.

For dinner that night, we went to the Harbour View Restaurant and managed to get a table because we showed up early.

The food was excellent and will be fondly remembered -- we shared some oysters, and Muffin had a seabass whilst I had a salmon. For desserts I had a creme brulee while Muffin had a berry crumble.

After dinner we went for a walk and saw the prawn trawler pull up to the harbour, with a cloud of seagulls in tow.

Looking for otters

After breakfast we set out to look for some Scottish wildlife.

Driving past a few lochs we noticed that the tides were low and lots of seaweed were exposed. So we decided to have a poke around ...

 

 

First stop for our otter hunt was Kylerhea, which had a hide with some binoculars in it ... We couldn't see any otters, but we saw plenty of seals and a red deer.

 

We couldn't find any otters in Kyleakin either ... but they had some ruins instead ...

 

We then headed to Kyle of Lochalsh to hop aboard the Seaprobe Atlantis to get a closer look. We had a very unexciting lunch at Sheila Cafe (apple and turnip soup, roast beef sandhwich) -- but we found more restaurants afterwards ... We also found some trunks moving logs into a neat stack ...

 

We could see many seals from the boat ...

 

Couldn't see much but seaweed from under the boat tho ...

 

We went to a distillery but it was closed so we decided to check out the pier instead. Muffin found some lobster traps which gave him some ideas ...

 

For dinner we went to Stein Inn -- the Oldest Inn on Skye.

 

Loch Ness, Inverness, Aviemore

After brekky we made our way to the Cairngoms, via Inverness. We pulled over at Eileen Donan Castle to take some happy snaps -- this castle was featured in Highlander, Entrapment and some James Bond movie.

 

Just before arriving at Loch Ness, a rock from the other side of the road hit our windscreen -- it's gonna cost a bit! :(

When we arrived at Loch Ness we stopped at the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre which was pretty entertaining.

 

As soon as we drove into Inverness we were stuck in traffic ... but we managed to park the car to have lunch in The Rajah (2 Post Office Avenue) -- an excellent Indian restaurant. It's well worth the detour! The decor looked very impressive -- makes you feel like royalty. The service was teriffic too. Most importantly, the food is very delicious, well presented, and authentic. I highly recommend eating here. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, as I was expecting some dingy Indian place :P

After lunch we set off to Aviemore ... and our petrol tank was complaining that we were running out of fuel! Lucky we managed to make it to a service station in Aviemore on time ...

After tanking up we checked into our really cool-looking B&B ...

 

The showers are really excellent here!

We skipped dinner as we hand lunch late ... but we did pop into Tesco and bought a tub of strawberries ...

 

Highland Wildlife Park, Rothiemurchus Estate

After our Scottish Breakfast, we headed straight to the Highland Wildlife Park where we were the first car to arrive! Unfortunately the ranger tells us that they've stopped the feeding (the reason why we got there early) as there was sufficient grass for the animals.

When the park opened moments later, we drove in ... our very first drive-thru safari!

 

We saw bisons, reindeers, red deers, yaks, etc. After doing a circuit, we parked the car so we could see the feeding of the other animals in the park.

I was lucky to stumble upon a little Red Squirrel -- my most favourite type of squirrel!

 

We saw the Scottish Wildcats (which looks like my old cat, Morty, R.I.P.) being fed ... rabbits!

 

We also founds some owls ... which looked really cool ("Oryl??")

 

These coats of these foxes turn white in winter ...

 

We also saw the otters being fed ... rabbits ...

 

The wolves were also fed rabbits ...

 

As we weren't quite hungry yet (we had some coffee / tea with cake / scones at the Wildlife Park), we decided to do a little more walking. There were meant to be more Red Squirrels at the Rothiemurchus Estate so we decided to look ...

We couldn't find any squirrels ... we didn't even hear any birds!

 

 

We found heaps of mushrooms tho ... and a ruin in the middle of the loch.

For dinner that night we had fish and chips in Smiffy's in Aviemore.

Glenlivet Distillery, Cairn Gorm, Glenmore Forest Park

We set off to the Glenlivet Distillery to purchase some whisky for my cousin. We joined the free tour and saw how whisky was made -- and Muffin started getting some ideas ... At the end of the tour we got to sample some free whisky :D

Warmed up and slightly drunk, we headed to Cairn Gorm and asked the ranger there which of the walks we could do. He saw that we weren't wearing boots and well-equipped and told us to do the walks down the mountain instead -.-

We found a path and just went anyway :) The path wasn't even finished yet (we found the two guys that were still making it) and it was getting cold and windy so we decided to turn back ...

 

 

We made it back on time to catch the last train up the Cairngorm -- there's an exhibition centre and a restaurant up there, nothing too exciting. Then we caught the last one down.

Unimpressed, we decided to do some walks in Glenmore Forest Park ...

 

As it was our last night in the Scottish Highlands, we decided to get a hearty Scottish dinner at the restaurant in the Cairngorm Hotel . In my excitement I forgot to take a photo of our mains (which was a very tender duck breast, and steak and chips). I did, however, remember my camera for dessert ...

 

We would definitely return to the Cairngorms as there was still much to see and do, and would definitely eat here again.

Heading back to Glasgow

With a heavy heart (and stomach -- filled with our last Scottish Breakfast) we set off for the drive back to Glasgow, so we could return the car by noon.

 

We returned the car with 1/3 tank full and had to pay £265 for the chip on the windscreen -- the cost of the car hire itself was only £225 for two weeks :(

We tried to check in to our room early, but they told us to come back at 2pm. HAH. We definitely enjoyed better service at all the B&Bs we stayed in.

We managed to kill time in Nero until then ...

 

Later that night, we headed to the West End (Hillhead) via the Underground (also known as the "Clockwork Orange") for dinner at a Chinese cafe-style restaurant called Chow.

Calling your hotel "Quality Hotel" must be one of the greatest ironies around ... they should really rename it "Old Hotel" as it is very very old. The showers were the weakest we have ever used ... water flows out at about 5 drops a second so showering was very tedious. I can imagine that you wouldn't want to stay here in winter ...

If only I hadn't been so lazy and not wanted to stay right upstairs of the train station ...

 

Edinburgh

We had no breakfast today, but we grabbed a coffee from Nero before getting on the train to Edinburgh. I left my camera behind today so no photos :(

As a city, Edinburgh looked a little nicer architecturally, and it wasn't as polluted as Glasgow.

We didn't make any particular plans but we stumbled upon an amazing exhibition at the Queen's Gallery, called Amazing Rare Things: the Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery -- which contained collections from the Royal Collection selected with the help of Sir David Attenborough.

We were starving but didn't want to eat at any tourist traps, so we walked around away from the main street and found Herbe Bistro . The food here is excellent! We ordered the lunch special (of either one main with one dessert, or one main with one entree) costing only £10 each. I had a beef sausage with bruschetta followed by a cod fishcake while Muffin had the tomato and red pepper soup followed by chicken with fettucine. Unfortunately we were too full otherwise I would've ordered desserts as well ...

We continued our wander along the Royal Mile, and came across Camera Obscura and went in for a look. It had a lot of cool stuff to look at, such as holograms, and hands-on displays.

By the time we came out, a lot of the other tourist attractions were closed, so we decided to have a quick coffee and snack in a cafe ... I had a really rich Belgian Waffle smothered in Nutella ...

We headed back to Glasgow soon after, and went to watch a horror movie called 1408 which was extra scary for me because our hotel room number was ... 418!!

Shopping in Glasgow, then home time!

We checked out, then went into several outdoor shops on Buchanan Street. Grabbed lunch at Willow Tea Rooms. After that we headed to Tiso Outdoor Experience and made a huge purchase of waterproof trousers, thermal underwear and a new pair of shoes for me.

After shopping, we headed to Glasgow Central for our train back to London Euston. NB: There was NO FOOD SERVICE on the way back ... should've bought some food beforehand! :(