The Highlands

Hey everyone,
Our last week in Edinburgh was really good - we finished up at work and said goodbye to everyone. On Tuesday night we had a big party at the flat for Jack's birthday. Kye and I made a chocolate cake (made largely of melted chocolate, eggs and sugar) in the shape of a J. We ended up with about 60 people in our little living room!

The next morning we awoke to find that nothing in the flat worked (hot water...heating...oh and the heater leaked into the flat below us because someone sat on it...) so we were glad to be leaving the next day. We celebrated Jack's birthday in true style by going to the hospital and giving our blood and peeing in a tray for Eline's study, it was possibly on par with my birthday which was spent with little kids peeing on us in a train.

On Thursday we hired a car and set off around Scotland. Jack was very happy to be behind the wheel again. We drove west past Glasgow and hugged the coast the whole way up north. We spent the first night in Fort William and woke up early to climb Britain's largest peak, 'Ben Nevis'. We only made it half way up the mountain before abandoning efforts due to the fact that we could barely see our own hands through the fog, and we definitely couldn't feel them due to the cold. We found a really beautiful loch though and enjoyed jumping in the snow.

That afternoon we drove up to the Isle of Skye which is full of beautiful mountains and sea views. We picked up some hitchhikers who had heaps of local knowledge and showed us some secluded beaches. By now we were well off the beaten track...all the roads were single track and windy. It was really nice to travel outside of the tourist season because we had all of the highlands to ourselves.

After spending the night on Skye we drove further up north, each town we drove through became more remote until we decided that they were possibly uninhabited. This was perhaps not the best time to run out of petrol. We noticed we were low while driving along the north coast, unfortunately every town we drove through either had no shops or had a little petrol shanty that was...closed (it was a Sunday). After driving with the little petrol light on for about 50 miles we finally found some people and asked where we could get petrol. A crazy old man then got into the back of our car and told us he would give us a gallon of petrol if we came up the road and had a cuppa with him. This seemed like the best option and we took him to his house (although he forgot where it was a few times) and had a cup of tea (although he forgot about the tea a few times too). Malcolm was very nice and glad to have made some friends, he was a war veteran and said he was shot down on the Dutch border. He gave us a holy bible and book about spitfires, and a gallon of fuel. After a little while we said goodbye and continued along the coast. We made it up to the northern most part of the British mainland and then turned around and went back again, Forest Gump style.

The next day we made it further down the east coast to Loch Ness and Jack went swimming (in the freezing cold) with a toy monster. The Loch was beautiful. We also visited some ancient tombs from about 4000 years ago and a battle field where the Jacobites were defeated, and slaughtered, by the English in the 1700s. We tried to visit the Castle of Cawdor (my inner nerd just had to see the setting of Macbeth!) but it was closed for the winter...apparently the Cambells still live there in the winter time.

Then, yesterday afternoon, we drove back to Edinburgh to pack our stuff and say goodbye (again). The Highlands were so beautiful, everywere we went we just had to point the camera and snap and we got a postcard worthy picture. The extortionate AU $2.30 cost for fuel was subsidised by the fact that we slept in the car and lived largely off a loaf of wholemeal bread and some salami. I will try to never complain about the coast of petrol in Australia again! Tonight we are having another party (in a club this time because our flat didn't handle the last one too well) and then first thing tomorrow morning it's goodbye Scotland, Hello Amsterdam!