By Yon Bonnie Banks

Yesterday was a looooonnnnng day of touring the Highlands - over 300 miles covered in just under 12 hours. I was exhausted, but it was truly a taste of the Highlands.

Now, I have to say my pictures won't do it justice. Pictures you have seen anywhere won't do it justice. It looks like nothing I have ever seen before and is truly worth seeing in person. Our guide kept saying it was bleak with rubbish vegetation. But in the bleakness was beauty. Though one of the funniest moments was our guide saying, "Now imagine this bleakness in the winter. It's just difficult to even survive. Not pleasant at all.... Oh, just over there is a ski resort that does nice business." 

We left Glasgow at 8 am and drove first to Loch Lomond. We had some nice views and the chance to buy a coffee or something and then drove on. We got to hear the folk song about Loch Lomond as well. Our driver said any drunk Scotsman will sing it for us whether we want him to or not. :) 

I took all sort of pictures with my camera, then at the last moment snapped one with my phone to share quickly on facebook. Naturally the best of the lot was the one taken with my phone! sigh.

We stopped occasionally for a stretch and various scenic views of the Highlands. 

My favorite was Glencoe. Glencoe is the site where the Campbells massacred the MacDonalds on orders from the English who wanted to make an example of someone to instill loyalty to the crown after Highland rebellions. The Campbells used Highland Hospitality to gave entrance and then murdered them. It's the use of the code of hospitality that bothered people the most, as warring wasn't uncommon. To this day the Campbells are not welcome in the area and that event happened in 1692.

The history is interesting, but I just found the area to be beautiful. The mountains known as the Three Sisters of Glencoe provided the background scenery to Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. The photos don't even begin to capture the unique beauty.

I also realize that it is hard to understand the scale so the following picture shows hikers in the lower left. Those faint little dots of red and blue are people down in the valley that separated our lookout point from the mountains.

We also saw the plain where they built Hagrid's hut for the movies, but when filming was done they tore it down, so it's just and empty field now. From there we traveled on to Fort Augustus which is at the end of Loch Ness. We had lunch. A couple from the tour invited me to join them and then paid for my meal. It was very nice of them! Fort Augustus has locks to link Loch Ness through the river to Loch Oich, which then links on all the way to the sea. It was a lovely little village.

 

I'm standing at the middle of the locks and the water in the background is Loch Ness.

From there we journeyed up the coast of Loch Ness where we joined a boat tour. Well, first we stopped for an up close look at Highland cattle. They are shaggy and rather small.

 

Don't know these people; I used them for scale. :)

This one was clearly interested in talking with us as she stayed at the fence the whole time.

The Loch is huge. I never realized how big it is. Not only is it 23 miles long, it is very deep - several places as much as 750 ft. deep. Our guide said that if you took all the fresh water lochs of England and Wales, you still don't have enough water to fill up Loch Ness. 

Our boat tour, Jacobite Cruises, had indoor and outdoor seating which was nice because the weather was windy and a bit drizzly so I sat inside. We went up to Urqhart Castle, which is best seen from the water.

We then went up through Inverness which was rather quaint even though there really was a blend of old and modern. We didn't really do anything there though.

On our way home we stopped in Pitlochry which was rather quaint but clearly drawing on tourism. There were lots of little shops, but most actually closed by 5 pm. That was strange to me, an American, who can't imagine businesses not staying open when so many tours were coming through. But I bought chips and gravy from the little Fish 'n Chips shop which was good, but not as good as Canadian poutine. :)

We went by Stirling Castle, but as the sun was setting I couldn't get a good picture of it from the road. I plan to do a proper visit there later anyway. We did get to hear all about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce and how Braveheart is so completely inaccurate right down to the name. Braveheart was the nickname of Robert the Bruce not William Wallace.

So, that was my very long whirlwind tour of the highlands. Here's the link to the tour description if you are interested: Rabbie's Tours.