Here is a quick summary of our Scottish adventures so far. We arrived in Dundee last Wednesday. Thursday morning we headed back into Edinburgh, about an hour by train South of Dundee to see some of the sites. Thursday night we got drunk in a pub here and I made a mission back to the airport to pick up our bags that had finally arrived from Amsterdam. KLM was a great plane ride, but they managed to lose our bags on a simple connection. Shit happens I spose. Anyhow, last train back to Dundee was at 11pm, so Pamela, Paula and I headed to the Haymarket Train Station and caught the train along with quite a crowd of very drunk Thursday night Scots.
Friday morning nice and early we packed up a rental car, the 3 of us, Pamela’s boyfriend Chris and Marty of the Queen Charlottes, who is in Scotland for a few weeks on his way to the Czech Replubic for a few months. The rental car was some sort of small GM 4 door hatch-back vehicle with a ‘rumble seat’ for the 5th person. European cars are very cool!
2 hours into the trip, on our way to Oban, which some of you will know as the home of the Oban Distillery, I got to drive for my 1st time on the left side of the road. 70 mile / hour speed limits on a road that is about the width of 1 North American lane. Exciting I can say the least. Great road conditions and excellent signage and very well engineered vehicles made it a blast. I did some good driving over the weekend and hope to do some more..
So, we made it to Oban on Friday evening, did the distillery tour, had a wee dram and headed to the pub for “a few” rounds. Great Pub, the Oban Inn. I will say now, that Oban is an amazingly scenic place. The weather was sunny and warm, t-shirt weather even! Got drunk again this night…. Stayed at the Oban Backpackers Hostel.
Saturday got off to a slow start, then we drove south along some more incredibly exciting roads to the Kilmartin Valley, where there are many many finds of monuments and whatnot from 3000 BC! Thats old. Then off to Fort William, about 2 hours North along the Western Highlands Coast. Quiet night, checked out the local town and had some steak pie of course.
Sunday, we headed to Ben Nevis, the highest Mountain in the UK. We took the Gondola up and did some walks around the peak to the North of Nevis. Spectacular views!
Time for the trip home, through what might have been some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. Glencoe is unbelieveable. Go there!
Back to Dundee in the late evening, well deserved sleep and up early this morning to say goodbye to my sister and take the train back to Edinburgh where I sit right now. Today we did some more touring around and saw the Edinburgh Castle and lots more.
Tomorrow afternoon we are off to Dublin by plane. Bye to Scotland.
One thing I will say, is that they are seriously set up for tourists here. It is quite expensive, but worth it to see, as many of us have our roots somewhere in this part of the world….
Bye for now.
Sounds like a great trip Chris. Looking forward to the Dublin leg of your journey. I’ll get background details from Neal Bird.
Have a Jameson’s and a Guinness chaser for me.
Cheers,
Gord
Gordon Saisho
March 28th, 2007