The first night in the tent was good. We were thankful that the weather cooperated with us since it was really windy and cold when we were setting up. Besides the ground being really hard, we all slept pretty well. Morning came quick when sleeping in the tent, since the sun comes up at 4am. But we managed to sleep in until about 7am. We cleaned up the tent a bit and then grabbed some breakfast before heading out to Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle or so we thought. When we got in to start the car it wouldn‘t go into gear unless we turned it off and put it into first, but it wouldn‘t shift into any other gear. So we headed up to the office to ask the owner if he knew a place we could take the car in Inverness. What we didn’t know was he knew a bit about cars at well. Apparently our clutch was going out from wha the could tell. He called around a few places and we headed into town to have the car looked at. Magically on our way into town, the car started driving better than it has ever. So when we got to the shop the guy came out and looked at it and said everything looked great and he told us when we parked on that steep hill it apparently allowed air to get into the clutch fluid, so when we were having problems shifting it was because we were pushing air instead of fluid. So glad they did not try to hose us. So far we have loved the attitude of the Scottish people, very friendly and honest bunch.
So now on with our day. It was a nice drive out to Urquhart Castle, which was situated on the banks of Loch Ness, remains an impressive stronghold despite its ruinous state. Once one of Scotland’s largest castles, Urquhart’s remains include a tower house that commands splendid views of the famous loch and Great Glen. Urquhart witnessed considerable conflict throughout its 500 years as a medieval fortress and its history from the 13th to 17th centuries was particularly bloody. Following Edward I’s invasion, it fell into English hands and was then reclaimed and lost again. In the 14th century, it figured prominently in the Scots’ struggle for independence and came under the control of Robert the Bruce after he became King of Scots. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the castle and glen were frequently raided from the west by the ambitious MacDonald Lords of the Isles. The castle’s history and that of the noble families – Durward, MacDonald and Grant – who held it, is told in the exhibition and audio-visual display in the new visitor centre. The Centre features an outstanding array of medieval artifacts found at the castle.
There were a lot of tour buses there, so exploring the castle took forever, which in return, Brayden was not too thrilled. But when we got back to solid ground, there was a Scottish man dressed as an old warrior with swords that was telling history and posing for pictures with people and the boys really enjoyed that. Daddy did too, made him feel a bit like William Wallace himself.
Next stop was to find Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. There were many tourist traps around the area explaining the truths and myths about Nessie, but we opted out of wasting our money and just enjoying the views of the loch. We took a small walk down to the water so the boys could skip some rocks and search for Nessie, but they never did see her. The loch was really dark and a bit creepy at 1000 feet deep in the center, they have proven there are things in there, but they just are not sure of what it is. We were definitely not willing to take a dip in there to find out, the views were good enough for us.
After a few days of just being in the car, the boys had pretty much had it, they were doing really well so we decided to scratch a few of the things we were going to see, since we had pretty much had it with the car as well for a bit, we headed over to the Aquadome in Inverness for a little bit of family fun in the water. Thankfully they were not really busy because our one hour pass ended up being good for about 2 hours of waterpark fun. The boys loved all the waterslides and the wave pool. It wasn’t very big, but just enough to give us some down time and something more entertaining for the kids. After we were all dried off and dressed again we decided to walk along the Ness River into Inverness to grab dinner. We were starving by this point after all the swimming, so what was generally a short walk, seemed like forever. We ended up stopping at Gellions, which was the oldest pub in the highlands capital. I enjoyed some shrimp scampi (fried shrimp) with chips with a vodka and cranberry ($10, not ever again, lol), the boys had grilled cheese and chips, and Danny had curry again and a pint of Belhavens Best. Dinner was really good, Brayden had a bit too much to drink and passed out during dinner. On our walk back we took the route on the other side of the river and visited the Ness Islands, which was a very nice peaceful walk. We headed back to the campsite and changed into our jammies and played some Uno with the boys until about 11pm and then headed off to dreamland.
The next morning we were suppose to head up to the Isle of the Skye, but opted out of it based on the recommended of our new friend from the front office of the campground, Simon. He said that the weather in those parts is very sketchy and everything is very soggy and wet, beautiful, but for us the 5 hour round trip was not worth the chance this time around. So we ask Simon if he had one day in Inverness what would he do…..
First stop Rogie Falls. We hiked in about a half a mile where we found the falls and made our way down to the waters edge for a snack and a bit of fishing (which we were not suppose to do, but with the pocket fisherman we were secretive). The boys each tried to catch one of the HUGE salmon, but no such luck. Ryan I think had a bite from something, but wasn’t paying attention and lost it. After we left no trace, we headed back up to the suspension bridge crossing over the falls. I am not gonna lie, I when I saw that it was moving I was a bit scared, lol. Then of course when I got on it with the boys, this old man decided to start jumping, so the boys joined in, really, lol???? I made it across safely, no thanks to the boys and the old man. We hiked a bit further to get different views of the falls and then made our way back across and back to the car. We ran into a family picking berries, so Danny stopped and asked about them and tasted a few himself. The boys joined him and tried the Wynnberries AKA Smurfberries as well. They were very tart, but tasty. This family comes up to the falls every so often to pick the berries to make muffins.
We were trying to catch the dolphins at Calton Point at high tide around 1:45pm, so we made our way over to a nearby town to grab some lunch. We walked around for a bit seeing that everything was closed until 4:30pm, so we stopped to ask one of the local ladies if there was anything open and she directed us to a local café on the edge of town. Eileen Duhb was pretty much the only place open for lunch, so we headed in, where the boys had grilled cheese paninis with crisps, I had creamy mushroom soup with a grilled ham and cheese, and Danny had the special a grilled scallop salad (take a look at the picture, lol). When they brought Danny’s food out I couldn’t stop laughing because he was starving. Sitting here typing this I am still laughing about it. After we finished up our lunch we drove over to the car park by the coast to try to check out the dolphins. Lunch took a little bit longer than expected so we were a bit late for the high tide and sure enough missed the dolphins by 20 minutes. But we did get to see a couple a seals playing pretty close to shore and the boys practiced skipping rocks too.
On our way back to camp we passed a local brewery that gave free tours, so we decided to drop in, two other cars pulled up at the same time, the funny thing was that all three cars were all American, which is funny because we did not come across many Americans along our travels here in Ireland. The lady giving the tour thought we were all together and thought it was quite out of the ordinary too when we told her we were not together. Danny got to taste all their different beers and ended up buying I think 6 large beers and 2 small ones that cost us I think like $40 or something crazy like that, but this beer is only exported to Switzerland right now or you can get it locally at a few pubs.
Our last thing to do on our list today was find a Highland cow. We drove around a bit looking for one as all the locals say they are everywhere, but I think they were hiding them because we did not see one until the very end and they were pretty far away from the road. What we found out later on was that there was a free tour in Edinburgh that took you out to see tons of them. We were bummed that we didn’t know that, but were happy we finally caught a glimpse of one on our own.
It was time to eat dinner again, so we decided to head back to the camp ground and eat at the camp imbiss. Danny and I both had curry and the boys had brats and chips. The wind decided to kick up, so we decided we were going to crawl into our sleeping bags to keep warm and watch a movie as a family, we were going to be packing up and heading down to Glasgow in the morning.
So now on with our day. It was a nice drive out to Urquhart Castle, which was situated on the banks of Loch Ness, remains an impressive stronghold despite its ruinous state. Once one of Scotland’s largest castles, Urquhart’s remains include a tower house that commands splendid views of the famous loch and Great Glen. Urquhart witnessed considerable conflict throughout its 500 years as a medieval fortress and its history from the 13th to 17th centuries was particularly bloody. Following Edward I’s invasion, it fell into English hands and was then reclaimed and lost again. In the 14th century, it figured prominently in the Scots’ struggle for independence and came under the control of Robert the Bruce after he became King of Scots. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the castle and glen were frequently raided from the west by the ambitious MacDonald Lords of the Isles. The castle’s history and that of the noble families – Durward, MacDonald and Grant – who held it, is told in the exhibition and audio-visual display in the new visitor centre. The Centre features an outstanding array of medieval artifacts found at the castle.
There were a lot of tour buses there, so exploring the castle took forever, which in return, Brayden was not too thrilled. But when we got back to solid ground, there was a Scottish man dressed as an old warrior with swords that was telling history and posing for pictures with people and the boys really enjoyed that. Daddy did too, made him feel a bit like William Wallace himself.
Next stop was to find Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. There were many tourist traps around the area explaining the truths and myths about Nessie, but we opted out of wasting our money and just enjoying the views of the loch. We took a small walk down to the water so the boys could skip some rocks and search for Nessie, but they never did see her. The loch was really dark and a bit creepy at 1000 feet deep in the center, they have proven there are things in there, but they just are not sure of what it is. We were definitely not willing to take a dip in there to find out, the views were good enough for us.
After a few days of just being in the car, the boys had pretty much had it, they were doing really well so we decided to scratch a few of the things we were going to see, since we had pretty much had it with the car as well for a bit, we headed over to the Aquadome in Inverness for a little bit of family fun in the water. Thankfully they were not really busy because our one hour pass ended up being good for about 2 hours of waterpark fun. The boys loved all the waterslides and the wave pool. It wasn’t very big, but just enough to give us some down time and something more entertaining for the kids. After we were all dried off and dressed again we decided to walk along the Ness River into Inverness to grab dinner. We were starving by this point after all the swimming, so what was generally a short walk, seemed like forever. We ended up stopping at Gellions, which was the oldest pub in the highlands capital. I enjoyed some shrimp scampi (fried shrimp) with chips with a vodka and cranberry ($10, not ever again, lol), the boys had grilled cheese and chips, and Danny had curry again and a pint of Belhavens Best. Dinner was really good, Brayden had a bit too much to drink and passed out during dinner. On our walk back we took the route on the other side of the river and visited the Ness Islands, which was a very nice peaceful walk. We headed back to the campsite and changed into our jammies and played some Uno with the boys until about 11pm and then headed off to dreamland.
The next morning we were suppose to head up to the Isle of the Skye, but opted out of it based on the recommended of our new friend from the front office of the campground, Simon. He said that the weather in those parts is very sketchy and everything is very soggy and wet, beautiful, but for us the 5 hour round trip was not worth the chance this time around. So we ask Simon if he had one day in Inverness what would he do…..
First stop Rogie Falls. We hiked in about a half a mile where we found the falls and made our way down to the waters edge for a snack and a bit of fishing (which we were not suppose to do, but with the pocket fisherman we were secretive). The boys each tried to catch one of the HUGE salmon, but no such luck. Ryan I think had a bite from something, but wasn’t paying attention and lost it. After we left no trace, we headed back up to the suspension bridge crossing over the falls. I am not gonna lie, I when I saw that it was moving I was a bit scared, lol. Then of course when I got on it with the boys, this old man decided to start jumping, so the boys joined in, really, lol???? I made it across safely, no thanks to the boys and the old man. We hiked a bit further to get different views of the falls and then made our way back across and back to the car. We ran into a family picking berries, so Danny stopped and asked about them and tasted a few himself. The boys joined him and tried the Wynnberries AKA Smurfberries as well. They were very tart, but tasty. This family comes up to the falls every so often to pick the berries to make muffins.
We were trying to catch the dolphins at Calton Point at high tide around 1:45pm, so we made our way over to a nearby town to grab some lunch. We walked around for a bit seeing that everything was closed until 4:30pm, so we stopped to ask one of the local ladies if there was anything open and she directed us to a local café on the edge of town. Eileen Duhb was pretty much the only place open for lunch, so we headed in, where the boys had grilled cheese paninis with crisps, I had creamy mushroom soup with a grilled ham and cheese, and Danny had the special a grilled scallop salad (take a look at the picture, lol). When they brought Danny’s food out I couldn’t stop laughing because he was starving. Sitting here typing this I am still laughing about it. After we finished up our lunch we drove over to the car park by the coast to try to check out the dolphins. Lunch took a little bit longer than expected so we were a bit late for the high tide and sure enough missed the dolphins by 20 minutes. But we did get to see a couple a seals playing pretty close to shore and the boys practiced skipping rocks too.
On our way back to camp we passed a local brewery that gave free tours, so we decided to drop in, two other cars pulled up at the same time, the funny thing was that all three cars were all American, which is funny because we did not come across many Americans along our travels here in Ireland. The lady giving the tour thought we were all together and thought it was quite out of the ordinary too when we told her we were not together. Danny got to taste all their different beers and ended up buying I think 6 large beers and 2 small ones that cost us I think like $40 or something crazy like that, but this beer is only exported to Switzerland right now or you can get it locally at a few pubs.
Our last thing to do on our list today was find a Highland cow. We drove around a bit looking for one as all the locals say they are everywhere, but I think they were hiding them because we did not see one until the very end and they were pretty far away from the road. What we found out later on was that there was a free tour in Edinburgh that took you out to see tons of them. We were bummed that we didn’t know that, but were happy we finally caught a glimpse of one on our own.
It was time to eat dinner again, so we decided to head back to the camp ground and eat at the camp imbiss. Danny and I both had curry and the boys had brats and chips. The wind decided to kick up, so we decided we were going to crawl into our sleeping bags to keep warm and watch a movie as a family, we were going to be packing up and heading down to Glasgow in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment