Scotland! We landed in Edinburgh at 7.45am on Sunday. We got a bus to our accommodation- St Christopher's Inn Hostel. We left our luggage there, checked a bit of wifi before wandering the town. It was such a beautiful sunny day, almost tshirt weather! We did a little shopping, sat overlooking the gardens and watched a Scotsman play the bagpipes, and eventually headed back to check in. We did the ever thrilling task of washing before eating dinner at the hostel restaurant. We'd met a couple of boys from Sydney in our room prior to that and ended up tagging along on a pub crawl around the city with them and others. We had a really good night!
Monday we woke up, wandered the gardens (however it was the opposite weather, absolutely freezing) before heading to our meeting spot for a free walking tour. It was extremely interesting! We learnt loads about Scotland's history, visited a few cathedrals in the city, as well as the cafe where J.K Rowling wrote the first couple of Harry Potter books, a cemetery where she got a few of the characters names from, the Grassmarket, the medieval town, we saw the castle, the gardens and many other sights in Edinburgh. The tour went for 3 hours and then we came back to the hostel, relaxed for an hour before heading out for dinner with the boys from our room and Amy, who we bump into everywhere! We found somewhere that did 50% off Monday's, bargain! Before heading to bed we did a trivia night at the hostel, unfortunately didn't win though.
Tuesday we woke nice and early for our Highlander Day Trip with Haggis Adventures. We left at 8am, stopping on the way at a few photo opportunities and eventually getting to Loch Ness. We had a little while to explore and eat our lunch before jumping on a boat for a better look at Loch Ness. It's an extremely impressive body of water, stunning too. Afterwards we jumped back on the bus, stopping at the castle where they filmed Monarch of the Glen for a photo stop. We arrived back into Edinburgh at about 7pm and went to a nearby pub for our first try of Haggis. I was really yum! Quiet night for us after that.
Wednesday was our last day in beautiful Edinburgh. We started the day by going to the Greyfriars Cemetry, where J.K Rowling got a few of the characters names for Harry Potter. We saw the gravestones for McGonagall and for Thomas Riddle. Apparently Crookshanks and Moody are in there too but we couldn't find them. From there we went into the Elephant House Cafe, where JK wrote the first books before going to the Museum of Scotland. We had another look at the castle, climbing up to it to appreciate the views over Edinburgh and then headed for lunch. We did a little shipping in search for our costumes for Halloween and headed back to the hostel. We had a picnic for dinner at the hostel and another earlyish night.
Next stop, Glasgow!

Fun facts for the day; Loch Ness contains more water than all of the water in England and Wales put together.
The entire world population would fit in Loch Ness, ten times over.
It's deepest point is over 300m.
It would fit 5 of the statue of liberty, standing on eachother.
And the water is so dark! No wonder they can't find Nessie :)