Carolyn
Scotland is awesome!
Yes, I have Scottish heritage - my maiden name is Graham. This must be a family business.
We flew to Glasgow, rented a car, and drove north. The roads were super narrow: here's a bus coming the other way...
Lots of cool castles!
This is Cawdor Castle, where we took a tour:
We drove up to the north coast, where the scenery was wonderful. This is north of Durness, looking out toward Cape Wrath. (great name!)
We hiked out to Fariad Head, in search of Puffins, which nest on the cliffs. We saw one, but it flew away before I got a picture. Here's DH and DD hiking above the cliffs.
This is an old church on Faraid Head.
We drove down the west coast, and stayed at a town called Torridon. We took a day hike up Beinn Madh, and had views out over the sea to the Isle of Skye and the Outer Hebrides.
The lower slopes were covered with rhododendron, which is actually considered an invasive species there, but it sure is pretty when it's in bloom.
Next, we drove out to the Isle of Skye. We hiked out to a place called the Quoirang, on the Trotternish peninsula, full of weird and beautiful rock spires.
We stopped and visited another cool castle, Eilean Donan.
Then we dropped our rental car off in Inverness, and took a bus to Drumnadrochit for the beginning of the hiking part of our trip. We started with a visit to Urqhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness.
We hiked part of the Great Glen Way, a long distance hiking route from Inverness to Ft. William. Didnt' see Nessie, but saw lots of cool scenery. We hiked about 25 miles of this route over 3 days, staying in hostels.
I aksed DH and DD to pose for a picture, and they did:
I would have liked to hike the whole route, but with time constraints, we took a bus south, and started hiking on the West Highland Way. This runs from Ft. William to Glasgow. We did the section along Loch Lomond, about 20 miles in 2 days.
We saw several feral goats along the trail.
At the end of the trail, we stayed in Loch Lomond youth hostel, which looked like a castle:
On our last day, we stopped in a small town called Balloch, and watched some local kids doing a scottish dancing demonstration.
I'll finish with one of my favorite pictures of DD at Urquardt Castle on Loch Ness.
Thanks for reading!
I hammered down the trail, passing rocks and trees like they were standing still.
denise
"Champions are everywhere; all you need is to train them properly..." ~Arthur Lydiard
Marathon Maniac #957
Life is a headlong rush into the unknown. We can hunker down and hope nothing hits us or we can stand tall, lean into the wind and say, "Bring it on, darlin', and don't be stingy with the jalapenos."
Great pictures of a fantastic vacation. I'm jealous.
TomS
The whole trip sounds way too kewl!!!
Thanks for the pictures!!
You've been missed.
SteveP
..nothing takes the place of persistence.....
Hi Carolyn,
Thanks for sharing those fantastic photos of your fabulous trip! I love the look of the places you visited, and their names are wonderful too!
Jay
Without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos.
Top 'O the World!
Courage ! Do one brave thing today...then run like hell.
Trails are hard!
Need a fast half for late fall. Then I need to actually train for it.
Those are wonderful pictures. I'd love to take that trip (there's a bit of Scotch in my mom's side). Thanks for posting them.
grins,
A
ps: There's a marathon in NC, Grandfather Mountain, that finishes right in the midst of the Scottish Games. Lots of folks in kilts dancing and performing. Perch and I ran that a few years back; it was beautiful. In case you want an in-country Scottish trip for next year....
I look my best blurry!