The Scottish Highlands

Now for Sunday funday! We hopped on the bus at 8 and set off for Loch Ness. The fog hadn't really lifted since the day before, so I was really worried that the entire day would be a bust. The first two hours were as expected, and because the fog was so heavy we couldn't see Doune Castle as we passed it. I was really disappointed, because this is where most of the castle scenes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail were filmed. Sad day. Our first stop was at Trossachs Woolen Mill in Stirling, where we met Hamish the famous Highland cow. The next stop was at Black Mount Estate, which reminded me of an overlook at the Blue Ridge Parkway, sans the Blue Ridge Mountains and add a bagpipe player and some fog. As we drove farther north, the fog began to clear and we were granted with beautiful weather for the rest of the day. Things were looking up.

The Lowlands make up the bottom 1/3 of Scotland, but about 90% of the population live in a little strip in the narrowest part of the Lowlands. The other 2/3 of Scotland are the Higlands, which boasts some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen. While we drove through the Highlands and took in the deserted mountain scenery, our tour guide Nic played some traditional Gaelic music and told us some stories of the battles between old Scottish clans that used to live there. Scotland has a really dark history and it was really interesting to hear all about. We passed quite a few lochs (lakes) and snow-capped mountains (yay snow!) until finally arriving at Loch Ness.

For those of you who don't believe in a monster that lives in a lake in the middle of Scotland, let me give you a few reasons to open your mind: 1) The lake is big. Loch Ness is over 23 miles long, and at some points over 900 feet deep. If you were to drain Loch Ness and fill it with all the water in all the lakes in England AND Wales combined, it wouldn't even fill half of the basin. This is a huge loch we're talking about. It also has a very shallow euphotic depth, meaning that light doesn't penetrate deeper than 10 or 15 meters below the surface. 2) The fish are big. The boat we rode on had a sonar hooked up so that we could see all the fishies swimming around beneath us, as well as how deep it was. Massive eels and pike have been caught before. Sonar images show that there are some seriously huge animals swimming around down there. 3) The ocean is big. Loch Ness feeds into the North Sea, so fish are free to swim in and out of the Loch to feed/mate as they see fit. This family of creatures that Nessie belongs to could swim anywhere they wanted in the North Sea, and simply come to Loch Ness when they got hungry (yes, Nessie does have a family -- you don't think she'd still be alive and kicking after the first sighting in the 6th century, do you? It would make more sense for it to be a family of creatures that have been lasting from generation to generation). Unfortunately there were no Nessie sightings while were on our hour boat tour, but I'm still convinced that there's some sort of giant underwater creature who lives in Loch Ness :)

The ride back to Edinburgh was relaxing. The scenery was just as beautiful as the sweeping mountains of the Highlands, but it just wasn't as dramatic. We stopped at the Commando Memorial and saw the biggest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis standing at 4,400 feet tall. It was pretty, but I laughed at the fact that I go to school at 3,333 feet elevation back home -- what's another 1,000 feet, especially when I've skied on the 14,000 feet-tall Grand Tetons in Wyoming? However I do consider myself lucky, because Nic told us that you can only see the peak 50 days out of the year due to low clouds, so we picked a really good day. The Scottish Highlands are unbelievably beautiful, and I would love to live out in the middle of nowhere like that. Being surrounded by such beautiful natural scenery definitely made me miss Boone.

We drove past the Dalwhinnie whiskey distillery, as well as the engineering marvel Forth Bridge. Our last stop was in a little town called Pitlochry, where we grabbed some chips (fries) to hold us over until we arrived back in Edinburgh. It was a tiny little town that had a lot of cute shops, but unfortunately none of them were open at 7 pm on a Sunday evening. One of the stores was a year-round Christmas shop that was counting down the days until Christmas (276 as of yesterday), which reminded me so much of my mom. We got back on the road and arrived in Edinburgh right at 8:00. Our bus back home didn't leave until 10:30, so Lily, Ash, and I got dinner at a TGI Fridays we found (definitely didn't know Fridays was an international chain). I must have slept a good bit on the 3-hour bus ride back to Newcastle because I don't remember much of it. A taxi from Newcastle finally put us back in Sunderland at 1:30 am. I unpacked my suitcase and crashed on my bed, while visions of bagpipes and mountains danced in my head. I officially love Scotland.