Our trip started on Sunday evening. Although the tour didn't start until Monday we still needed to get to Edinburgh somehow. After careful consideration we opted for the overnight bus option because it was only 20 pounds and it meant we wouldn't have to pay for an extra nights accommodation. Great idea right? HA. Idiots. After our 12 hour journey and one solid hour of sleep we arrived in Edinburgh. Then it was straight to the Haggis office to sign in and hop back on another bus. It became apparent immediately that our guides were going to be super funny and entertaining. Unfortunately it seemed the rest of our group was going to be painfully irritating. There were a couple of kiwis and Americans who were ok but the hoard of obnoxious Queenslanders were almost unbearable. I swear sometimes I am downright ashamed to be Australian. Only in the company of bogans though. ANYWAY our first stop was the Wallace Memorial. Wallace = Mel Gibson in Braveheart. In case you're ignorant like me. To be honest I can't remember a whole lot about him. So much information was thrown at me over the 3 days that once I reached a certain point any new info pushed out something I had previously learned. One thing that I do recall is that when he was executed they castrated him and then shoved the... ahhhh... well... WHAT they removed down his throat. Way harsh. After that we went on a wee hike through Glencoe, saw some castles (the ones were Highlander and Monty Python were filmed) and a F%@!LOAD of Lochs. We also went to a whiskey distillery which sounds like fun... but wasn't. The guy who did the tour clearly hated life and us. Apparently that was just his dry sense of humour. Sure. It's a shame because some of what he was saying was actually quite interesting. Like did you know that when they put whiskey into barrels to age it they purposely put it into a barrel which has been use to make some other kind of alcohol previously so it can impart its flavour into the whiskey. True story. It's just unfortunate that his look of "i want to kill you" was so unnerving. It was still a great day though. A great EXHAUSTING day. By the time we finally got to be we had been awake for a whopping 36 hours. I blame this entirely on the guides. Their number one rule was "no sleeping on the bus"... Stupid rule. If they caught you they'd scream into the microphone or blast some 'rage against the machine'. Evil. So needless to say when we arrived at our hostel and had a choice between boozing and participating in the pub quiz or sleeping... we slept. oh boy did we sleep. Not for long though...
Our mornings started 7.00am. Hideous. Our second day was spent in Skye. Lots of wide open spaces and tales of Faeries and Giants. They were mystical explanations of how the land was formed. Kinda like the Scottish equivalent to Dream Time stories I guess. There were the Lonely sisters who turned into mountains, the grieving man whose tears formed a river and the elderly couple who were turned to stone forming a pretty incredible rock formation. Elfin the Elf king was generally responsible. He was a cheeky bastard. Note to self: Don't make deals with Elfin. He is smarter than you and WILL turn you into a rock.
On the Final day we went to Loch Ness to find Nessy. Finally. They made us do a Loch ness Haka to encourage the beast to show itself. In reality they probably just wanted us to make fools of ourselves. A bunch of tourists standing on the bank of the Loch screaming and pounding their chests. Genius. It was kinda hard though. I didn't quite get the choreography down before we had to move on. Perhaps that's why she didn't show up. Whoops. On the way back to Edinburgh we listened to old Scottish tunes and Chris and Andy's incessant bad jokes. They played one song (Caledonia by Dougie Maclean) man... It really choked me up. And I'm not even Scottish. It was just the beautiful landscape and knowing that we would soon be returning to the hustle and bustle of London town which made it so easy to get caught up in the moment. Three days really just wasn't enough. I will miss the way they say "wee". And the way Chris said "bing bing" after all of his announcements over the speaker. Classic.
We got back to Edinburgh around 6pm and then got our bus home at 10pm. I arrived in London 6.40am the following morning. Looking like shite and hating life. But it was all worth it.
So. That's the tale of my 5 days in Scotland and 35ish hours on a bus.
No public transport for a week.
xx
