Edinburgh and across the Highlands
Trip Start
May 01, 2007
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3
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Trip End
Apr 29, 2008
Edinburgh,
United Kingdom
Friday, May 4, 2007
We made our way to Terri's friend Cara's flat, who we met while living in Calgary, she is now working in Edinburgh. We met her flatmate Orlagh (from Ireland), and went out for a night on the town. Terri learned what a "quid" is. After the pub on the stagger back home, we picked up a Scottish delicacy - deep fried Mars bars. Battered and lightly fried, all melty. They were fantastic.
The four of us rented a car Saturday morning, and started a winding journey up towards the Highlands, stopping in little towns like Pitlochry and Aviemore for some local colour
01 Edinburgh
. We picked up Orlagh's little sister Eve on the way, and I tried my hand at driving on the left side of the road. I was pretty excited about that, and it turned out to be quite fun. I found myself reaching to my right for the shifter often enough, and turning the windshield wipers on rather than the turn signals (the controls are reversed) but other than that, it was no problem. The roads are very very narrow (two lanes here would be at best 1.5 lanes wide in Canada) and quite windy. They even narrow down to 1 lane for both directions of traffic in several points. It sort of reminds me of driving between Calgary and Vancouver.The Highlands are very beautiful. We were all quite surprised at how nice everything was, and none of us shut up about it either. Low mountains, heather and sheep everywhere. We drove right past Loch Ness, and stopped for the obligatory photo opportunity. There were plenty of fibreglass Nessies in towns around the Loch, but the real thing must have been on vacation or something. We crossed over onto the Isle of Skye and found a hostel for the night (there were some tense moments with bad cell reception and sold out hostels, but we didn't have to sleep in the car.) After dinner, we crossed the street to the Kyleakin pub, and enjoyed a Ceilidh (traditional Scottish music) while a stag and doe party rioted around us. Next day, we drove out to Neist Point on Skye
02 Sheep everywhere
. Cara was told about that place by the guy at the hostel the previous night, so we figured we might as well check it out. Well worth the often frightening drive, and that very creepy run in with all those sheep on a back country road. Neist Point is home to a lighthouse for the Isle of Skye, and looks out over the ocean. The wind was howling probably up to 100km at times, making it tough to walk over to the lighthouse, but the view was well worth the effort.Crossing back over onto the mainland, we toured around for most of the day, then settled down in a hostel (after quite the hunt, again) to make some dinner and have some drinks.
We returned to Edinburgh on Monday night, after driving through St. Andrews, the world famous home of golf, and seeing some of the incredible sights there.
While Cara and Orlagh returned to work on Tuesday, Terri and I spent our time sleeping in and touring around town.
After the super fun days of the road trip through the Scottish Highlands, the rest of our stay in Edinburgh was pretty quiet in comparison
03 Carload
. We walked around quite a bit of the town, and admired the historic buildings. We visited several museums and drank a good bit with Cara and Orlagh. We really adored Edinburgh - walking around the town, there are so many beautiful sights to see, and tons of things to do. There is a history and charm to the town that we just don't get to experience in Canada (well perhaps Quebec, but I haven't spent much time there, and Terri has never been.) We've been entertaining the idea of maybe living and working abroad for a short time after our trip is finished, and Edinburgh certainly seems like the sort of place to do so.
Things we learned: "Honkers" is Irish slang for "haunches or knees" - used like "down on your honkers"
"Aye Up Duck" means "how's it going". This is slang from Yorkshire in England.
Thanks to Orlagh and Eve for the fun slang!
Next stop: Ireland.
