We have been absolutely blessed with the weather during our travels in Scotland. Nothing but sunshine and t-shirts since the 2nd day of our arrival. Even the locals think it has been a bit weird. We didn’t complain but used it to full advantage. We had two full days in Edinburgh so began by visiting Edinburgh Castle, which was a very impressive example of a Scottish castle and ironically the best preserved and largest that we saw on the whole trip! Less impressive was the Scottish crown jewels, which consisted of a crown, a sceptre and a big rock (called the ‘stone of destiny’). Mind you everything is hard to compare with the English crown jewels in London and the Ottoman Sultans baubles in the Topkapi Palace. We had a laugh at the explanation of the 1pm gun that resounds in echos over Edinburgh each day, apparently the Scottish are so tight that they only wanted to fire the gun once, hence 1pm. From the hotel to the city we walked through beautiful parks and walkways under cherry blossoms paths to the Royal Mile, at one end was the Holyrood Palace generally 
used by the queen and the new Parliament house designed by a Spaniard. We passed the commons area where Arthur Conon Doyle used to hang and then went on a Disney equivalent joy ride at The Scottish whisky experience, but with alcohol. Christine bought Tartan, Brad went to the Scottish Natural History Museum and we both enjoyed naughty chocolate slices at The Elephant Cafe, (a favourite haunt of JK Rowling’s when she was writing Harry Potter. This was to keep Brad inspired to continue writing).
We then picked up Dino the hire car, tuned the radio to classic BBC late 70’s music, the only radio station we could get that wasn’t talk back, and headed to Stirling Castle. On the way we stopped off at the site of the battle of Bannockburn where Robert the Bruce won his victory over the English army (celebrated in the final scene of Braveheart) and visited the memorial to Braveheart himself, Sir William Wallace, which had a great view over to Stirling Castle. Stirling Castle was the archetypical castle, sitting on top of a high hill with commanding views of the countryside and has been the centrepiece of Scottish history for about a thousand years. The next day we drove to St Andrews and walked around the Royal and Ancient Golf Course (Brad thinks he might have broken 100 on this course... but for nine holes). We also walked around the nearby university where Prince William and Cate met all those years ago. More exciting were the RAF Tornado fighter-bombers continually taking off from the nearby airfield. We then moved on to Dundee to see the sailing/steamship Discovery. This was Captain Scotts ship from his 1st expedition to the Antarctic in 1901. It was an enormously successful scientific voyage that lasted three years but was completely overshadowed by his tragic attempt to reach the pole a decade later. 
It was then on to Scone Palace, the ancient capital of Scotland and where the Stone of Destiny resided until pinched by the English in about 1300 (and returned to Edinburgh Castle in 1997). The palace is still inhabited by the Earls of Mansfield (you can see their baby photos all over the place during the tour, we're surprised we didn't interrupt them having breakfast). Christine also amused herself by having a philosophical debate with the local cafe staff about the origin of scones (apparently they're from Devonshire, not Scone).
After resting at Pitlochry for the night, we went hiking through the Linn of Dee, a beautiful (but rather boggy and smelly) trail through a national park. In the afternoon we went to Balmoral Castle, the Scottish home of the queen. Not really a castle but more of a very rich persons hunting lodge (which is what it still is today) - look out in Scotland if you are a deer and there is a crown prince present, he'll blow you away. Right next door was the Royal Lochnagar Distillery that bottles scotch for the royal family. If it's good enough for the Queen it's good enough for Brad (probably way too good, in fact) so he got a bottle. We obtained our Scotch Whisky Passport but couldn’t do a tour of this one as it was being painted for a potential visit by the queen. We have a suspicion that the Royal Family believe the whole world smells like fresh paint. Our B&B that night was at the Ballater School House where the son of the owners (a merchant marine) looked after us and did a pretty good job with breakfast. The B&B's we stayed in throughout our travels were all pretty good, in fact, usually better than most of the hotels!
Further north we toured the Glen Livet Distillery and learnt how they make bucket loads of the stuff. Actually a fascinating process, incredible how they get such different tastes following roughly the same procedure. We stopped in at the Aberlour Distillery and then went on to Elgin, the northern most point of our travels and visited Johnston's – famous for their cashmere and Australian wool products and where Bradford bought Christine a new mauve jumper. The next day was all about history. First it was a look at Cawdor Castle, the ancestral home of Macbeth. Then it was a wander about the anthropological site of the Clava Cairns, a thousand year old burial site consisting of large piles of rocks (actually more interesting than it sounds), before ending our day at the Culloden Battle field where we learnt about the Jacobite rebellion against the English in the 1740’s under Bonnie Prince Charlie, and how it all came to an end in less than an hour when the pride of the Scottish clans were massacred in this field. Bonnie Prince Charlie survived the battle and eventually left Scotland, never to return. Strangely, the Scots still seem to worship him though he brought them nothing but trouble.We stayed the night at the Andersons Hotel at Fortrose which had over 250 whiskeys, 100 wines, great food and only 20 stairs to our room (fortunately). Slightly under the weather from our over-indulgence we drove south towards Loch Ness the following day. We went to the Loch Ness scientific research centre and established our best chance of a sighting was at Erqhart Castle. 10 minutes after arriving we caught sight of Nessy and have included a photo for verification in the blog.
Now wondering what all the fuss was about. I mean, pretty hard for one of these things to stay hidden, right? We stayed that night at the Kyle of Lochalsh in sight of the Eilean Donan castle, which was featured in the James Bond movie "the world is not enough" as the home of the bad guy. If you are an evil genius hell-bent on world domination, then a Scottish castle is obviously a 'must have'. Having informed Bradford that he is not an 'evil genius' but more a 'naughty smart-arse', Christine has determined we are not buying a castle. This was confirmed the next day when, whilst crossing the Skye Bridge, a magnificent and highly photographed spectacle, the evil genius couldn't get the lens cap off. Arguing, we drove to the Talisker distillery (but it was closed), we avoided the Serpetarium, as Scotland has only 1 snake, and then lunched at the award winning 3 Chimneys restaurant. We kept driving right out to Neist Point to look at the light house perched on Skye's fantastic west coast line. Looking down from the cliffs we saw what was either a really big shark, a very small whale or.... Nessy! Our accommodation that night was in the country on a 2 mile one lane dirt road outside Portree. Very, very quiet and beautiful.
The next day we decided on another walk and headed to the north of the island to the Quiraing, a 3.8 mile (a 3 boot graded walk) with tremendous crags and pinnacles named The Prison, The Needle and The Table. Apparently during occupation under the English the locals would hide their sheep on the Table which was impossible to see unless you climbed this mountain path. The day was gorgeous, the views were stunning and we got some of our best photos from the peak. We then made another trip to Taliskers where we went on our 3rd distillery tour (quite the experts now) and a nice arvo tea at The Old Inn at Carbost. We began our next day with a 200k drive to Oban via the local car ferry, spotted a few deliberately lit forest fires (criminal wankers are not confined to Australia it seems), looked at scenery used in the Harry Potter movies and marvelled at yet more statues erected to the disastrous Bonnie Prince Charles (who fled Scotland dressed in a skirt - not exactly El Cid was he!?) That night we settled in a nice B&B owned by a young family and sipped tea on the front lawn overlooking the quaint harbour of Oban.I think we can be forgiven that it felt like we were in a different country when we arrived in Glasgow the next day as we couldn’t understand a bleeding soul. We actually thought some were speaking Gaelic rather than English but not so! We now also know what it would feel like to be David and Victoria Beckham as compared to most we were very very very good looking. God, their dress sense even challenged Bradley's taste! The politics/football was also a bit worrying. The day we got there the Glasgow Rangers coach got a letter bomb... from a Rangers fan! Because they lost a game!! And nobody thought it was weird!!! Anyway, a bit travelled out at this point and reluctant to attend any local sporting events without body armour, we decided to get our film fix. We watched Thor – a particularly nice scene for Christine where Chris Hemsworth had his shirt off and then Fast and Furious 5 where all the t-shirts in the movie were squeaking "help me, I can’t breathe". Seriously, it's was like they were painted on. We had hours of fun thinking about how many shirts The Rock and Vin Diesel must go through each day. “Excuse me Vin but could you tell me the time? Why certainly pretty lady” - flex of the pecs - “Shit” another shirt torn. Other then getting our movie fix, we had a few more pub lunches, strolled in the only public park vrs private rich peoples parks, jumped rain puddles, organised laundry and relaxed.
Did we mention all the scruffy sheep and cows everywhere?
Next wee post, England
Love Christine O’Toohey and Bradford McRolfe
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