Today was our big tour day of the Isle of Skye and Eilean Donan castle (highlander and entrapment fame). We had to be at the Inverness bus terminal by 9:15 ready to go by 9:30. We weren't really sure what to expect in regards to the size of the tour and whether it would just be either full of old people or Americans - to our surprise and our luck, it was neither. With a group of 13 people comprising of 1 Italian, 1 from Singapore, a couple from Scotland and a family from Scotland, a couple of poms and us Australians!! Our tour driver, Allison was a Pom by birth but lived in Scotland for the last 50 years and was as mad as a hatter but had so much knowledge (she would be awesome at trivia) and her driving skills were also amazing.
We basically became experts on the last 10,000 years of Scottish history, which was extremely confusing but interesting at the same time - it really did not pay to be related to anyone who had intentions of being king because they would just have you killed off and the climb over your still warm corpse to sit on the throne!!!
The only issue about the tour was the complaining, know it all Scotsman who sat behind us - I seriously thought Sean was either going to punch or launch into some tirade and basically tell him to shut the f@ck up - luckily neither of those happened!!
Our first stop was to Eilean Donan castle made famous in the highlander films and more recent Entrapment. Due to the weather being absolutely stunning with blue skies and warmer weather, all the tourists were out - especially the Americans, who frankly, are just idiots!! Some of the overheard conversations made you just shake your head in disbelief that a country could be that dumb but never mind. When we arrived, there was a young guy playing the bagpipes, apparently, whatever monies he makes from playing he just spends on music and musical instruments, he was extremely talented and had the crowd captivated!! The castle belonged to the Mackenzie clan who I found out are related to Deann Coleman who I work with at transport, I also found out that Craig's family are residents of the isle of Skye and they also had some part to play in the Eilean Donan castle. It was quiet incredible and surreal to be at the castle and the views were just breathtaking and the weather just made it so much better!! We then drove along loch ness (didn't see Nessie) and Allison filled us in on some the jokes tour operators used to pull on tourists especially Americans. As we drove through the stunning countryside, Allison kept us entertained with her stories of previous tours throughout the world including when she worked in the northern territory for 5 months as well as slowly going through the insanely bloody history of the scottish - poor Wallace!!!
We then made our way to the Isle of Skye, unless you were quiet a good driver, there would be no way in hell I would be driving over there - the roads are narrow and the tourists that do drive over there do a major freak out as soon as there is another car coming from the opposite direction and on the
majority of the roads, it's a long way down. So we stopped for lunch at a little pub- the food was ok and it was cheap and after lunch it was time to hop back on the bus to see more of Skye - unfortunately we were greeted by a bare chested Scotsman sunbathing next to our bus - it was the scotsman off our bus - yuck!!!
So it was back on the bus to see more of the isle of Skye - just stunning but wouldn't want to live there - too remote for my liking!!
After leaving Skye we started to make our way home - it was getting pretty late in the day and everyone was pretty quiet on the way home. Our background music for the drive home was the red hot chilli pipers - pipers playing hits from such bands as ac/dc!! We finally arrived home, tired and hungry. We wandered down to a recommended pub which served Thai - go figure and we ran into Yaki, the girl from Singapore on the tour so we invited her to join our table, it was a great night just hearing about her life. A couple of hours had passed and it was time to call it a night so we said good night to Yaki and headed home definitely ready for bed and our big drive to Glasgow the next day!!!