The Highlands of Scotland (April 3-6)

On Wednesday, April 1st, I finished up my classes for the semester. I do not have anything again until a final on May 22nd. It is a fairly ridiculous break. I kicked off my extra-long Easter break with a trip to the Scottish Highlands, courtesy of USC. I headed up to Edinburgh on the morning of 3 April with Josh, another USC student here at QMUL. We bought our tickets with plenty of time to make the 11:00 train, but when I got up to the gate, my ticket wasn’t in my pocket – where I had just minutes before placed it. I ran back to the ticket counter, and asked if I could have a new one printed out, as mine had disappeared. I was told no, I would have to buy another one (about $145). I said no, I’ll try looking around some more. No luck, however. I then got back in line to go ahead and buy another ticket, but this time I came up to the same guy I had originally bought the ticket from, and he recognized me. Thankfully, he was able to go look around and found my ticket (apparently someone had found it and turned it in). That was an extremely close call, made all the weirder because I do not know how I lost it. I definitely placed the ticket in my pants’ pocket, which does not have a hole. Nor did I stick my hands in my pockets between the ticket place and the train (that I am aware of – I don’t walk with my hands in my pockets). We then ran up to the train platform, getting there at 10:59. Unfortunately, they closed the gate just as we got there (they stop boarding about 2 minutes before departure). I was still glad to have gotten my ticket back, so it was a fair trade (though we had to wait for the 12:00 train).

Once we got up to Edinburgh, we checked into the hostel and then decided to wander around and look at things (it being about 4:30). Up on the main street, we ran into the two Davids (other USC students) who told us about a hill they had just climbed that gave a nice view of the city. We decided to go hike up it, and wandered down to its base. Once we reached it, however, I noticed that Arthur’s Seat, the famous mini-mountain, was very close and I convinced Josh to climb that with me instead. It was a pretty good workout (we went up fairly quickly) and the view was impressive. We then hauled back down the mountain and returned to the hostel. There we met up with the Davids and together we all walker over to the other side of the city, where there is another neat hill that overlooks the city. It has a bunch of random monuments, like an obelisk, a fake Greek ruins, a White House looking building, a cemetery, and more.

By then it was dinner time, and we went over to the Chinese restaurant where we ate dinner with the entire USC group. 17 of us went on the trip, but only 7 of us (including John, the USC UK coordinator) showed up the first night (as most people missed the last train of the day). The restaurant was all you can eat, so we all ate quite a bit (for a buffet it was quite good) and then hit up a nice pub before heading back to the hostel, where we encountered one more USC student and had a few more drinks (there being a bar there).

The next morning, we got up and hopped on our tour bus, which we rode up towards the Highlands. Along the way, we made numerous stops at interesting places, including Stirling, where William Wallace defeated the English, many beautiful mountain vistas, and more. That afternoon, we reached Loch Ness, where we stayed that night. In the evening, we went and saw a presentation of what life was like for highlanders, which was pretty interesting. Back at the hostel we had a few drinks and watched a local guy play and sing mostly Scottish songs.
The next morning we took the bus around more of the beautiful highlands, again making frequent stops to see great sights. About mid-day, we crossed the Skye Bridge over onto the Isle of Skye, which is part of the Hebrides. It was really neat traveling around the island (and very, very cold and windy). It is amazing that people live up here (and one understands why so much scotch is made up here). My favorite stop was at the Fairy Glens, which is this area full of bizarre shaped mounds and rocks, rumored to be the legendary home of the fairies. I took pictures of it, and will try to get those posted soon.

That evening, we stayed in Kylie Lochalsh, a little town on the Isle of Skye. We had a big hearty dinner (I had seafood pie – it was good but sooo filling). A blizzard began, and a group of us went out there and had a snowball fight. Pretty soon some drunk Scottish guys joined in and began attacking us. We outnumbered them, and were much better shots, however. After we got tired of that, we began constructing a giant snowman (it was seriously huge – almost 7 feet tall). The Scotts came over and chatted with us, and while this was going on, a drunk English sailor came up and tackled our snowman, destroying him. Right after this, the other 16 or so English sailors began throwing snowballs at us (there is a naval base near the town and the bar that the sailors go to had emptied, resulting in this large group of sailors passing by where we were). Naturally, the Scotts joined in with us, as they hate the English sailors, and we had a second snowball fight, this time throwing ice balls. I beaned a few of the sailors pretty well and we definitely emerged victorious, pushing the sailors off (though they had destroyed our snowman). After that, we called it a night.

The morning of the final day (Sunday) we got up early, ate breakfast at the hostel, and rode the bus back to Loch Ness (about 1.5 hours away). We spent about 30 min there (this time on a different part of the lake – it is very large), looking at the lake and wandering around before heading back down the road. We drove along the lake (it is 23 miles long) and went through Inverness, the main city in the Highlands. From there we drove down the main road on the eastern side of Scotland, until we reached the plains near where the famous Battle of Culloden took place. We went and looked at the ruins of an old British fort there and then ate lunch down in the town. I had a venison burger, which was decent. We hopped back on the bus and continued are long trek back towards Edinburgh (we couldn’t make many stops because we had a huge distance to travel this day).

It really was an amazing trip. Scotland is a beautiful place and there is open wilderness almost everywhere (very few people up in the Highlands – it is like Alaska). Even driving around in the bus was enjoyable because the scenery was so nice (and our tour guide was a funny guy). I highly recommend visiting the area at some point; it is really worth it.