My faith in Grayline Tours was re-kindled today. We took a coach tour to Loch Ness, then up to Inverness and back. Thank you Graham. Photos are being flickred right now. I warn you, I am uploading more than 300 right now.

It was an early start to the day. We headed over to a local hotel where our pickup was supposed to happen. There was some kind of accident on the motor way causing our ride to not turn up. We caught a taxi to a second pickup point where our journey began.

The lowlands in Scotland are gentle rolling hills with many sheep, cattle, and fields of crops. Quite idyllic. When you start coming up into the highlands, the land changes entirely. It becomes quite harsh and very hilly/rocky making farming impossible. We saw lots of farm animals, but no crops until the land became so treacherous to make it impossible for animals to be bred either.

Loch Ness is HUGE. It turns out that it contains HALF of all the fresh water in all of Britain. According to our guide, the lake is over 900 feet deep. Apparently when surveyors tried to find bedrock, the bored for many many additional feet and gave up after several months of exploration. They could not find bedrock. In addition, there was the discovery of a slushy lake underneath the lake. The water is black from peat in the water. It is quite a sight and is beautiful in its own right.

The Highlands are a place of violence in the past. Our guide, a Gordon, related to us many battles over the years against the Britons, within the Scots themselves, and against the Vikings. It is a bloody heritage. He related the idea of seeing, "A bearded psychopath charging you" (insert strong Scots accent).

We continued to drive to Inverness and then took roadways back down to Edinburgh. It was a great day trip--but LONG.

Tomorrow, we will spend the day in Edinburgh.

Powered by Qumana