Edinburgh/Travel to Oban

We woke up in our hostel in Edinburgh and walked to St Andrew’s Square taking in our first views of Scotland’s capital.

At the square, we boarded a bus for our ‘Highland Fling Tour’ with a company called Haggis Adventures which is taking us on a 5 day overland tour of the Scottish highlands. Gab did a tour with Haggis Adventures 9 years when she was on exchange and had a great time meeting young people, seeing incredible sites and trying whiskey! The demographic of people on our "backpacker" tour was different to what we were expecting- we found out that our tour was combined with another tour company's tour for this trip so that means our group of around 30 people include much older couples as well as a 5 year old and another family with teenage boys. Not what we were expecting but I'm sure we will have a great time!!

Our tour leader and driver, Cara, chatted to us over the microphone on the coach on the way out of Edinburgh and told us stories about Scotland including stories about the life of Mary Queen of Scots and William Wallace and stories of battles between Scotland and England (of which there were many!)

All throughout the day, Cara told us a number of interesting stories and facts along the way including that:
- The unicorn is the Scottish national animal because a unicorn is the only thing said to have defeated a lion (and the English's national animal is a lion!) Scotland is the only country to have a mythical creature as its national animal.
- Scotland has three official languages: English, Broad Scots and Scottish Gaelic.
- Highland cows (pronounced coos by the Scotts) are traditionally black but Queen Elizabeth I loved the light brown coloured cows (called ginger) so the farmers bred more of the ginger ones to please her. They are now more common.
- Highland cows have 180 degree vision from each eye (even though it looks like they can't see under their fringes!)
- Mountains in Scotland over 3000 ft are called Monroes. There are 268 Monroes in Scotland and some people try and climb them all (the successful ones are called "completists").
- Little lochs (lakes) are called lochettes.

Cara took us to our first stop - the Kelpies. These are large sculptures of two horses which stand at around 40m high. They are very impressive! They were created as a tribute to commemorate the Clydstale (???????) horses which are the world's strongest horses and they played a huge role in Scotland's industrial revolution in the 1800s. They are called kelpies because kelpies are the name of Scottish mythical creatures which in the water look like eels but when they are not in the water, they look like large white horses (like the statues).

As we progressed along the way to the highlands, our next stop was just outside of the town of Calendar, the gateway to the highlands, where we got to meet some highland cows called Honey, Hamish and Baxter! Our favourite was Honey and we got to feed her carrots and potatoes!

We then then stopped in the town of Killin for a short walk to the Dochart Falls (which are rock formations with some water running over them under the bridge in town).

We made a stop at Tyndrum for lunch at a diner alongside the main road in the highlands. We enjoyed a yummy burger and an interesting haloumi and honey toastie which was also delicious.

We made a quick photo stop for photos of mountains which are called 'The Three Sisters' (who knew there are also three sisters on the other side of the world?!) Cara also provided the Scottish "delicacy" of the day which was a tea cake each. They are marshmallows covered by chocolate - very delicious!

Our final stop of the day was in Glencoe at the visitor centre, where we were able to see a traditional highland house from the 1700s. It is made of weaved bamboo style timber and layered with ‘turf bricks’ which are effectively mud bricks and then the roof is thatched. These houses are no longer made but this one was constructed in 2021 as example for visiting travellers.

Clara also told us about the Glencoe massacre. Jacobites were people who were supporters of King James, the Crown and Catholicism (as opposed to King William who was Protestant). In the 1600s, the people were asked to claim allegiance to King William. Ian MacDonald (of the MacDonald clan) in Glencoe did not pledge allegiance. King William asked the Campbell clan to stay with the MacDonalds for 2 weeks (due to a tradition called "Highland hospitality", the MacDonalds were obliged to host the Campbells and feed and house them while they were travelling). At that time, King William told the Campbells to kill everyone under age of 17years old in the MacDonalds clan. 38 people died from sword but another 60 died from cold from running to the mountains to escape the massacre. Because of this massacre, there is a saying in Scotland: "Never trust a Campbell" (which apparently is still used today).

We arrived in our hostel in Oban, a beautiful seaside village at around 6pm. We went out for a walk to explore the seaside town. We initially went up the mountain (called Battery Hill) which overlooks the town for a spectacular view from the old castle (called McCraig's Tower). We descended back down into the main town to get some traditional fish and chips for dinner.

We sat on the seaside and enjoyed the delicious fish and chips (it was ‘haddock’ fish) before going for a nice long walk along the water and enjoying the 10pm sunset over the water and watching a few tug boats come into the harbour.

We made our way back to the hostel for a quick shower and met our room mates who are 3 Aussie girls in their 20s travelling around Europe. After chatting to them for a bit, we went to sleep after a busy day! Even though we had been on the bus a lot during the day, we still managed to get in over 20k steps each for the day (for about the 5th day in a row)!Read more