In search of Nessie

Hi, it's G. here.

Spring has well and truly sprung in Edinburgh and all the various Spring cliches are dutifully parading about. Birds are twittering energetically, trees have sprouted zillions of deliberately green leaves and the grass in our yard is now about a foot tall. I'm going to have the crack out the mower from the shed sometime soon. With some reservations, however, as it one of these 'no-wheel, floats on a cushion of air' type electric mowers that seem to be very popular over here. It's like the mower from the future. (Note: since I wrote the preceding paragraph, I have done the mowing. Also, I broke the mower.)

The days are also getting ridiculously long - it's not fully dark until about 9:30pm and I'm having trouble dealing with it. Having grown up and mostly lived in a place a lot closer to the equator, so much day seems unnatural. I just can't get my head around it.

The great thing about Spring, though, is that we are getting some cracklingly great weather. The Easter weekend and the following weekend were spectacular, and we were fortunate to have Ma and Pa Mc. stay with us over that time and so some really nice driving trips were had.

On Good Friday we went to a place called Pitlochry, re-christened by Kitty as 'Dud-lochry', which is located about 30 miles north of Perth. The weather hadn't quite turned it on for us at that point, which lessened the appeal of the countryside somewhat, although we still passed through some lovely country. Pitlochry itself, although little more than village sized, was quite busy and touristy in a sold out commercial type of way, hence the renaming. Having parked in town (and having to pay for the privilege) we walked to a hydro-electric station on the river nearby. I'm not sure why now, exactly, but it had a fish ladder for salmon, with an explanation of how it worked, so now I finally know. I'd had visions of seeing salmon hurling themselves upstream, shimmering in the sunlight, however was disappointed because a) the fish travel underwater through a series of chambers connected by pipes and b) it was overcast.

Travelling further north, we came to a place called Killiecrankie, where a famous battle had been fought between red coats and jacobite supporters in the year something or other (look, this blog is for entertainment purposes only. If you want facts, go to wikipedia. Or whatever). There was a visitor information centre near a lovely gorge, so I asked the lady behind the counter if she had a map of the walking trails nearby. She pointed to a display of folded leaflets, so I took one, only discovering after I was outside that it only covered areas south of where we were. We didn't really need it anyway and went for nice little walk that include watching a steam train come up the gorge. Very pretty. As a further note, it was only when we were about to head back about half an hour later that I noticed the sticker on the front of the map: £1.50.

I went back to info centre to return the map and apologise for my inadvertent theft. The lady was really nice about it, even offering the to give it to me for free. I said, 'No, that's ok. We won't be back.' In hindsight, this may have come across as me being rude.

The next day we went to Falkirk, more specifically the Falkirk wheel, and then on to Stirling castle. The Falkirk wheel is a most ingenious device that allows movement of boats between the Forth and Clyde canals. It replaces a series of 11 locks that used to connect the canals but now have nearly all been removed or filled in. The wheel itself is a brilliantly elegant piece of engineering. Take a look at http://www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk/about/history.html to see how it works. It's nifty.

Stirling castle was great, not the least because you could drive all of the way to the entrance and then only get slugged £2 for parking, which is surprisingly good considering how these touristy places normally operate. The castle had all of the usual Scottish-y castle-y things, ties to Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, inumerable King James's etc. Good views over Stirling country, including a very bendy Forth river and also the Wallace Monument, which we visited afterwards.

There is a bit of a climb up to the monument, but we didn't venture inside as the admission price was a bit optimstic. The only real attraction was that you could see William Wallace's sword, however the lure of this was not strong enough to outweigh our fiscal rectitude. (Thought projection: walk up to William Wallace's sword.....Yep, it's a sword. That was money well spent)

On Easter Monday we headed south, with the highlight being a visit to Melrose Abbey. It had a really powerful atmosphere. As C. succintly puts it, 'It was big'.

The working week passed uneventfully, apart from Ma and Pa Mc.'s ever increasing fixation with Sainsbury's and delight expressed about shopping at same.

On the weekend, we went well and truly into the highlands- Glencoe, Fort William, Glen and Ben with their respective Nevises, Loch Ness and (passed through) Inverness.

The landscape leading up to and in Glencoe is truly spectacular, and I've a feeling that our timing was perfect to get the most out of it. Cloudless sunny days, cool not cold, but still snow on the mountains, and before the peak tourist season, when it probably is impossible to get a park at viewing areas. The lochs as well were stunningly beautiful.

We stayed in a B&B at Fort William on Saturday night after eating out at a pub/restaurant. Pa Mc. and I decided to have a particular dark ale, which turned out to be not available so we were offered one 'just like it'. It was called 'Kelpie'. Kelpie was nice but had a certain je ne sais quoi in the aftertaste. It was only much later that a connection was made - Kelpie- kelp a.k.a seaweed, specifically bladderwrack seaweed. I had read about it in the pub menu located in the B&B lounge earlier that evening. I suspect the seaweed we saw/smelt rotting in the sun on the loch shore that day was the same variety as what was in the beer. Hard to imagine how the idea came about, that someone could squelch over the ponging weed and think, 'Yeah, this'd go great in beer!'

The next day we went up a gondola (fun) at the Glen Nevis ski centre. It was the last day of the season and there were a few die hards working the last patch of snow way up on the top of the range.

Further on we came to Loch Ness, but surprisingly and disappointingly, no sign of Nessie. Rats.

On the banks of Loch Ness we visited the ruins of Castle Urquhart, which was pretty good. Nice view, foreshore (i.e. for sure. Sorry, Scottish humour there). The historical display in the information centre attached to the castle had an audio demonstration where you could press a button to hear certain words spoken in Scots Gaelic. One of the words was 'Urquhart', which sounded like Klingon, something like 'Ooroo-ku-tay'. Since then, it has not been uncommon for Kitty or me to suddenly say 'Ooroo-ku-tay' completely at random. (You had to be there.)

We made it to Inverness and then straightaway headed back home, uneventfully. It was a great weekend and I can't wait to get back up there and throw a line in one of the lochs.

Can't be bothered to put photos in this post in the appropriate places. Too much fiddling around. C. will do another post shortly with photos and captions.

Bye for now.