Scottish Tour sunday June 8 to Saturday June 14

I have to confess to laziness with regard to keeping a travel diary for Scotland, but for completeness sake I need to at least list the highlights of the week I spent travelling around that wonderful country and share some of the stories.

Sunday morning I got a cooked breakfast in my room which got me started and I went downstairs to join up the tour, as it turned out we had a small group compared to the previous tour I did where there were 44 people, this time only 25, so plenty of room on the coach.

there was a mixed bag of people, less new zealanders than last time, but they were amongst the first to talk to me. Amongst the other nationalities were Canadian, french-canadian, australian, indian and american.

It was a long drive up to Edinburgh where we stayed the first two nights and we had a great hotel in both quality and location, which was overlooking the old city, I have some great photos of the castle and the the view.

I have to say that Edinburgh is the first city I have felt totally at home and relaxed in for the whole tour. It just had a familiar air about it. There was no other city that gave me that feeling.

We explored the city with a local guide and ended up in the castle, which was just fantastic. I am an avid fan of castles, and if i could have a fantasy home, then that would be it!

The only real optional extra for the tour was the scottish folklore night, which turned out to be a little too cheesy and unfortunately with fairly ordinary food. It certainly was not worth the 50 pounds cost. Particularly not when we met up with some people who got free tickets to the night cos they had been staying at the hotel that it was hosted in.

That particular night turned out to be fairly random, with the canadian girl Margaret, myself, one of the french canadian girls Caroline meeting up with four other people who themselves were strangers to each other (well it was a couple from yorkshire and two guys who knew each other .. Harry from Finland and Renno who was also french canadian ...) they all wanted to go out, so we headed out to the nearest pub ... Renno was funny as he was in full scottish regalia having bought himself a kilt, shirt and shoes ...

The first pub I asked whether they would be closing soon (as it was 10.30pm and some pubs seem to shut smartly at 11pm) ... well, the barmaid was from Australia ... adelaide to be exact. The night kicked on and we ended up in the Old Town at a bar and having a great time ... until i remembered we had to be up early to head off in the morning. So we called it a night at 2am or so and just going back to my above point, in no other city would I have considered wandering around drunk as I was, but it felt like a typical night out in Melbourne.

After Edinburgh we drove further into the highlands, stopping at St Andrews, the home of golf and also nearby on the beach is where the scene for Chariots of Fire was filmed. By this stage of the tour Id become friendly with Cathy and Ian, a couple from near Mortlake in Victoria, they were a lovely couple and it was their first time overseas, most mornings we sat together and were joined by Margaret, a canadian girl with no fear of going out to the wee hours (she had way more stamina than me!).

We also visited a whiskey distillery for the Glenlivet brand and I tasted an 18 year old sample which was delicious and smooth. You could tell the non whiskey drinkers by the cries of ´oh it burns it burns´ which was most amusing.

The third night we stayed at a ski resort town of Aviemore with a hotel room that had views of the mountains (some of which had snow on them) and forest ... another postcard moment, this was in the Cairngorm Mountains.

It was the next morning that I had haggis for breakfast, although Id tasted it the night in Edinburgh. It really was just like spicy mince, and not at all what you would think. I drew the line at having black pudding though! (congealed blood).

After Aviemore on day four we drove onward ( I think it was day three we caught a brief glimpse of Balmoral Castle ... no chance of a photo there as too many high trees and we didnt stop (well you are not allowed to). We drove through the battlefield of Culloden Moor and saw all the flags, but we didnt stop, which was a shame.

Our first stop of the day was at Iverness, the highland capital and then we headed on again this time stopping at Loch Ness .... nope, didnt see the monster ....or did I?? (you will have to wait for the photos).

After Loch Ness we stopped for photos again at the castle that was in the first highlander film - Eilean Donan Castle. No chance of a toilet stop there as about 50 billion coaches full of 80+ year olds who all lined up for probably one toilet in the tourist information place.

Hmm this blog is sounding just like a driving description, but to be fair, we did an awful lot of driving that day - not that it worried me as the scenery was just spectacular.

After crossing a bridge, driving across the Island of Skye, we caught a ferry, which Margaret got pretty excited about as she had never been on a ferry before.

The next photo stop of this long driving day was at Glenfinnan, the alleged site of where Bonnie Prince Charlie hoisted his standard in 1745 (that led to the battle of Culloden after they retreated back from just outside London). Also nearby this stop was a bridge that has appeared in Harry Potter films, so I took a photo of that too.

Our stop for day 4 and day 5 was a town called Oba,which is a fishing port. It was a nice little town, if a bit on the tired side and in need of a spruce up. That kind of described our hotel, which was quite nice but definitely in need of renovation. Ended up at a bar next door for a few hours talking with the locals who were all pretty friendly, although it did take me a bit to tune into the accent!

Day 5 we headed from Oban by ferry (the coach came on the ferry) and we drove across the Island of Mull to get to another ferry to the Isle of Iona ... that was a pretty little town with a rebuilt Abbey where in 563 St Columba established one of the first Christian monasteries on british soil.

that night we had to fend for ourselves for dinner in Oban and a few of us did a recce on the main street and found a homely little fish n chip restaurant and booked a table. About 8 of us turned up there, and were charmed by the young scottish girl who was the maitre´d .. she had everything under control, busily clearing tables, taking orders, making small talk and ordering other staff around ...she was awesome! Funnily enough the four kiwis turned up at the same place, so we gave the a bit of a ribbing about following aussies (well we had americans and canadians on the table but most of us were aussie) the locals had no idea what to make of us as we were quite loud but the maitre´d thought it was hilarious and even said when we left that she´d miss all the fun. We ended up giving her a fairly generous tip, as the food was served promptly and it was delicious.

Afterwards we had some drinks at the hotel and were entertained by a strange old guy who joined us and was trying to crack onto one of the american women ... no chance!

Day 6 we visited Inveraray which was a lovely little town, there was a piper at the coach parking who piped us in, which was pretty cool. It was here that I managed to pick up a nice gift for my cousin Lauren of a cashmere scarf, (which she loved when I gave it to her). Ian, Cathy and I went to a little cafe where I had the most delicious piece of pavola EVER! Another local (old guy) started talking to us there and he had the thickest accent yet I´ve heard in Scotland.

Ian couldn´t understand a word he was saying, but I could follow most of it, and he was saying how most of the barstaff were australians plus some worked at the bank in the town. He was also telling us to go in a certain door at the local hotel because then we would get cheaper prices ... too bad we were only stopping there for about 45 minutes!

We stopped again at the Rest and be Thankful road and Loch Lomond, where we got a group shot (organised by ourselves) and thank you to the random woman who took about 5 shots using different cameras and took direction from me as to the best spot to stand to take it!

Then we left the highlands and headed to Glasgow. Which reminded me a bit of the feel of Sydney. We only had a few hours to wander around the main centre of the city, but it was pretty nice and we ran into some fantastic buskers - a bagpiper, two drummers and two african guys playing bongo drums - Im telling you it totally rocked! (and yes i recorded a bit of it on video).

Then Angela (aussie woman) and Beth (american woman) and I searched the streets of Glasgow for a pub .... after asking locals who didnt seem to know where any pubs were we found a reasonable pub to have a quick pint at before we had to head back to the meeting point. I also spotted Dr who´s tardis in two different spots in the city (and had also spotted it in Edinburgh).

The hotel where we were staying at was really nice, probably one of the nicest of the both tours i have done and certainly the most organised when it came to dinner! AND it even had free internet which was just awesome ... although there was much entertainment as there was a school social on at the hotel, so lots of girls and guys running around drunk at all hours of the night!

Day 7 was the long long long drive back to London - not everyone came back with us, the french canadian girls had left us at glasgow to pick up a camper van .... interesting fact there was that the girl (amelie) doing the driving had only driven manuals three times and never had driven a big van before ... I think she was quite stressed especially as some of the roads they would be driving on were really just footpaths in disguise!

Eventually we got back to London and I was worried about hooking up with my cousin Lauren, but needn´t have worried as I literally stepped off the coach and she was there!

Hmmm well this has been a long blog entry and Ive probably missed out some stuff if I had been keeping it every day - ah well, the photographs will tell the story of what a beautiful country Scotland is - Im definitely coming back.