Another fun-filled weekend

On Saturday, we all woke up nice and early for our 2-day, 1-night tour of the Scottish highlands. You know, Braveheart and the like. The tour was also to take us to Loch Ness (of Loch Ness monster fame) and and the foot of Britain's tallest peak, Ben Nevis.

The tour party was made up of ourselves, a Korean girl and her mum, and six Spaniards (3 couples). So it was a cosy group, and the tour guide was also quite friendly so we were all looking forward to the tour.

To be quite honest, a lot of the tour is a blur to me, because the windy roads and lack of sleep meant that it was quite hard to stay awake - but the Scottish Highlands is a simply beautiful place to go to and some of the views there are spectacular. Here are some pics, roughly in chronological order.

This is us in the tour bus. It was small-ish, but was comfortable and quite cosy.

Some castle (not sure which one - could be Doune Castle?)

Another beautiful view. Loch Lochy I think this one is. The water was so still, the reflections of the light off the water are stunning.



The place we took these pics is called Glen Coe.

The photo doesn't really do it justice, because of the cloud - but this is Ben Nevis, the tallest peak in Britain. It's impossible to capture the scale of the way things looked from photos unfortunately.

That night, we stopped by in Inverness, the capital of the highlands and had dinner. As usual, we were unable to find a place to eat very quickly and in the end stopped by at another Indian restaurant. Inverness is quite a small, but pretty place - however, my memory of the place will always be coloured by a recollection of running into Dino's shoulder and having my eye squashed. But I digress.

That night we stayed at this gorgeous little bed and breakfast run by a small, nervous old lady called Molly. She was a dear and helped us to find our way around the city and indeed the country by way of some maps on her walls.

The next morning, we went to Glen Affric and walked along a trail there, taking us into yet more beautiful wilderness.

After that, we went to Urqhart Castle. The owners of the castle blew it up themselves when the enemy approached, rather than have it fall into enemy hands. It's been a ruin for centuries.

Skilled readers may recognise this structure as a trebuchet.

The sign speaketh truth.

"Who's that lad in nappies?"

Duy went for a swim in the Loch, but the rest of us stayed dry. Sa took the normal approach and played with some swans. They're white. Weird, no?

Well, my iPod battery has died now, so that's it for the photos. I'll upload a better pic of Loch Ness later. And no, we didn't see any monster - the loch looked as calm as anything.

Take care everyone - hope to see you soon.

Jinn