Maple Court Inverness

This weekend I was working at the Mitchell Trophy swim meet in Inverness - naturally I took the opportunity to take some photos along the way :)

Unfortunately the weather on the way up was far from the best. There was a grim moment somewhere in the middle of ...

Today I headed of to Loch Einlich with Jade from the hostel. She was over from Canada and had asked if she could come along with me. I had first planned to go off on my bike but as it was fairly expensive to hire a bike we decided to go off on foot.

We walked down to the Loch and then up one of the footpaths up the side of the mountain to get a better view of the loch and also some more pictures. We started the final part ...

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 ...

... castles- A little central bit from about 1400, a bigger square extension added in the 1600-1700's and then the beautiful elaborate high ceilinged, richly decorated extension in the mid 1800's. We enjoyed poking around the house and gardens and Bernie and I would be happy to have some of the lovely turrets anf views at our place. We arrived at our Castle at 3.30pm allowing time for a bit of exploring, then laundry etc.This castle ...

... of Edinburgh. It bored me but this was a fast way for my mom to be able to see all the major sights! After we meet Sarah Jane for supper then headed back to the hostel, where it felt like it was the first time we got to talk. Wednesday morning we walked along the riverside for about 2 hours catching up. Again a weird feeling for me. I've been in my own world travelling while back at home so much is going on that I ...

... seen better days, and was being revived by an enthusiastic young group of people. They cheerfully let us store the bikes in the downstairs sitting room which was being redecorated, and looked like a bomb site. We slept peacefully with our bikes safe. (88km) Day 3: We set out in soft drizzle across the corridor between Edinburgh and Glasgow and were untroubled by any traffic until after Falkirk. We set ourselves the goal of visiting the Falkirk wheel for our morning tea and ...

... for the group as you can clearly see. Also took a couple of snaps of the Carrbridge which had been washed away some time ago. Still quite something special to look at. Corgarff Castle On arriving ...

... and swiftly moving water of the River Ness was probably no colder than the air.

In the last of the daylight we tracked along the western edge of the 23 mile long but very narrow Loch Ness. Previously I had wondered if the monster myth had been a creative attempt to get tourists to come to an otherwise unremarkable place (a tactic similar to the creation of a ridiculously long name for a certain nondescript village in North-West Wales ...