Life Update Blog🍂 To Scotland and Back Again (Patreon)

Hello my loves!🍂  Swooping in with the monthly blog!  Sorry I am a little late with this one!  I kept putting it off due to the oodles of other things I'm juggling, and I knew it was going to be a BIG one!  Here is the SCOTLAND TRIP BLOG! (warning, it is a long one, but there are pictures!)

Early October I took a trip to Scotland with my best friend, Cassandra, known as Qrinta online if you have seen her in twitch chat! We've been buds since the 6th grade, every 5ish years try and get together for a best friend trip!   This time, we decided on Scotland, and specifically we wanted to do a RAILWAY trip.  

Edinburgh

I flew into Edinburgh a day before and had most of the day to get acquainted with the city on my own.  This city is absolutely MAGICAL.  I did not expect Edinburgh castle to be a GIANT ROCK FORTRESS on top of a HUGE VOLCANIC ROCK in the middle of the city!  

After checking into my accommodation for the night (we’ll get to that later),  I popped over to Victoria St. to check out what inspired Diagon Alley, tried a deep fried mars bar.  

The experience of eating a deep fried mars bar was very much "okaaaay, this is fine.  Kinda good...." but then the more the taste settles in your mouth and stomach, the more your thought changes to "... okay, one bite is enough... I probably don't need the rest.  lol".  They will make you absolutely sick, but when in Scotland, you gotta try it, or so I had been told! 

That night  I retired to my humble abode, which consisted of a cubby hole in a 20 person dormitory.  And it was quite a splurge for my own private cubby!  I got my own private led lights and usb chargers!  

The next day, I picked up Cassandra from the airport, and we headed to a tour of Edinburgh castle!  It was quite a chilly, rainy and blustery day, especially on the top of a rock fortress, but I despite that the sun did peak out a little bit and it was a beautiful day!  I LOVE walking tours, and listening to the retellings of history that happened in old places like castles, so doing a tour up through Edinburgh castle was my jam!

Afterwards we did a bit more exploring of Edinburgh that day before turning in to prepare for our RAIL JOURNEY to start the next day!

Edinburgh to Glasgow to ....?

The next morning we boarded the train to Glasgow where we would change trains onto the spectacular West Highland line to Fort William.  (some of these names are going to start sounding very familiar to you Outlander fans).

The train ride from Edinburgh to Glasgow was fairly quick and uneventful.  It was a bit rainy, but not nearly so much rain as to prepare us for what was to come.  Once in Glasgow we had about an hour to wander around before needing to be back at the station to board the next train.  So we took a quick jaunt around the well known George Square and snapped a few photos of statues with cones on their heads.  

Back at the station we waited for a bit... and then a bit longer... and then a bit longer.... and then..... the train was CANCELLED.  Not just our train was cancelled but ALL of Scott Rail trains were CANCELLED.  Yes, we were on a railway tour of Scotland and there was not a train to be had!

Fortunately, I was not in charge of this trip, so I just moseyed around while our guide stressed about arranging transport to our next location.  The next thing I know, we are trekking out into the rain to wait for a bus that is HOPEFULLY coming to get us.  We waited for about 30 minutes, but it did eventually arrive and we loaded aboard.  

This bus did NOT take us to Fort William.  

Instead, we ended up in a beautiful, though seemingly in the middle of no where TINY station called Crian Larich.  We were told by a man heavily accented man who was frequently slipping into Gaelic, that he thinks there is a train coming.  Very hopeful.

Much to our relief, a train did eventually show up, though didn't take off right away, as the conductor needed to take a 30 minute lunch break before we could move out.  I don't know why, but that little detail on top of the whole situation just makes me giggle. because of course!

Finally, once the conductor was rested and had a full tum tum, we were off!  

Looking back, I treasure this train journey because, little did I know at the time, it would be the last train journey of our entire railway tour of Scotland.

The train took us up through the highlands, passing lovely grassy fields, forests, rolling hills, wetlands, and many many sheep.

We arrived at our hotel in Fort William in the evening and promptly passed out from an exhausting day of travel.

Oban and Duart Castle

The next day was a bus day to the town of Oban.  While we waited for a ferry to the Isle of Mull, I bought some boots from a local shoe store and we took a little hike up to this castle wall.

We then took a ferry to the Isle of Mull.  

It was a VERY rainy and gray day, but we could make out the shape of Duart Castle through the rain.  It felt a little spooky.  Approaching the ominous castle on a stormy day felt a little like the beginning of a scary movie.  We took a little tour through the interior of Duart Castle and learned a bit about the ancestral home of the MacLean Clan.  

Loch Linnhe

The next day was full of traveling to see a a few scenic locations and a little cruise on Loch Linnhe, where we got to see some lounging seals.  In my opinion the boat got waaaay too close to the poor seal family, but luckily they didn't seem spooked.  

At the end of this day is when we visited a truly magical place that may have been the highlight of the whole trip for me.  

Glen Coe

We drove into what I would have called a wide canyon, but apparently it is called a "GLEN".  The scenery in this place seemed unreal and yet also exactly what you might think of when you think "Scottish Highlands".  Even as I saw it in front of my own two eyeballs in person, I could hardly believe how stunning it was.  I would visit Scotland again, just to come back to this place and spend more time here.  

There is a walking path called "The West Highland Way," which is 96 miles and runs from Glasgow to Fort William.  Part of this path runs through Glen Coe.  If I visited again, I would probably want to walk the section of the trail that runs through this magical glen.  

Do you think that cottage is for sale?

Mallaig

Unfortunately the next day in the trip was a bit disappointing, but also kind of interesting in it's own way.  It was the day that we were scheduled to ride the Jacobite Steam Train but since Scotrail was shut down, that didn't happen,  and we took a bus ride to a little town called Mallaig.  

Because the bus ride was faster then the train, we had extra time in this little town and it was very rainy, so we were directed to the "coffee shop".  

Well, when we stepped into said coffee shop, it didn't seem like a typical cafe and more like a tight knit community cafeteria.  Connected to this cafeteria were low-cost dormitories, and a used book store that was just a room with piles of old books, cds, and dvds.  

In the cafeteria, everyone spoke Gaelic to each other, and I definitely got the sense that this was the type of establishment that was truly meant to serve the locals.  While, we decided that we'd like to explore this little town a bit more rather then grab a table, I do kind of love stepping into places like this to get a sense of these small little tight knit communities.

After our stop here, we set out for Inverness

Inverness 

Inverness is a beautiful little city with the river Ness running through it.  Because of all the rain, the river was ROARING.  Some locals said they had never seen the water level so high.  Leave it to me to visit Scotland during record rainfall.

Anyway, near Inverness is the famous Loch Ness.  We took a little cruise on Loch Ness which shockingly wasn't cancelled despite the rain flooding the little under-road tunnel that we had to walk to get to the dock.  An sweet man was sweeping the flooded water out of our path to give us time to run through without getting our feet soaked.  

The cruise was very wet, but I was too motion sick to stay inside the boat, so we braved the rain!  We arrived at Urquhart Castle, which is a ruined castle.   I LOVE castles and I LOVE ruins!

Afterwards we visited the battlefield Culloden, where we learned more about the Jacobite rebellion, the lead up to the battle, and then the battle itself.  We also walked the fields and view some of the monuments.

Eilean Donan Castle

The next day we visited one of the most picturesque castles I've ever seen and it also happened to be a beautiful day where the sun actually peaked out from behind the clouds.  

We technically also crossed over to the Isle of Skye, buuuuut, we didn't see any of the Isle itself, only the bridge unfortunately.  So that is another reason I may need to visit Scotland again.

Despite no train rides, we did still drive through some beautiful scenery, such as Glen moriston!  Look at these gorgeous low hanging clouds over the glen!

Inverness to Edinburgh

This day was a long drive back to Edinburgh through generally lovely scenery with more fields of sheep.  At a lunch stop on the way, I did finally get to see a Highland Cow, so I would call that a successful Scotland trip!

If you made it this far and read through my whole trip, I commend you!  

Some takeaways I have for visiting Scotland: 

• If you are traveling by rail, consider going at a time that isn't the ULTIMATE rainy season (I know it is tough to avoid the rainy season altogether in that country, but maybe there is a LESS rainy season.)  
•  I think the best way to visit may be to actually rent a car or a caravan.  It would have been nice to be able to linger and stay in a few areas like Glen Coe that really caught our attention.  I also thing there are many more castles and ruins sprinkled around Scotland that we missed because we were on a strict schedule.  If we had a car and were in more control of our time tables, it would have been cool to see some of those.

But all and all, we saw some beautiful places and I feel like it was a lovely introduction to Scotland, despite the train cancellations and rain! 

Have any of you visited Scotland?  Do you know of some "MUST SEE" locations that I missed?