3 day Isle of Skye Tour

On Fri the 8th of Feb we departed on our Highland trip with Haggis Tours. It was a full bus – 1 guide/driver and 29 passengers (20 of which were American students!) Haha but they were actually pretty nice kids – only one stereotypical loud annoying 1! There was a couple from China and 4 ppl from Aus as well. The Guide, Tony, was fantastic! He absolutely made the tour with his fabulous story telling ability, good natured, relaxed and had time to talk to everyone, always making jokes and so passionate about his “sexy” country (that’s Haggis’ tours drop phrase!)

The first day we drove up via Pitlochry, Dunkeld, Perth and Inverness, arriving at Fort Augustus, near Loch Ness just after 6pm. We stopped off for lunch and other photo ops during the day (and already I struggle to remember all the places we went!), there was a bit of snow around on the hills but nothing more – apparently the week before the road had been closed! For dinner we had haggis & chilli baked potato! Very interesting!!! We headed to a local man’s show and heard about the bloody history of the clans and got to see their weapons and he explained how they were used (horrific stuff), and Hayley volunteered to try on traditional Highland dress (ugly!!) After that we headed across the road to a pub where 6 locals sat jamming together playing Scottish music. Was fantastic!

Next morning we were on the bus by 08:30am and headed down to Loch Ness to see it in the daylight – Tony was well prepared with plenty of props so we could take our token cheesy pics - Love the ginger look =) Love it! We then drove by some heilan coo’oos (one lot of oo’s are silent!) which are so cute – I know they’re just hairy cows! But they are cool =) We headed up to Isle of Skye, where we saw ruined castles, fortresses and awesome scenery. We hopped off the bus to look over the edge of cliffs and also went to a beach but unfortunately there was a misty rain so we all got pretty wet – was worth it though! It was too foggy to see Ben Nevis (tallest Mountain in UK) which was a shame. Tony pointed towards the Hebridian Islands where the Morrison clan came from, which is my Mum’s family, so that was cool. But he said he thinks McGechie is originally Irish so I’m all over the place!

That night we stayed in a different Hostel (Saucy Marys) and they had a local musician doing covers so that was fun. All the Americans partied all night long but us oldies went to bed at midnight =) Needless to say there was a lot of sleeping going on, on the bus the next day!

On Sunday we headed towards Glencoe which was magnificent. The story behind it is so sad! And if you’re last name is Campbell I’d stay away from the Highlands – they hold a grudge! We stopped for lunch and had Cullen Skink which is smoked fish soup – delicious! We headed to Stirling which is home to the William Wallace Monument before arriving back in Edinburgh at 17:30. There are about 100 pics in a web albums for this trip if u want to see more scenery etc.

11 more sleeps until we leave Edinburgh!!!!!!!!!