Scotland - A weekend away

After an unsurprising organisational blunder saw me having to purchase a second plane ticket and Brigitte having to spend a night in Edinburgh by herself, I finally made my way North and we got our long weekend underway. It started off with a ghost tour through the streets of Edinburgh which, whilst informative and entertaining, was hardly pant-wettingly terrifying. Edinburgh is a pretty cool place though.

The next day we drove our little hire-focus to Aberfeldy in Perthshire where we did some white water rafting. I've also discovered that this sport requires balance, strength and both personal and team co-ordination. Sounds right up my alley I thought to myself. Turns out I don't really listen to directions all that well though. Meh. After a thinly veiled marriage proposal from one of the locals we made our way to a local B&B before missing dinner (if you've not eaten by 8PM in these parts it's crisps and coke for dinner).

Me in a make-shift submarine (probably paddling backwards)

The next day it was off to a local mountain called The Schiehallion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiehallion). This took a bit of effort to firstly find and secondly to climb. I had two broken toes and B had wet trainers. We soldiered on though over what seemed miles of a very steep and loose bolder field before reaching the summit. On the assent it was in turns sunny, hot, raining, hailing, snowing and very windy.

The Mountain was Grouse

The lamb ran when he saw me coming...must have thought me a kiwi.

We then drove to Fort William for the night and had a quick look around the area at the base of Ben Nevis the following morning. We then headed south-east to a little town called Callander which was pleasant and even had a chocolate shop so it ticked most of the boxes.

On our final day we headed to Loch Katrine to take a steam boat cruise with, as it turned out, a load of French school kids. I could tell they were french from their skinny leg jeans, tussled mops of hair and propensity for wearing stripey tops. The fact they were also speaking French was a lesser clue. The trip was nice if a little cold and the scenery very picturesque as always.

Brigitte hiding behind Sir Walter.

It was then of to Castle Stirling where we had a tour guided by a very enthusiastic guide and took in the history of Castle Stirling. It's actually a very interesting castle and, like most of the UK, has a fairly fascinating past. After that is was back in the car to Edinburgh and the airport.