Scottish Highlands

After several months having not left Irleand (save for a few days at my sisters place in Wiltshire over Easter) I decided it was time to see a little more of Scotland, so I headed up to the Scottish Highlands, to see the Isle of Skye, Stirling, and Loch Ness.

I decided, being a lazy bastard, that I would do a tour, and had the choice between MacPackpackers or Haggis tours. While Mac had connections with the hostel I used to stay at, I decided to go with Haggis, as they ran a tour starting on a Saturday morning, and finishing on a Monday night, which being a long weekend, was perfect.

On the tour, we headed for Stirling, which was the home of one of William Wallace's famous battles against the English. There you can go to Stirling Castle, and the William Wallace monument. At the latter, there is also a statue of Mel Gibson as William Wallace - which our tour guide/bus driver Fergus threatened us with being left behind if we had a photo with.

Another of the castles we saw on the way to our stop, was the castle used in Monty Python's Holy Grail.

Our stop for the two nights was Kyle Larkin (the Kyle Larkin "International" Hostel). It was a nice little town just over the main bridge onto the Isle of Skye, right next to the pub, Saucy Mary's. The pub allegedly was named after a lady who used to run the toll through the harbour, who through in a little "girls gone wild" action for the sailers to help them cope with the toll, and forever became known as "Saucy Mary".

That night we got a good taste of the culture of Highland Scotland - by way of an all in brawl. Some of the people on our tour got caught in the middle, but no one got hurt.

There were some really cool people on our tour. Unlike most tours, it wasnt dominated by Aussies, with only 10 of the 30 being from the land down under. One of those, as I discovered however, just happened to live in the same appartment building as I did back in Melbourne. What are the chances?

The following day we headed out to check out Skye, which is an amazing island, just due to the sheer vastness of the place.

That night, we were back at the two pubs at Kyle Larkin, and saw the two instigators of the previous night's brawl - both sporting black eyes - having a good old chat. Gotta love the highlands.

On the third and final day of the tour we headed to the fabled Loch Ness. While it was something you kind of have to see, at the end of the day its a big lake....

More interesting, we some rock formations built many centuries ago, that because they took two generations to build, by the time they were finished, nobody knew why they were started! Gotta love that!

Would definately recommend to anyone doing Scotland to get up to the highlands, whether on one of the tours, or driving, as it is an amazingly beautiful place and the complete opposite of anything you will see in London.