Final Days

Actually today our road trip was over and only one destination left on our agenda. We were invited to a wedding in Witney close to Bristol. The set for the wedding was prety nice.

We stayed in a middle age cottage in the countryside. The ceremony itself was organised on the premises of the cottage just beside the creek crossing the garden.

The day after leaving at noon we left the UK via Dover and finished our trip on the same day after 3200kms on the road and 1000kms on the sea.

For more pics see

https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/Scotland

Day 8

Back in England after 7 days, we drove today to the Lake district just south of Glasgow.
The precise extent of the Lake District was not defined traditionally but is approximated by the boundary of the National Park, the total area of which is about 2,292 km². The Park extends just over 52 km from east to west and nearly 64 km from north to south, with areas such as the Lake District Peninsulas to the south lying outside the National Park.

  
It was nice to be back on 2 lane roads and just enjoying driving with open top. After some 300 miles we arrived in Little Town´s little farm, where we going to spend the night. The B&B we stay today has been transformed from a stall.

The owner of the farm had extensive graze lands with sheep and horses, almost the whole valley belonged to the farmer. We walked around the farm and went later by car into the next valley to have some dinner. It was 10 miles drive to go the closest village and its pub.

For more pics about the farm and the Lake District see
https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/Scotland

Day 7

Hunting for Puffins

For today we booked a full day excursion exploring 3 islands around Oban. In the morning it was already raining and this time it was really not much hope, that it is gonna better during the day. For the first leg we had to take a big ferry to the Isle of Mull.

 

Arriving on Mull we had to take the local bus for 1.5 hour ride to cross the island. I was already disappointed at this point, since I thought that I booked an organised trip and we going to transported to all the islands on the same ship one after the other. 

Arriving at other side of the island it was still raining and we had to take again a ferry, which brought us finally to our first real destinataion of the day, the uninhabited island Staffa.

                                      

Staffa lies about 10 kilometres west of the Isle of Mull. The area is 33 hectares and the highest point is 42 metres above sea level. 

The island is fully volcanic origin and by contrast, slow cooling of a second layer of basalt resulted in an extraordinary pattern of predominantly hexagonal columns which form the faces and walls of the principal cave, the Fingal´s Cave.

An other attracttion were the puffins nesting on the island. I know these cute birds already from the rocks of Shetland and from my plate on Iceland. By chance people do not eat here puffins, so this time I came into contact with them only via my camera.

After leaving the island the real surprise came. The rest of the islands we supposed to visit today were cancelled of the program, because of the weather condition. The ferry took us to Iona, where we had to wait for a regular ferry to take us back on Mull, where we took again the bus and the ferry after to Oban.
Iona is not much exciting,  a small village with a pub and some houses and a mobile bank, which is going on after 2 hours on the next island.

Bank of Scotland

It was already 7pm when we arrived back to Oban. Summarised we travelled 8 hours to spend 45 minutes on Staffa.

Tomorrow we go further south and planing to stay in the Lake District.

For more pics see
https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/Scotland

Day 6

A real outdoor day

After leaving the Isle of Skye, we were driving south in the hope that nice weather will come again and we can do some serious hiking in Glencoe's Lost/Hidden  Valley. The story behind the Hidden Valley is the following;
Early in the morning of 13 February 1692, a massacre took place in Glen Coe. This incident is referred to as the Massacre of Glencoe. The massacre began simultaneously in three settlements along the glen—Invercoe, Inverrigan, and Achnacon—although the killing took place all over the glen as fleeing MacDonalds were pursued. Thirty-eight MacDonalds from the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed by the guests who had accepted their hospitality. The survivors escaped in the same valley we were planing to explore.

 As we arrived we were already in the afternoon, so we were safe of any massacre. Although it was a valley, we had ascend 600metres on the first 2kms. it was not an easy task but Judit made surprisingly well, without complaining to much.

It seems that there were some injured victims of the morning massacre still hiding somewhere, because a helicopter of the Mountain Rescue was doing its rounds for like 30 mins above our head. When we arrived back to the parking lot a few hours later, we were told that a 60 years old retiree tourist broke his leg while hiking. We were wondering, why a helicopter and a 10 men ground rescue group + 2 policeman in armoured west had to be involved for this.

   
After spending the whole afternoon with our hike, we had only 20 miles to drive to Oban, where we going to spend the following to nights. With its 10000 habitants it is the largest village in the larger surrounding with a big harbour. Several ferries leave from here to the neighbouring islands and having some really nice seafood restaurants.  We wanted to try one, which we read good reviews about. 


We already booked in advance a table in the famous Seafood Temple of Oban. 
http://www.obanseafood.com/
It was very small restaurant with a few tables looking over the harbour. The cook; a women working before 20 years as a hairdresser made us a really delicious dinner from really fresh ingredients delivered by her own brother, who is of course a local fisherman.

After the dinner it we had a really hard time to climb up the to our B&B.  From our room we could see the whole village and the ferries coming into the harbour. 

Day 5

This morning we were not that lucky as we were that far and got some rain. We had to take our tent and walk the 6 miles back to the car in heavy rain, which was not that nice, but added to the value of the adventure in Sandwood Bay.

A few hours and a couple of miles later it was all again sunny and we arrived under blue skyes to my long wished destination, The Eilean Donan Castle. I am sure it does not ring a bell. The castle was the set for one of my childhood favourite movie, The Highlander with Christopher Lambert/Mc Leod. Although it is a very nice castle it does not belong to the Mc Leod. The Mc Leod Castle is about 40miles west from here n the island of Skye.

See the clip below to refresh your memory...

and see how life today looks like around The Castle.

Enforced from the power of nature, I felt like I would be The Highlander....:)

We continued by visiting an other distillery, the Talisker, which is the only one on the Isle of Skye and compared to the fruity flavour of the Speyside whiskeys it has definitely a smoky flavour. Click on the pic below to enlarge the flavour map.

Our final destination for today was Portree the main harbour on the Isle of Skye, where we had a very nice seafood  dinner in the harbour and witnessed an astonishing sunset.

For more pics see

https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/Scotland

Day 4

After leaving Loch Ness entering the Highlands our next destination was Ullapool a small harbour village on the west coast.

We found there a little nice shop and had Cream Tea, which is something really British.

A cream tea is tea taken with a combination of scones, clotted cream, and jam, which we enjoyed on the street with views over the busy harbour.

This was the point on our trip where we left civilization behind and drove along the cost on a curvy one lane road to Kinlochbervie, where the biggest adventure of the year started for Judit. Our  plan was to enjoy the nature while hiking along the coast in the very north. We picked a route, which was verry highly rated in Lonely Planet. A hike to Sandwood Bay the very north tip of mainland Scotland. We absolved the 6 miles walk over wide open flats passing some of the wildest animals of Scotland incl. some cows, lambs and sheep.

According to Wiki,
because of its isolation, the bay has become distinctly romanticised with several legends accorded to it. One legend tells of a mermaid spotted on one of the two jutting rocks there a hundred years ago. Alexander Gunn, a local farmer, was on the beach, searching for one of his sheep, when his dog made a startling discovery. One man, MacDonald Robertson, often spoke of the time he met Mr Gunn in 1939. This is what he reported: "On 5th January 1900 ... Gunn's Collie suddenly let out a howl and cringed in terror at his feet. On a ledge, above the tide, a figure was reclining on the rock face. At first he thought it was a seal, then he saw the hair was reddish-yellow, the eyes greenish-blue and the body yellowish and about 7ft long. To the day Alexander Gunn died in 1944, his story never changed and he maintained that he had seen a mermaid of ravishing beauty.

We arrived short before sunset and we looked for a sheltered spot for our tent.

In the evening we had nice warm soup stirred with our toothbrush and had a romantic walk along the 1 mile long sandy beach, which was just for us 2 this evening.

Nobody else slept here outside.... Judit was a bit nervous sleeping in a tent in the middle of  the wild nature, hearing the noise of lambs looking for grass around. After a while she was tired enough and fell asleep.

Good night and see you tomorrow….

For more pics see

https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/Scotland

Day 3

After a romantic night in Broomhall castle our first destination today was Pitlochry, a small village north of Perth. The main attraction of the village is a fish ladder built for the salmons swimming up the river. Since there is a dam on the river, this construction was necessary to re-establish natural circumstances. There are 5000 salmons yearly passing the ladder on their way to mate in the upper section of the river.

After looking at the ladder and the charming High street of the village we drove into Cairngorms National Park, which consists of a large elevated plateau adorned with low, rounded glacial mountains and home to the famous Caledonian forest.


Nevertheless it features also some nice ski resorts and a weekend house (Balmoral Castle) of the Royal family. The 20,000 hectares estate contains a wide variety of landscapes. There are seven hills over 910 m in the estate, the highest being Lochnagar at 1,155 metres. The house itself was completed in 1850s and features several rooms and a 24.5-metre tall clock tower topped with turrets. The Royal family is coming out there to do some gardening or hunting and is serves a nice hide away for the young couple Will and Kate.

The most interesting part of the day followed, when we were visiting The Glenlivet Distillery in the Speyside. It was founded in 1824 and it has operated almost continuously since producing 6million ltr whiskeys a year.

Whiskey making is an art in itself, wherein Single Malts are the best ones made from a fermented mash  and defined as

• Produced at a distillery in Scotland from water and malted barley all of which have been:
• Processed at that distillery into a mash
• Converted at that distillery to a fermentable substrate only by endogenous enzyme systems
• Fermented at that distillery only by adding yeast
• Distilled
• Wholly matured in an excise warehouse in Scotland in oak casks of a capacity not exceeding 700 litres  for at least three years
• Retaining the colour, aroma, and taste of the raw materials used in, and the method of, its production and maturation
• Containing no added substances, other than water
• Comprising a minimum alcoholic strength by volume of 40%.

Interesting fact that during the aging process 2% of the whiskey is evaporating from the cask, i.e. for a 25years old whiskey half of the cask is gone. You can smell it very well when entering the warehouses.






Our final destination for today was Drumnadrochit , a village at the lake "Loch Ness", where we were chasing the monster all evening unsuccessfully. The lake is 56.4 km²
and 230m at its deepest point.

The earliest report of a monster associated with the vicinity of Loch Ness appears in the 7th century. It became really famous in the 1930-50s, when numerous attempts/explorations were made to find hard evidence of its existence.

We did not find him this evening neither. The most exciting experience was, that we were entering the ruins of Urquhart Castle late in the evening.

By chance the owner of our B&B today is a Dutch emigrant, enjoying to stay here for more than 20years.

For more pics see

https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/Scotland#

Day 1 and 2

Day 1
Our trip started in Ijmuijden, where we took the overnight ferry to Newcastle, thereby saving almost 1000kms on boring highways through England. Although it was a relatively small ferry with a capacity of 600 cars and 1500 passengers only, it took us almost 2 hours to get board the ship.

After boarding we spent the evening enjoying the sun and the sunset and trying not to get sea sick. Judit was especially at her limit, topped with our inner cabin amplifying some strange feelings you can only feel at sea and on a rollercoaster.

Day 2
At 10am we arrived on the dot on schedule in Newcastle, which was already familiar for me. I started my journey from the same harbour two years ago to Iceland. The harbour is really nice with its ruins and the fish market.

After leaving the ferry we hit the highway Edinburgh bound, the capital of Scotland. It is the second most visited city in the UK with 600,000 habitants and more than a million oversea visitors a year. 
There is evidence of human habitation on Castle Rock from as early as 3,000 years ago. There has been a royal castle here since the 12th century, and the site continued to be a royal residence until the Union of the Crowns in 1603. As one of the most important fortresses in the Kingdom of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle was involved in many historical conflicts, from the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century, up to the Jacobite Rising of 1745, and has been besieged, both successfully and unsuccessfully, on several occasions.

 A census conducted by the Edinburgh presbytery in 1592 estimated a population of 8,000 scattered equally north and south of the High Street which runs down the spine of the ridge leading from the Castle. In the 18th and 19th Centuries, the population began to expand rapidly, rising from 49,000 in 1751 to 136,000. The city has the largest percentage of monument protected buildings, counting to 4000 together both the Old and New Towns together with the dean Village and the Calton Hill areas.

After leaving Edinburgh we passed by "Forth Bridges". The bridge connects Edinburgh with Fife and was opened on 4 March 1890, and spans a total length of 2,528.7 metres. Look at the train to get an idea of its size.

Our next stop was The Falkirk wheel which is a is a rotating boat lift. It connects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. Named after the nearby town of Falkirk in central Scotland, the lift opened in 2002. The two canals it serves were previously connected by a series of 11 locks, but by the 1930s these had fallen into disuse. The wheel has an overall diameter of 35 metres (115 ft) and consists of two opposing arms which extend 15 metres beyond the central axle. Two sets of these axe-shaped arms are attached about 35 metres (115 ft) apart to a 3.5 metres (11 ft) diameter axle. Two diametrically opposed water-filled caissons, each with a capacity of 80,000 imperial gallons (360,000 l; 96,000 US gal), are fitted between the ends of the arms.

It takes just 22.5 kilowatts (30.2 hp) to power the electric motors, which consume just 1.5 kilowatt-hours (5.4 MJ) of energy in four minutes, roughly the same as boiling eight kettles of water.

Our final destination for today was Broomhill castle, which we rented for a night to sleep in style in Scotland....

Good night and see you tomorrow...

For more pics see


https://picasaweb.google.com/szaipandras/Scotland#