The Adventures of Josip & Melanie

We woke up early with a headache from the drinking games the previous night. But knowing that we would be seeing the beautiful sights of Scotland was enough to get us out of bed. The morning started off with us eating our breakfast and as usual I brought my little jar of vegemite along for our travels. The French tourists seemed amused by this and giggled and pointed at our vegemite. But it is a fact that most Australians take a small jar with them when they travel the globe so I am not the only one who loves my vegemite. We then all jumped into the bus and set off to the Isle of Skye.

The Isle of Skye is actually an Island that is reached from the mainland by a bridge. The Island has some of Scotland’s most dramatic and challenging mountain terrain. It is also rich in ancient monuments, castles, and memorials. Celtic myths of fairies and selkies are also associated with the region. One of our first stops of the day was at Eilean Donan Castle. It is known as Scotland’s most romantic castle and was used in Highlander the movie.

The castle is lovely from the outside and also on the inside. I especially loved the Kitchen that has been recreated to what it would have looked like in 1932. The castle had undergone reconstruction in 1912 and is now owned by the McRae family. Today was another day when we noticed that Neil (Tour Leader) was talking non stop but his stories are always interesting and amusing. My favorite part today was when we went for a walk down to a stream with a little old cobblestone bridge. This is where Neil was telling us some stories about mystical creatures and fairies and once again his accent rocks. He could be talking about paint drying and we would still listen intently taking in every word.

We stopped for lunch in a lovely little port town where Josip and I enjoyed a lovely lunch of some hot soup and a toasted sandwich. We then walked down to the port and Josip got a nice shot of one of the locals, a beautiful big seagull. Just like the cows, the seagull was much cuter than the ones at home maybe it’s just a Scottish thing. Next stop was another Castle that had been reduced to ruins but it still looked lovely with the scenery.

We then proceeded to make our way back to the hostel again, for our last night in the highlands. Tomorrow we will be making our way back to Edinburgh. On our way back to the hostel we stopped once again to go for a wee walk amongst the wonderful scenery. There was a waterfall that you could walk to but as it was raining and I could see it from the car window, I could not be bothered. But my adventurous Josip could not resist and was the first to the top of the hill. The amusing part was watching people come back down the hill. As it was slippery many people fell while I laughed from my seat of the comfy bus but Josip managed to keep his footing.

Our last stop for the day was at a whisky store and I was definitely out of the car for that one. We brought some Scottish whisky that was delicious it was kind of sweet similar to southern comfort but better. When we got to the hostel we had dinner which included nachos and also some haggis for those who were brave enough to try it. I had some and it was quite nice but apparently it was the canned stuff so we must try some of the real stuff before we leave. But it was not really what I expected it looked like mince meat I was thinking it would be something much nastier.

We watched the world cup that night, Australia got beaten by Brazil. It was not really a shock but still disappointing. We managed to get to bed a little earlier that night and were up early again for our journey back to Edinburgh. First stop along the way back to the lowlands was at these weird rock formations. They are Scotland’s version of Stone Henge. Well they have some similarities with Stone Henge one is that they are not quite sure of their purpose and why they are there. The other is that they are very old and yes they are both made of stone.

We both loved our adventure in Scotland and were a bit sad to be going back to London. We managed to get sunny clear weather on our last day which toped off a fantastic break. We ended the day with a lovely walk through the forest and got to see another beautiful waterfall. One of the other walks we did for they day was hiking up a steep cliff where I slipped and almost took Neil down with me. Josip loved this walk and I managed to get a few shots of him on the cliffs edge trying to look scared.

After all the walking for the day we were so tired and sad to be leaving this amazing place. But we still managed to get a group shot before we all departed our separate ways. The tour was a great taste of Scotland and Neil was fantastic. This is definitely a place Josip and I would love to visit again as the people and the beautiful green scenery made it a wonderful place to visit.

P.S. Josip and I managed to taste real Haggis at a pub in Scotland and it was much better than the canned stuff and I recommend you try some next time you visit Scotland.