Stirling Highland Games and Connor's birthday. An excellent combination! We walked down to the games from our hostel, which was a fun, though perilous walk as the sidewalk in parts was about 6 inches wide, but, when we got to the games, we were met by tug-o-war matches that went on all day, as well as highland dancing, caber tossing and more. The day was a lot of fun and we got to see all the events. We chatted with some people who were from Vancouver but it t...

Last night, we stayed at Ratagan Youth Hostel, very close to the Isle of Skye and Eilean Donan Castle. Exploring castles along the way has been a favourite reason to stop. Each one brings our imagination to life. Mind you, every time Connor leaps down whatever embankment, cliff or wall he can find, it takes years off of our lives. His inability to think beyond the second contrasts sharply to the hundreds of years of history he is surrounded by. We've seen sever...

The Torridon area of the Western Highlands is situated on the west coast of Scotland, in Wester Ross. The area is well known to climbers, photographers, wildlife enthusiasts, hikers, and countless visitors from around the world, for what is considered to be some of the finest scenery in Europe. The mountains are very nearly the highest in Britain, rising in places almost vertically to 3500 feet from the deep sea lochs. We spent last night at the Torridon Youth Ho...

Last night, we landed in Inverness without incident and spent the night in a simple but clean hostel. Barry managed to get us half price for the night, since they'd charged us full price for the previous night's booking that we missed, and we felt much more Scottish bartering our way out of yet another out-of-pocket expense. Before we left, many people told us that we'd be missing our beds after six months. Maybe, but not yet. We've never seen any beds look a...

Upon arriving at Gatwick, we bought new tickets to Inverness, as FlyBE also would not honour our original tickets. When we asked if there was a note on our file (there wasn't), we were again told that there was nothing that could be done at their desk - we needed to contact the Customer Services desk in Exeter, England. Needless to say, the new tickets were SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive. Having gotten our tickets and having been assured we would make a 1440 hour ...