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Friday : Sunny
Now I know some previous entries I've been whinging about being woken up early by children or fellas getting ready. I just hate not waking up on my own accord. I definitely can say this though, that no one would like being woken up the way we did this morning! I actually had a bit of a laugh when I recovered from the shock and realised what the hell was going on. At 2:50am we were so rudely awoken by the loudest fire alarm in the world! My ears are still ringing! We so wanted it to be a dream, but no. It was not to be, we went outside to the assembly point and waited. Waited for maybe 30mins then we were told everything was ok and to go back to our rooms. No fire brigade turned up though? It was 3:40 by the time I hit the lights, and it felt like I never went back to sleep before the neighbors started to get up.
It was a great start to the day. Never mind, we chose to have a lazy morning by watching TV and reading. By the time we got up and went to make some breakfast the hostel was empty.
We left the hostel and went up to the tourist office to ask where to go to find some wild seals. The lady was very helpful and told me that its was guaranteed that seals would be at the location she showed me on the map.
We then went to the shop to pick up some lunch for our picnic. The sun was out and we were going to try and spot Nessy at Loch Ness about 45min drive away.
Once at the loch we had to drive for awhile, following the shores. We were looking for a suitable place for a picnic. We spotted a walking trail sign to the Loch Ness shores. So we parked and headed down. The trail led us high above the loch down to a road, and we couldn't see where the thin trail went from there. We followed the road for a while until the scrub thinned out enough for us to make our own way down the steep and slippery slopes towards the loch.
It was great in the sun down on the rocky shores. The waves were rolling in and we had an area of the loch all to ourselves. We made up some chairs out of logs and bricks, and had a few salad and ham rolls in the sun.
After lunch we followed the loch down to the south and the road headed up into the hills and it was amazing. Tip Top views of the highlands in all directions and below us is Loch Ness. We followed the road down into the pretty village of Fort Augustus. My immediate thoughts were that it looked like Camdem lock in London, with all the pubs around the lock and people out in the sun drinking. It looked fantastic!
I would of loved to of joined in but we still had a little bit more on the agenda today. We continued around to the west of the Loch up to Urquhart castle for a look. Another castle with pristine water views!
We then headed into the hills and north through some lovely farmland till we arrived at the spot where we were told to find seals. We couldn't believe that what we were looking at were seals. they were so still, they looked like logs from a distance. It wasn't till we got a little closer and looked through the long zoom lens on the camera we could see their subtle movements. When the sun came out they livened up, they were loving it. Jumping around on their bellies, they looked like they had smiles on their faces. Pretty cool to watch and glad we went for the drive to see them. I've never seen wild seals before.
Once back in Aviemore we had a good old pub meal with a few beers, and surprisingly for a decent price. I was expecting it to be pricy for where we are and peak season.
Later back at the hostel it oddly seemed very quiet for how full the car park was. Everyone is probably still at the pub, and will come home late in a right state. We weren't done either just yet, we had a couple more drinks and watched Braveheart. Well we couldn't come to Scotland and not watch it now could we.
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