**Click HERE to look at pictures from our time in the Scottish Highlands**
Both: Hey everyone!
Jen: It's Jen and Greg with an update on our travels.
Greg: Last time, if you remember, we discussed our visiting of the Isle of Skye.
Jen: The first day we ended the tour in a charming little town called Portree, which is on the Isle of Skye. It's known for its colorful buildings that line its harbor.
Greg: It is a very popular base because many of the tours, or people visiting, do it over the course of a couple of days.
Jen: Yeah, because it is a little bit of a trek for many of the major cities of Scotland to get there and back in one day. So you do an overnight and you get to explore more.
Greg: Right. So we got dropped off in Portree by the tour guide. We found somewhere to get some dinner and they sat us by the window. Right after we sit down and we're looking at the menus, one of the people that we had gotten very friendly with on our tour — his name is Alex — walks right by, sees me in the window. We wave at each other and I just point at the chair. So he just nods and comes in and joins us for dinner.
Jen: So we really enjoyed the dinner with Alex and that actually led to us kind of becoming “friends” on the second day of the tour. And we hung out with him, too, a little bit when we got back to Inverness.
Greg: Yeah. The next morning, everybody met up at the stop, continued our tour at a place called Fairy Pools.
Jen: The Fairy Pools on the island of Skye are like a series of really crystal clear blue and green waterfalls and pools that are situated in different parts of this hike.
Greg: As the tour bus drove within view of the Fairy Pools, you see the valley and the gravel trail and people starting to walk down that trail. It is really cool, but at the same time, we looked at each other like, “Oh crap! That's miles…” People's brightly colored clothing that you see at the beginning, they become little dots further along. Then you lose the people entirely.
Jen: Yeah, and there's, like, a decline at first, so we knew we would have to go up that to get back. But once we got past that decline, you know, you look out and you're, like, “Oh, it looks like it's fairly flat, little bit of hills, not too bad.”
That was an incorrect assumption on my part. And we were only given, like, two hours at this stop, so we knew we had to watch the time so we'd be able to get back to the bus.
Greg: We got to a certain point, and I just looked at Jennifer and was, like, “We have gone easily over a mile. I can feel it.” And over 45 minutes at this point, I know we keep thinking that the big pool is going to be just over that next rise, but I just petered out right there. I said, “I can't go any further.”
There was another guy, who was a comedian like me for that tour, who also sat right there. And we all decided that was as far as we were going to go and started walking back.
Jen: Yeah, I got up two hills and said, “But what if it's right over the next one?” And then I finally just gave up. I said, “I'll look it up online.”
Greg: Yeah. And it was funny because during the walk back, people stopped me — for some reason — to ask, “Is it worth it to keep going?” And the older guy can hear me. And I'm saying like, “Oh, look, if I can get there, you can get there. You can do it! It's so beautiful.”
And he's just going, “Don't believe him. He's lying to you. Just turn around.”
Jen: One of the gentlemen that had stopped and asked Greg for his opinion kept walking on and the guy from the tour said, “Man, you really sold him on that one!”
Greg: (laughs) Yeah.
Jen: So we noticed walking along that a lot of people were like getting in the water, taking their shoes off.
Greg: Yeah. The water all throughout is completely transparent. You can see every little stone and pebble like at the bottom of the riverbed. And of course, you know, the mountains all around. It's just really impressive…
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: …scenery.
There's one other aspect about Skye in general, but especially around the area with the Fairy Pools. It's all covered in heather, and we were too early for it. But if we had gone later in the year, all of that heather blooms into this beautiful purple.
Jen: Yeah, we saw a peak of a couple of the bushes that had started to bloom, but definitely not to the magnitude of photos I've seen online, which was a bit of a bummer.
Greg: As I like to say very often, “look it up”!
Jen: It's true.
Greg: The pictures online that you can see are fabulous. So from Fairy Pools, when we got back up to the top, I was completely done, drenched in sweat.
(laughing) The guide even commented about how I looked when I got back to the van, but we were still in good spirits because it was nice.
In any case...the next stop from the Fairy Pools, Eilean Donan Castle.
Jen: Eilean Donan is basically a fortress that's on a small tidal island where several different bodies of water converge near a town called Dornie. It's surrounded by amazing mountain views and water. And the castle is actually one of Scotland's most iconic landmarks.
Greg: Yeah, and there's, like, a big thing about the history of Eilean Donan and, you know, what it means for Scotland's heritage. But by that point in the tour, because of Fairy Pools, we were really tired. We didn't want to walk and hike up through that castle. So we kind of just hung out outside of it, tried to get something to eat because there's concession.
And a funny piece, when the rest of the tour starts coming back, our comedian friend from the Fairy Pools, he saw that we didn't go in. So when he comes up, we were, like, “Hey, how was it?”
He's, like, “It's the best castle I ever saw! Wouldn't miss it for the world!”
Jen: (laughs) Yeah. His wife said, “Boy, you have your funny pants on today.”
Greg: (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, she did.
Jen: He and Greg were the comedic duo of the tour.
Greg: Yeah. Eilean Donan was very nice from the outside. We imagine it probably was also pretty great inside, but we just didn't have the energy because Fairy Pools took so much out of us.
So we left Eilean Donan Castle and we drove through Glen Shiel.
Jen: And this is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Glen Shiel was breathtaking, honestly. We were driving through and on each side of you, there's these towering green mountains, waterfalls.
And as we start to drive through, our tour guide comes on the loudspeaker and says, “I don't feel like we can drive through this without listening to some bagpipes. And I'm, like, okay…thinking we're going to listen to like some little bagpipe jig to enjoy this.
I was wrong.
Greg: Yeah. He told us a little bit about why, because the Battle of Glen Shiel, like from the early 1700s.
Jen: Within the first three notes, I knew he was about to play Amazing Grace, and I lost it because that song gets me every single time. So I'm looking out the window, tears down my face.
Greg: When it starts playing, I immediately turn to look at Jennifer and her face is already red with the tears kind of starting.
Jen: (laughing)
Greg: And I reach out and she just like swats me and grabs the water bottle because, you know, that's the move when you don't want people to know you're crying you grab, like, water and try to drink something.
But I will say this, it was gorgeous landscape and the bagpipes and everyone was quiet and being very meditative in the moment. And I just thought to myself, “I'm so glad to be right here, right now.” Like I was just so happy in that moment, which is a little bit sad because Jennifer's over there crying. (laughs)
Jen: It wasn't all sad tears. Very overwhelming, I think, in the moment.
Greg: Yeah. So we finished the little drive through Glen Shiel. We started getting closer towards Loch Ness.
Jen: Loch Ness is a very large, deep freshwater lake. It's the 15th deepest lake in the world. The depth is 230 meters. And it's really dark water because of how deep it is, so it looks kind of…ominous.
Greg: Right. Which is part of what spawns the legend, which we'll share a little bit for those who are interested. If you want to know more about all of it, you know what I'm going to say…
Jen: Look it up!
Greg: Indeed.
So there was a local man who disappeared and the people blamed his disappearance on a monster in the lake. A Christian missionary and a Scottish nobleman joined to go investigate Loch Ness over this disappearance.
Legend says the Scottish nobleman got attacked by a serpent or dragon-like creature from within the water. The Christian missionary said a prayer which scared away the Loch Ness Monster and the nobleman was saved.
All of that was kind of just local legend until early 20th century. Someone shared a picture they took which purportedly showed the Loch Ness Monster in the background behind him.
Jen: The only monster we saw in the lake was a cute little duck. So I don't think it qualifies.
Greg: You called the duck a monster. That's wrong.
Jen: Well…that's the only thing we saw.
Greg: Yeah. So that was, you know, a neat introduction to the whole Loch Ness thing.
But the area around Loch Ness, I know we use the word a lot — impressive…
Jen: (laughs)
Greg: …beautiful, striking. It just is.
Jen: Yeah, it really is. There was a spot that he brought us to that we were able to get out and take pictures by the lake. We were one of many tour groups there. So we had to wait our turn, but it was cool to be able to see.
Greg: After we toured the area around Loch Ness, he just started driving us back to Inverness, which was where the tour begins and ends. But at a certain point — a little bit before we get to Inverness — he starts slowing down and he just says, “Are you out here?”
Most people just kind of looked at each other, like, “Is our tour guide losing his mind?” But Jennifer and a couple others on the tour immediately knew what this guy was doing —
Jen: We knew exactly what he was talking about! We had asked him several different times, “Are we going to see any Highland cows?” This was the highlight of our trip, I think! (laughs)
Greg: Maybe we should say, because people might not know, what is a Highland cow?
Jen: It's a very unique breed of cattle that's native to Scotland. And you've probably seen pictures, the ones with the shaggy coats and they have the big horns. But they have the sweetest little face and you just want to hug ‘em.
I had seen one the day before passing, but it wasn't a safe place to stop off. So I was really bummed and thought, “Oh, we're not going to see them.”
But when he found this field, they were out. And so he pulls off safely on the side of the road and we got our pictures of the Highland cows!
Greg: Indeed. They were maybe 20-, 30-feet from the fence.
Jen: Yeah. Me and one of the other girls did try to convince the cows to come to us. They didn't listen, but we got pictures and pretty much made our day.
Greg: That was the last real stop for the tour. He brought us back into town. We all went our separate ways, except Alex, who said, “Hey, you guys mentioned you were here for an extra day. So am I. Let's hang out, let's get lunch.”
And so we made plans for a local place that was kind of known for lunch. We hung out with Alex and he said, “I'm gonna go to the Highland Games. Why don't you guys come with me?”
And we just thought, “There are Highland Games right now?!”
So we walked with Alex for, I think, it was three quarters of a mile away from where we were. There was a concert with music from some local Scottish talent.
Jen: Who we actually had passed by the same guy that was playing in a bar the night before when we were trying to find dinner.
Greg: Yeah, this bar is loaded with people and they're all singing. And we can see in the window there's somebody on a stage. And we just thought, “Is this guy famous? I don't understand why this bar is so packed.”
And then it's the same guy at the Highland Games. And we thought, “Ok, I guess he is kind of famous here.”
Jen: So I got to go to a concert in Scotland, too!
Greg: Yeah. So other than the concert, there's the walkthrough of, like, crafts and things that you can buy souvenir-wise, food, or you can search for your clan and what their tartan is.
But there's also the strongman competitions, caber tossing and hammer throwing.
Jen: So the competition we actually got to see was the kettlebell tossing competition, where they took kettlebells and threw them over high bars at different heights. I was…impressed. (laughs)
Greg: People who listen to our updates or read them see this word all the time — and…and it's probably a joke at this point for them as much as us — but so much of all of our traveling really is impressing us.
Jen: Yeah, we had a lot of fun!
There was also a bagpipe band that kind of marched through, and they were actually Scottish. Not from Canada….
Greg: (laughs) Yeah, yeah.
Jen: After we decided to leave the Highland Games, we took a walk along the River Ness.
Greg: It's very serene how you can just take a nice little casual stroll.
Jen: Alex kind of laughed at us. He said, “It's just a short walk.”
Greg: Yeah, his “short walk” after the Highland Games, I think, was almost two miles extra of walking.
Jen: (laughs) We're getting our exercise on this vacation for sure.
Greg: Yeah. So we said our goodbyes to our new British friend, Alex. Went back to our hotel, made sure we were packed up because we had an eight-hour train ride the next day.
The next update will not be about that. As we said, the next update is our time in Ireland.
Jen: Yeah, we saw the Cliffs of Moher, went to Belfast. So there's good content on that one too!
Greg: For sure. So stay tuned and thanks for checking in!
Jen: And we'll see you at the next stop!
**Don’t forget to click HERE to look at pictures from our time in the Scottish Highlands**
