Highland Lodges Fort William

... king - who told her that if she put her face in the enchanted river for 7 seconds, her beauty would be restored forver and peace would return. Which she did - and which we did too! Yup! threw our faces, in the middle of the rain, on cold slippery rocks! (hopefully i'll be able to upload photos at the next hostel!).

Phew - what a day! and what an entry! Tonight at the hostel is the Tartan Yoga party, so i had better go and see what outfit Josh has created.

Till next time!

... is sadly known for being voted the city with the ugliest people in Scotland! Not the best of awards to win. Had a quick look around and Josh even managed to squeeze in a quick haircut!

Then to the local distillery, a quick tour and some samples - i had a quick taste, but i'm truly not a whiskey person - josh said the Penderyn one in Wales was better.

Onwards to Loch Ness which is the best known of the 4 Lochs in the Scottish Highlands ...

Today I decided to stay another night at Morags Lodge so that I could head off to Wolftrax mountain bike trails at Laggan. After reading their website I decided to stay away from the black route and to give the red route a try. This route was 15km long so I got straight to it when I go there at 11:30

The only problem that I found today, which is a pretty obvious one, is that in order to ...

Today I left SYHA Torridon (with the key I must add) and headed off to Fort Augustus via Inverness, again stopping along the way to take some photos.

I must say, it was nice to stop in Inverness and actually see some people around. I had a walk around the shops, filled the car up with diesel and went shopping in Morisons.

On my way to ...

... br>Some other info Ross gave us.

- Scotish flag is based on a vision that St Andrew had while fighting the British a white cross shining against a blue sky.
- golf is actually illegal in Scotland, William the IV declared it illegal as it stopped the young men practising their archery, the law has never been changed.. lol

Back in Edinburgh, food and sleep,early start in the morning!!!!! oh no..

... today is terrible, we are walking in 35-50 mph winds and it is constantly raining in our faces. We get to the half way point (in height any way) and stop for some thing to eat. The second half of the
mountain climb was a lot harder than the first and as we climb higher and higher we get further and further into the clouds and it gets colder and windier as we climb. We finally reach the summit and the ...

I've made it to Fort William, checked into the SYHA Glen Nevis and decided to go for a walk in to town to get some dinner. Little did I know that it was 3.5 miles each way in the pouring rain to Morrisons.

Gone to far to turn around and I am wet now.

... worthwhile (and hopefully worth the money, i'll see when I work out how much I've spent). I obviously won't be uploading the 4000 photo's I took but anyone is welcome to see them, they need only ask; and set aside around 5 hrs to go through them. This is Mike's log.......signing out.

... wind. Frozen ice particles hit my face like pins, 'ouch'. It was agony but I couldn't stop as the group not 10 meteres away disappeared into the mist. I lurched on till I fell on top of my younger brother as he crouched behind the summit cairn. Out of the wind it was sweet relief. I remembered one thing that I did have - a baraclava and pulled it on for protection. We had made the summit and huddled together in that bleak place I realised what a beautiful thing life is.

... the slog up. It was cool, cloudy, a bit windy, but the climb wasn't all that bad. We stopped briefly to photograph some flora and struck up a conversation with a lovely man from Denmark(originally Scottish) who pointed out a cool dragonfly to us. Over the next 4 days, we'd run into him (and his family) again and again and again. There's kind of a nice connection of people along the Way, and even though you don't necessarily know their names, you feel a sort of ...