It’s Just a Flesh Wound

Into the Highlands Day 2 September 30, 2009

We woke up early Sunday morning to go on a boat tour of Loch Ness and were greeted with our first real day of Scottish weather.  It was blustery and cool with bits of spitting rain followed by brief sunshine.  The boat ride was fun but very choppy due to the wind.  Kara and I lucked out and were on the correct side of the boat when we hit a 3 foot “rogue” wave which splashed everybody on the starboard side with ice cold loch water.  Lot’s of good information about how the loch formed, but I won’t bore you with those details.  There was not a lot to see on the loch but being on the boat did give us some nice views of Urquhart Castle as well as a very pretty rainbow. We then made our way into the Great Glen and made a stop at Fort Augustus which sits at the southern most point of Loch Ness.  The weather continued to get cooler with more rain throughout the day.   We also stopped at the Scottish Commando Memorial which was ok but by this time it was raining pretty good so we didn’t stay very long.  Kara and I both agree the most picturesque part of our trip is when we entered into Glen Coe.  It was still gray but was cool to see the clouds hanging across the tops of the mountains.  This was our last stop in the highlands and we made our way back down into the lowlands.  It was still beautiful country but the Highlands were everything I had imagined.  We made a brief stop at Stirling Castle for some photos.  It was then back into Edinburgh and a quick supper before heading to bed.  It was a very exciting two days.  Due to our 3 day tour being canceled we were able to pick up a one day tour for Monday to go back to Stirling Castle and tour a whiskey distillery, then on Tuesday we went on another day tour up to St. Andrews.  I will post about those trips in a separate post.  We really lucked out with the weather on the first day here, however until today it was rainy and cool, but we really expected that for this time of the year.  The “rhythm” of the people here is one of the things I find amazing.  It’s hard to describe in words but they are deeply proud of their heritage yet are very welcoming to strangers.  If possible Kara and I have decided that we would like to retire here.  Probably a pipe dream as it would be hard to be away from the family.  Maybe just a summer home then after I make my first million HAHA!

Cheers for now!