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  • Day 125

    Day 125: North to Inverness

    June 20, 2017 in Scotland ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    Time to leave Edinburgh. We headed west out of the city (taking a couple of wrong turns along the way, whoops), before heading across the Forth Road Bridge (not the UNESCO one but just nearby) and heading north into the Scottish countryside.

    First stop was about an hour in, at the town of St Andrews on the coast. It's famous of course as the home of golf, where the rules were originally laid down and where for many years the game's governing body was based. The golf links here is actually a collection of seven different courses, one of which is the famous Old Course - in use for hundreds of years.

    We took some photos and walked along the edge - the whole area is public land and you're free to just wander around (while watching for flying balls of course). Poked around the gift shops and stuff but it was all very expensive so didn't bother. I also didn't bother checking how much a round would cost; it's the old saying of "if you have to ask..."

    Back to the car where we drove through the town, which was actually surprisingly pretty! Lots of old stone buildings well-maintained, and some good parklands too. There's also a big university here, where I think Prince William might've gone to school? Maybe? I dunno.

    We drove back out of town along the beachfront golf holes, and found a small takeaway in a hut. Grabbed some food but it was pretty dire - my hot dog was awful and Shandos's toastie wasn't much better.

    Back to the car where we headed north-west, rejoining the main road as St Andrews had been a one-hour detour. Stopped again after another hour or so at the small town of Pitlochry. Quite touristy here, with lots of knick-knack shops aimed at old people and plenty of coach parking available. Though we managed to find a nice cafe and have a coffee and a large slice of cake each to make up for our pitiful lunch.

    Further north we went for another couple of hours, into the highlands and some spectacular countryside. Lots of rugged mountains, desolate moors, pine forests and deep blue lochs. The only annoying thing was the AVERAGE SPEED CAMERA sections, where in a crappy car like ours with no cruise control, you basically drive along for 10 minutes at a time, staring at your speedo rather than the road. And they don't tell you the limit, you're just expected to know that on a single-carriageway outside of town the limit is 60mph. Hopefully.

    Finally we reached Inverness, where we stopped at Tesco and picked up some supplies for the next couple of days. Our Airbnb was actually in a separate town about 20 minutes drive east of the town, so we needed to be well stocked for breakfast and the like. Checked in and found our apartment quite agreeable. It's a large old country house that was probably originally a duplex - we have one side while our host and her boyfriend and sister live in the other side.

    Microwaved Thai food from Tesco for dinner as we didn't want to go back out, and then an early night as we have a super early start tomorrow for our trip to Orkney!
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