Haggis, Highlanders and Hairy Coos

Day 1 of Highlands tour - Edinburgh to Inverness - 3rd August 2009

Next morning we were up bright and early, packed and ready to take on our 5-day adventure with MacBackpackers. After a breakfast of very expensive baguettes, we had to wait in the hostel reception until they'd figured out who was on what bus and what not. Once on we headed over to the other hostel and picked up the rest of our group. There were 28 of us, and our tour guide Colin. The group was a real mix of people, including 10 Taiwanese girls (You'll get to learn lots more about them later on), 2 other Aussies (One of them was from Lockington of all places), 2 Dutchies, 5 or so Germans, 3 Greeks, 2 American girls and a few Frenchies. Dan I picked poor seats on the bus and ended up being surrounded by all the Taiwanese girls. Great!

(I made some notes on scrap pieces of paper of all the places we stopped, but I forgot place names, so I might have to fix this up when I put the photos on…)

Our first stop after leaving Edinburgh was at a place called the "Hermitage" - A national forest in Dunkeld. We walked up a path to a little building called "Ossian's Hut". A big story goes along that some 'fictional' guy called Ossian used to live in the woods, and one day a man named James came along and found all these stories written in Scots Gaelic, so he translated them into English and sold the poetry. Apparently it was all a big set up. All the Taiwanese girls were 10 minutes late to the bus, off taking photos of themselves in stupid poses.

From here we made our way to the little village of Pitlochry for lunch. The poor guy in the fish shop almost had a coronary when he had a line out the door and there was 10 Taiwanese girls trying to order vegetarian fish and pizzas and what not. They all ended up ordering pizza, but the guy couldn't be bothered waiting for it to cook in the oven, so they got thrown in the deep fryer. I just had some chips. They weren't too bad. After a wee wander through the town it was back onto the bus. We drove through the Cairngorms mountain range - very scenic drive - until we reached the Ruthven Barracks. They were built in the early 18th century, just after the Jacobite rising - I learnt lots on this trip - and it was mainly just the shell of the buildings that remained. It was here that we also got our first 'hairy coo' sighting. These cows are insane. Massive horns and cute little fringes, but we were sternly warned not to go anywhere near them because they are fairly vicious and aggressive animals. Again we all had to wait for the Taiwanese girls to finish taking their photos before we could get back on the road again.

Our next stop was what Dan was looking forward to the most - the whisky distillery. We all had to pay £2 for our tour of the Tomatin Distillery. The tour wasn't overly exciting; but after being told no photos inside the building, you can guess who had the camera's out and clicking… We all got 2 free tastings at the end of the tour, I had a go of the whisky, but Dan had to finish it off for me. The second one I had no worries with. It was their whisky crème. Basically just whisky with cream and chocolate, it just tasted like Baileys. Very nice indeed.

From here we drove through some little back roads until we arrived at the Standing Stones. Similar concept and time frame as Stonehenge. We were told by Colin that we weren't to climb on any of the mounds, or be silly with any of the rocks, so it wasn't surprising when we got off the bus, the first thing the Taiwanese girls do is climb on top of the mound and take their stupid photos. These were apparently burial chambers, with the same weird thoughts about it as Stonehenge has (That the rocks were calendars, something to do with the sun etc etc). Justin and Alison (The other Aussies) failed to hear Colin explaining what it was all about, and Justin ended up trying to convince Alison that it was actually medieval kids cubby houses.

Just around the corner we found ourselves at the historic Culloden Battlefield. I wont go into the history or story about it, you can read into it, but the story is worth a read, very good stuff. Colin was an excellent story teller, and explained everything so well even I could understand it - although his thick Scottish accent made it hard for me to understand every single word he was saying. There wasn't a great deal to do there as it was just a field with some flags, so I took the opportunity to soak up the sun and lie in the grass.

From here it was onto our final stop of the day, just outside Inverness, the famous Loch Ness. Although it was a sunny day, it was not overly warm, but that didn't stop Justin, and the two Dutchies, Peter and Georgenna, stripping off and going for a swim with the monster. Although Loch Ness is only a quarter of the size of the largest loch in Scotland, it holds the most water by a long shot. Apparently if you took all the water out of all the lakes in England and Wales and put it into Loch Ness, it wouldn't even come close to filling it. It's so deep that people haven't even been able to successfully manage to measure how deep it is. After a while of soaking up the sun and sitting on the banks pondering if anything does actually lurk below the black water, it was back onto the bus for the short trip back to the hostel in Inverness.

The tour group own all the hostels we were staying at during our trip so it was fairly easy to check in and do all that jazz. The Taiwanese girls gave all the staff a headache by asking for female dorms, without giving them any prior notice. It caused a great deal of hassle, making people shift around and what not, but it got there in the end. We all got changed and headed into the centre of town to a pub where we would all have a few drinks, dinner and get to know each other a little better - The other two Aussies, the Dutch couple, and us hit it off pretty well. Dan and a few others were feeling pretty game and opted to order that Haggis, Neeps and Tatties for dinner. I stayed safe and ordered the gammon. When Dan's food came out, it was obvious that little effort had gone into the presentation. A scoop of mashed 'tatties' (potatoes), and a scoop of mashed 'neeps' (turnips) and a lump full of haggis. I tried some of Dan's and it actually wasn't too bad. Full of herbs and spices and salt and pepper - probably to mask the actual taste of what it is. Very strong in flavour, so Dan had to finish the last few mouthfuls off with a topping of tomato ketchup. After dinner and a few more drinks, we headed across the road to a place called "Hootananny". They had some traditional Scottish Gaelic music playing, and the place was packed. Surprising for a Monday night. We had a few more drinks before retiring back to the hostel for bed. On the walk back to the hostel we passed the Inverness Castle, which is a very modern castle. It has big spotlights up the side of it, and we were lucky enough to see some people trying to make some shadow puppets up the side wall of the castle. Quite amusing. It was quickly to sleep, reenergizing for the next big day tomorrow.