Waverley Guest House Inverness

... like me... hmm! This road literally passed over the top of the world... jaw-dropping...





When the road came out, almost in civilisation, we were around Braemar. Not much civilsation for long though - the other side was Glenshee, home to ...

... the path which turned in to a bit of a scramble and started to get very steep and slippery so we decided it was not worth risking a slip as the drop was quite significant and we would have probably broken a few bones, and made a hasty retreat.

Walking back from the loch to the car, which was about 7 miles we were startled by the passing of a fighter jet through the glen at almost ground level, leaving us with our ...

Today was a bit of a washout, in two ways actually. First, I didn't get to bed until 05:45 as I was up in the bar drinking until very late (or early, you could say). Secondly, I was woken up to a wet foot as water was pouring through the ceiling through the smoke detector and onto the end of my bed. I quickly got dressed and went down to reception and they found that someone upstairs had left a tap running and the plug in...whoops!

Aviemore, Scotland, United Kingdom peterward

... up to the room and bagged the double bed and then went into town for a walk around. Took a few pictures of Loch Ness and some of the town. Not much going on here, just a few shops for the tourists. Back to the hostel for a drink and to use the PC's so that I can upload some photos (which you may have noticed already!). Not sure what to do tomorrow???

Today is time to get back on track, I am in East Leake and I need
to get back to Scotland. Luckily Daniel doesn't wake me up too early
and although I don't set off as early as I need to, I get a good nights
sleep.
I
get my gear swapped from the Land Rover and into the BMW and get set
off at around 10:30 ...

... stuff and then had high tea and rushed down to the ferry to head back to mainland Orkney for the night. After that it was back to Inverness on Saturday. Since then we have spent a couple of days driving around the area seeing things we wanted too but missed on our tour. Yesterday we went to Culloden and then onto visit some stone age burial chambers, from their we travelled down past Loch Ness to Glen Finnan which was beautiful. Today have been up to the Clan Gunn ...

... of the touristy stuff other than "look" at castles without paying and going in anymore. We left at 10:30 and arrived at Inverness at 3pm. Found the landlord's house easily and he insisted having us follow him to the cottage we are renting (Country Courtyard). OK...so we are no longer in a **** (four star) place! This is barely a two star. Oh dear, but have to make the best of it. It is a bit of a shock after ...

... and there was no traffic. At around 9am, I rolled into the city of Inverness, just in time for morning rush hour. It was a bit stop and go for a while, but I managed to negotiate the city streets with ease. I spend the morning wandering about the downtown. This is a small city, with a nice relaxing feel. There are lots of old people.... I was in the Victorian Market, and I was youngest ...

... a tea break. The cold weather was making us feel hungry, so we bought a box of Walkers short bread & whacked it in a jiffy!! We then drove further up the highlands, passing so many picturesque mountains & Lochs. We stopped for lunch at about 1300hrs. No prizes for guessing what we had... briyani!( ya rite!! if only...) Okie.. we had fish & chips!! but the only difference was that the shop didn't have any seating inside, rather, they had sheds outside. So we had to brave the cold & eat ...

... and got out of the car to experience what it felt like. It was a little nippy to say the least, though the long-haired cattle grazing in the snow beside the road didn’t seem to mind.

The sun was permanently in our eyes as it plotted its course steadily sideways across the horizon, barely, timidly even, above it. Being only three days out from the winter solstice it set not long after we had lunch and a brisk amble in Inverness, where the ...