Day 13

I woke up early today to prepare for my twelve hour tour to the Highlands of Scotland. This was one of the things I was looking forward to most when planning this trip. I checked the weather and it still looks good, for Scotland anyway.

I had to be at the bus station by 0730, so I brought everything I thought I would need with me down to breakfast. This hotel has breakfast included! It was much busier than the past hotels at this hour. Fortunately, the bus station is just up the road from the hotel and only took me five minutes to get there.

I checked in with the ladies of the tour company and was told to listen up for my bus drivers name to be called. His name is Duncan. The busses are very nice. Carry only sixteen people.

We headed north towards the Highlands and Duncan spoke most of the way with interesting and historical information about Scotland and places we drove past. This is the Queens Ferry Bridge.

This is Stirling Castle

The National Wallace Monument

Here’s the village we stopped in just before entering the Highlands area.

The rest will be all pictures of the Highlands countryside. The pictures really don’t do the area justice. But, it gives you idea of what it is like.

This is just to prove I was actually there.

It was a beautiful day!

The sheep population out number the people population in Scotland.

We arrived to Lock Ness. Part of the day tour is a boat ride on Loch Ness. So, Loch is Scottish for lake and L-O-C-K is what is pictured below. I might be corrected by my daughter-in-law, but these are homophones. Not sure if that qulifies, them being seperate languages.

These locks connect the four lochs across the Highlands area. Loch Ness accesses the North Sea and Loch Linnhe accesses the Atlantic Ocean. Through the locks and Lochs smaller vessels can avoid having to travel north around the top of Scotland. Glad you don't need keys for all that. (Dad joke)

Here's one coming in now.

We boarded the boat, which I somehow failed getting a picture. Sorry.

Our mission was to try and get a sighting of the Lock Ness Monster. I made sure to keep my eyes peeled.

A member of the crew spoke about Lock Ness and provided compelling evidence of the possibility of a Lock Ness Monster.

They actually have a screen displaying sonar of the water during the voyage. The crew member shared a screen shot of an image captured just last year that brought international media attention. Looks like something to me. Look just above the red band in the center of the picture.

I think I got the million dollar photo here. What do you think!

After the boat ride we boarded the bus and headed back to Edinburgh. We took a different route back. Here are some more pictures from along the way.

We made one last bathroom break at a place where we got a close look at a Highlands cow.

Here's a picture of the bus driver Duncan. He was really good. I still remember the name of our bus driver ten years ago me and the kids did together through Europe. Ziggy!

It was nice to have a day like today after all the walking the past week. The countryside is so beautiful. I’m grateful that we had such great weather. I saw a sign that said “There is no bad weather in Scotland, just poor choice in clothes.”

We ended up back where we started from safe and sound. I do want to suggest, if you are prone to motion sickness in the car, double up on the Dramamine. The roads are twisty-turny. I had to sit in the very back of the bus and I even I felt a bit woozy at times.

Time to rest up for the last full day of adventures. I'm looking forward to checking out all I can tomorrow in Edinburgh.