Sarah: Inverness, Scotland - Monsterland!

Trip Start Dec 27, 2007
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Trip End Dec 28, 2008


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Flag of United Kingdom  , Scotland,
Saturday, July 19, 2008

Taking the train from Edinburgh to Inverness meant stopping at 15 towns along the way. A beautiful ride though - lush, green, rolling hills and pasture-land, it reminded me a lot of Otago. We were staying at a hostel as we couldn't get any couchsurfing. Only three nights, equals two days as we were leaving at 6:45am on the last day. We discovered on our arrival that the Highland Games were on that weekend - a stroke of luck for us for once! We usually seem to have unlucky, terrible timing when it comes to interesting events.

However  we decided to go out to Loch Ness on the first day, given that that was Saturday, and public transport is not very good on Sundays. We took a bus out, only a half hour ride, to Drumnadrochit, a little village in a bay on the loch. They have two Loch Ness centres there - one is a state-of-the-art, multi-media scientific-based experience that looks at the founding of the loch and the area and its special qualities. It was interesting to learn that in many parts of the loch, it is 230m deep, and it holds more water than all the lakes and rivers in the Uk combined. They told the controversial story of the Loch Ness Monster: how the tale had evolved, the numerous sightings (over 1000), the different versions of "Nessie," the hoaxes and attempts at solving the mystery. There are several sculptures around the region of various interpretations of the monster.

Apart from the legend of the monster, it is a really beautiful area - glassy lochs, green forests, mist-shrouded mountains, and the ever-present Scottish clouds and intermittent rain. The rain in the UK is really annoying! In NZ it either rains or it doesn't. If it rains, it's gonna rain for half a day, a day, a few days, a week. In Britain, in our experience, it might rain for 10 mins, stop for 15, rain for 5, stop for 5 ... you just don't know where you stand!!
Sunday we headed uptown to Bught Park and the Highland Games. The modern games have been going for almost 200 years, and involve highland dancing and music competitions, lots of bagpipes, and men in kilts throwing all sorts of extremely heavy objects. We saw the stone throwing competition, where said men in kilts (some with arms as big as my thighs) throw a 23 lb (12kg?) stone. The winner threw it almost 11m. Sadly, we missed the caber-tossing (tree trunks) but we saw the weight-for-height contest, where contestants have to throw a (once again very heavy) weight over a high-jump bar. The last kilt standing was throwing it over 17 ft in the air. One of the highlights was watching chainsaw-carving guy. He started with a big log and made owls, highland cattle, dogs, squirrels, an amazing eagle, and decorative garden benches. He had three different sized chainsaws that he would use. Very impressive.

Once again, we would have liked to have had more time to explore the highlands, and especially the Isle of Skye, which everyone says is fantastic. Guess we'll just have to come back one day! We've really enjoyed Scotland but now we're moving on to the Emerald Isle.
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