Lots of Ness

Loch Ness

The 10th was a big travel day for us. Left Glasgow without much hassle and set course for Inverness! With a stop to say hi to Nessie on the way. We drove from Glasgow up the western side of Loch Ness, seeing a shitload of stuff along the way (including Ben Nevis).

Driving from the Lowlands into the Highlands was amazing. The road runs through huge deep valleys covered in heather and peat, with massive cliffs, hills and mountains within what feels like touching distance. Some even still had a bit of snow on the top.

Inverness Castle

We stopped in Fort Augustus (right on the southern end of Loch Ness) and waved to Nessie. From there it was miles and miles of weavy rural roads right on the side of the Loch until we reached Inverness. It was a fantastic drive, with green trees arching over the road on both sides with the Loch right there. That, and the mountains on the way in completely met and exceeded my expectations of Scotlands natural beauty. You can see why the Scots loved the South Island when they emigrated here (after being booted out of the Highlands by the Duke of Sunderland so that he could use the land they were tenant farming to raise sheep and crops- more profitable you see). Inverness was a pretty little town/city. All made of reddish stone. We were right on the river looking up at the castle, but more about that next post.

Bring on the Scots

So, nothing much happened in Belfast. We had a great dinner, slept, and left. Caught a car ferry from Belfast port to Stranraer in Scotland. The most eventful part of the journey was Genny the GPS taking us to the cargo port instead of the passenger port. Thankfully we usually leave early for things so the 30 minutes this cost us didnt stop us getting on the ferry.

We spent the night in Glasgow. Nice little town, but we didnt see much of it as we were only there a few hours (and there was a great bottle of wine involved as well as sleeping!). Dinner was, interestingly enough, in a french restaurant run by Scots. Hearing all the fancy dish names pronounced in a scot accent was kinda funny.