Trains, islands, haggis and a castle

Our next destination in the Highlands was Inverness, which was a very nice city... but before I get to that, I'll tell you what happened on our way there. We had a fantastic breakfast at our B&B on the Isle of Skye. We had the whole dining room to ourselves, giving us the opportunity to be our usual crazy selves. After we filled up on all the wonderful breakfast delights we headed off to the train station.

We arrived at the train station and unpacked the car, locked it and then Marty ran off to the car hire office to drop the keys into the locked letterbox (it was a small hiring company, and hence closed early on Sunday mornings). While Marty took the keys back, the rest of us walked down to the platform to begin the task of packing our bags into the train luggage racks. Kate turned around to look at the car one last time and noticed we had left the Sat Nav stuck in its nice little spot on the windscreen. And since Marty had left to drop the keys off, we couldn't get it out! Hhrmmm... I dropped my bag and ran to catch up with Marty. As I rounded the corner and had the car hire place in sight, Marty was walking towards me with empty hands. I was about 5 seconds too late! Luckily for us, we had given ourselves plenty of time before the train left - Marty called the guy from the hire place who came and got the keys out so we could retrieve our trusty navigation system. Phew! I think we woke the poor guy up though to come and sort out our mess... Oops :P

We arrived in Inverness after another great train trip and headed to our hotel. There, we were greeted by an extremely friendly host who, in no time at all, made us feel completely welcome. She told us about some great places to go in Inverness, one of which was Ness Islands. Before we went to the islands, we stopped in at Tesco to get some trusty sandwiches for our walk along the River Ness. It was nice to just watch the water whoosh by. It started to rain a little bit but we kept on going since we had gotten used to the random spats of rain during the days (we knew enough to be prepared with umbrellas). Through the pitter patter of the rain we could make out a sound of drumming in the distance. We decided to follow the sounds to see if we could catch a glimpse of the source hoping that it was a grand Scottish parade with bagpipes and all but instead we saw some young army cadets practising their rhythm. Apparently it wasn't raining enough to stop them practising. A little disappointed with the lack of parade, we carried on our way to the Ness Islands.

After walking for what felt like hours, we arrived at a bridge that took us over to these mysterious little islands. The islands were really beautiful. There were paths weaving under giant shady trees and the sound of the River Ness going by made the place seem so relaxing. There were even lights hanging on the trees which would make it look magical after dark. It would have been the perfect place to set up a picnic or sit in a quiet spot and read a book. It seemed like it was an off leash area for dogs too, as there were plenty of furry critters running around. We did a fair bit of Westie spotting that day!

After exploring the islands we headed back to our hotel and settled in for a relaxing night. Travelling can really make you tired so it was nice to just have a sit down with some good food and company. Some nights when we just wanted to relax, we would all pile into one of the rooms and watch some trashy TV and drink the free hot chocolate from the hotel. Some of our favourite shows were probably the trashiest ones... "Big Brother" and "My Super Sweet 16" to name some. Oh so bad.. but oh so entertaining!

The next morning, we had to catch a train bright and early to Edinburgh but, since our host was so nice, she prepared our breakfast bright and early for us. There were cereals galore, a large array of fruit, croissants and plenty of tea and coffee. We felt super spoilt to have all of this arranged for us at such an ungodly hour of the morning. We caught a taxi to the train station and soon after we were off on another train ride - back to Edinburgh.

Since we only had one more night in Edinburgh, we had to make the most of our afternoon there. We wasted no time in hailing a taxi and heading straight up to Edinburgh Castle. Back when we were organising our holiday, we had all agreed that if we were to see a castle, it would definitely have to be Edinburgh Castle. (We didn't want to see too many castles on the trip because once you've seen a castle, you've pretty much seen all the castles... unless you're a really keen castle lover in which case maybe you would actually appreciate each and every castle as an individual!) Anyway...before we headed into the castle, we stopped at a nearby cafe for some lunch. This is where we encountered our first case of Haggis. Marty ordered a baked potato with Haggis... *shudder* When it came out of the kitchen, we all stared at it with wonder. It looked like someone had scraped blood and guts off the floor and mixed some spice into it and dumped it on a spud (okay, maybe that's my crazy vegetarian brain over-exaggerating). It didn't look that bad... After our feed of "tattie's" (Scottish slang for potatoes), we walked up to the castle entrance and lined up to get our admission tickets. The main entrance of the castle was being set up for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. It was funny being there because what we'd seen on TV of the tattoo made the arena look huge but actually seeing the arena, we wondered how on earth they fit everything into such a small area.

After a looong wait for our tickets, we were finally able to go in and explore the giant fortress. We found a tour group and tacked onto the end so we could listen to the animated tour guide tell us about the history of the castle. It was amusing to hear his strong Scottish accent talk about Scottish history and William Wallace.

The view of Edinburgh from the castle

In the Royal Apartments... where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI... who became King of Scotland at 13 months old... and later became King of England and Ireland... which then became "The United Kingdom"!! more info on him

After we learnt about the old codgers that lived in the Castle and governed Scotland we went underground to the vaults that used to house Prisoners of War. There was a great exhibit with artefacts from when there were prisoners from various wars throughout history.

As you walk into the start of the exhibit you can see a wooden frame with hammocks and various other things where the prisoners slept. To add to the atmosphere they set up a speaker system which played peoples voices and whistling to make it sound like there were people in the hammocks. It was actually quite well done. It wasn't too tacky as one would expect from something like that.

Some of the higher security chambers.

After exiting the exhibit into the big, bright world outside we discovered a statue of a Scottish man (kilt and all) with bagpipes that was just too good to pass up a photo opportunity.

And I couldn't resist a look up his kilt!