We are back in Scotland for our second visit on this trip. We are staying in Neil and Isobel's house in East Kilbride, Glasgow. Neil and Isobel left for Australia on Friday and will spend 2 months at our house on the Gold Coast. Chris decided to come back to Scotland with us and our friends Craig and Marg are also with us for a few days.

Before we went to the Isle of Man, we organised with Craig McCall, Neil and Isobel's son-in-law, to go for a ride together on Sunday - Scottish Sports-bike Sunday. He was to take us on his favourite Sunday ride. Now, at home, we all like to ride on Sunday. We usually ride up to Canungra, have breakfast at The Outpost Café and then ride home through Beechmont - round trip about 75km taking about 3 hours including breakfast. Our ride today with Craig was different from our normal Sunday ride in many ways

Firstly, when we left the house it was raining - at home, we wouldn't have even gone out on the bike on a day like today. It was also about 8 degrees - it is never that cold at home! Craig met us at home at 9am and off we went. It took about 20 minutes to clear Glasgow and we then headed north west to Loch Lomond. The weather was not the best with misty rain but the scenery was spectacular with low clouds hanging over the mountains beside the loch. We stopped at Inveraray for morning tea - and to warm up. The sun eventually decided to shine as we rode on to Oban for a fish and chip lunch. Oban is on the Atlantic Ocean just across from the Island of Mull on the west coast of Scotland. Our ride home took us through Tyndrum where we stopped at The Green Welly, a favourite stopping spot for bikers on weekends - I guess this is the Outpost Café of this area. We then rode home beside Loch Lomond back to East Kilbride. We had ridden 425km! Even though it was misty, sunny, rainy at times and cold we had a great day which we could not have managed on our own - thanks heaps Craig McCall for a wonderful day.

Our bike has been left at the workshop to get a new set of tyres and brake pads before we continue to Europe in the next few weeks so we spent the day in Neil's car and visiting the city of Glasgow. We wandered around the shopping area and visited George Square and the Cathedral. We weren't able to go inside the Cathedral as they were filming an episode of The Outlanders TV series inside the Cathedral. We drove along the River Clyde and checked out the giant crane known as The Titan left over from the time when Glasgow was a ship building city. We returned early to the house as we had a big day in Edinburgh planned for Tuesday.

Edinburgh is about an hour's drive from Glasgow but is a city that has much to see. On our arrival we parked the car and went in search of Edinburgh Castle - not hard to find as it is on a high rocky outcrop in the middle of the city. Marg and Craig went off to explore the castle while Greg, Chris and I explored the Royal Mile; we had visited the castle a few times before and Greg and I will be back in Edinburgh next week with our family. The Royal Mile connects the castle to The Palace of Holyroodhouse and is a mass of tourist shops selling all things Scottish, restaurants and speciality shops selling beautiful tartan kilts, scarves, trousers and yes, even bagpipes. We happily filled in our time until Craig and Marg arrived back at the car.

It was then off to do a tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia which is moored as a museum on the Ocean Terminal at Leith, about 7 mile out of town. This museum was very interesting as you not only get to see the workings of the yacht but also see where the Royal Family spent their days when on-board and the opulence of their lifestyle. The audio guide was informative and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Back in to Edinburgh we decided to visit the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's residence in Edinburgh. We arrived just as it was closing for the day but did manage a couple of happy snaps through the ornate metal gates around the palace.

According to Greg, the most important monument in Edinburgh is where we visited next. In Greyfriar's Churchyard there is the grave and headstone of a dog. Now, when we were children we both grew up watching Disneyland at 6:30pm every Sunday night. Each week, we would get the chance to watch a new story adapted by Disney for our viewing pleasure. One such story was Greyfriar's Bobby which told how a wee skye terrier slept on the grave of his deceased owner, John Gray, for 14 years until his own death in 1872. The dog was adopted and cared for by children and citizens of the City of Edinburgh. When Bobby died, he was buried at the entrance of the churchyard. Across from the churchyard is a statue of Bobby with a very shiny nose where thousands of visitors pay their respects by rubbing the nose of the statue. Greg shared his story of Bobby with us all before we retired to Greyfriar's Pub for a pint before dinner on the Royal Mile. On our way out of town we stopped for a photo at Murrayfield - the home of Rugby in Scotland. We returned to Glasgow for a good night's sleep before our trip to Inverness on Wednesday.

Inverness is one of our favourite places in Scotland. We decided to spend the day driving to Inverness via Pitlochery and the Cairngorms National Park. Chris, Greg and I had been here together in 2011 and Chris even remembered where we had morning tea on the trip. After delicious scones and sponge cake at Hetties Tearooms we visited the many shops selling Scottish woolen products before driving on towards Inverness. Next stop was the Battlefield of Culloden, just outside the city. In 1746 the Jacobites led by Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Govenrment Forces led by The Duke of Cumberland faced each other across the battlefield at Culloden. This was the last land battle on British soil. We had a look at the exhibition set up to educate visitors to the site - a digital representation of the battle and one of the best visual displays we have seen. After driving around Inverness to get a look at the city we headed out of town in search of The Loch Ness Monster.

Loch Ness is south west of Inverness. The road follows the edge of the Loch for about 30 km and we all (except Craig who was driving) had our eyes glued to the windows of the car hoping to get a glimpse of Nessie. We stopped at Drumnadrochit and Urquart Castle for a close up view of the Loch, but all we could find was a model of Nessie outside a cafe. Maybe Nessie is waiting for our grandchildren William, Thomas and Hayley to visit before it makes an appearance!

Next stop was Fort William to view The Commando Memorial. The view from this memorial is of stark, snow capped mountains surrounded by rocky glens. The memorial is on the top of a bare hill. It seemed a fitting place to remember these tough soldiers. We didn't arrive back in Glasgow until 9pm, very weary after a full day sightseeing.

Thursday was to be our last day in Scotland together so it was decided that we must visit a castle. Stirling seemed to be the obvious choice as it is only about 50 km north of Glasgow. This decision turned out to be a very good one. Stirling Castle has played many roles. Child queens and warrior kings all enjoyed the castle's comforts and delights, just as the visitors do today. For Mary Queen of Scots, it was a refuge from her enemies as a small girl and the place where her son James was later baptised before he grew up to unite the crowns of Scotland and England. We took a guided tour of the castle and visited the Great Hall, Chapel Royal, the Kitchens and numerous displays of what life in the castle would have been like. Mel Gibson was mentioned on several ocassions during the tour as his movie Braveheart told the story of the Scottish War of Independence which took place just below the castle walls. After the castle we went to visit the William Wallace Monument on top of a hill about 2km from the castle.

It was then time to return to Glasgow and pack up ready to go our seperate ways in the morning. Chris would head south to an Air Show before crossing over to Europe in a few days. Craig and Marg would go south east and return to York for another look before crossing by ferry to Amsterdam on Monday. Greg and I would also head south to Buxton in The Peak's District.

Buxton was a real surprise. We had chosen this town to stay in because it was a good distance between Glasgow and London. We found, much to our delight that it is a beautiful town with a rich history. Our hotel was called the Buckingham Hotel and was obviously owned by a movie buff as all the walls were covered in posters from hundreds of movies. Our room was adorned with 8 posters of Jack Nicholson and the walls of the corridor outside our room had posters of different movies stars all holding guns. We wandered around the corridors trying to name all the stars we were surrounded by. Buxton is a spa town and has many fine old hotels for the tourists. We had dinner in The Old Hall Hotel which had a plate on the front stating that Mary Queen of Scots had stayed there between 1576 and 1578. This town also boasts its own Opera House which has performances of various muscal and theatrical offerings on most nights of the year. We even spoke to a man at dinner who sings there each year. The gardens in the centre of towns would rival many botalical gardens we have visited - put this town on your list of places to visit in the UK!

On Saturday we continued exloring The Peak's District stopping at Bakewell for breakfast. We found a great coffee shop - easily the rival for Hetties in Pitlochry. The Lavender Tea House offered the same sponge cakes and scones but the decor was far more interesting. The walls were covered in an eclectic collection of plates, pictures of religious icons, reproductions of famous paintings and Venetian carnival masks. While having breakfast we were treated to music from old musicals including Fiddler On the Roof, Oklahoma and Calamity Jane. Even the toilet walls were adorned with treasures - beautiful painted floral plates - flashest loo we have ever seen! We then drove on to Matlock and Alfreton before rejoining the motor way to London to collect our daughter Stacey, her husband Brett and the 3 grandchildren William, Thomas and Hayley from Heathrow.

We can hardly wait!