I’ve officially joined up with my only multi day tour group! We climbed onto the bus this morning around 9 and got the pleasure of listening to our guide Sandy talk for 9 hours in his Scottish accent. (I’m not even joking) Our first official stop was in this little town of Dunkeld, it was very peaceful there and most of us on the bus headed for the church and I decided to take a walk around this path that was marked. I did not make it all the way around, I didn’t even make it half way before I had to turn around or risk running out of time. But I did get to walk along a beautiful river. If you ever find yourself with an hour or two to spare in this little town, take a stroll!
After Dunkeld we stopped at the Commando memorial, commandos are also known as the Green Burets around these parts and while there was a lovely view of the “mountains” as a person who lives beside the Rocky Mountains, these little guys weren’t that impressive. But after the memorial was Loch Ness! No I didn’t spot Nessy, yes I looked through all my raw images, she’s not there. But I did learn a bit about the Loch. It’s massive for starters! If you drained it, you could fit the entire human population of the earth into it… 3 times over. Yup, it’s huge! Also, because of the peat (really old dirt) it’s very dark water, as in you can’t see further down than about 2 meters, which is about 6 feet. It also has cannibal fish and eels and the deepest parts haven’t been explored yet. It’s very easy to imagine a creature like Nessy living down there for thousands of years!
Now, Eilean Donan Castle is the second most photographed castle in Scotland and it’s easy to see why. It’s lovely! Turns out it was blown up way back when during the Jacobite uprisings and it was left in pieces for a while. Then some man had a dream about how it should look and so he made his plans, asked someone else for money, and had it rebuilt based off what he saw in his dream. Turns out there were plans found in Edinburgh castle of the original and the dream was about 90% right!
And now it’s time for some rest! Tomorrow is a full day touring the Isle of Skye and I’m hoping the sunshine stays with us here.