Inverness Railway Station

We had breakfast in the hostel before making our first stop at the lake where Harry Styles filmed ‘Sign of the Times’ and saw a cool rock mountain, called the Old Man of Storr, which was shrouded in clouds. We learnt that a lot of movies are filmed in the highlands which isn’t surprising considering how amazing some of the landscapes were! We made a couple other stops for a ‘wee’ photo!

Our next stop was at a cemetery where Alexander Macqueen is buried and there was also an interesting boulder tombstone for a man who was killed by a boulder (Scottish humour!) Many of the MacDonald clan are also buried at the cemetery including Flora MacDonald. The views from the cemetery over the water were beautiful and we enjoyed a coffee while meeting some more highland cows!
We went back to Portree for lunch in the park (our favourite meal deal at the local supermarket) before jumping on the bus again and stopped at the Eileen Donan castle. This is one of the most photographed castles in Scotland and we could see why - absolutely stunning views of the surrounding water and mountains. The castle was originally built as a stronghold against the Vikings in the 15th/16th century and was later destroyed. It was rebuilt in the 1920s but they didn’t know what it would look like so they based it on imagination. Later, they found drawings of the original castle and surprisingly the replica was about 90% correct! You can get married at the castle for £30,000 for 30 minutes!!

We said goodbye to the Isle of Skye by crossing the only bridge out of Skye. The locals originally didn’t want the bridge to be built because they wanted to stay isolated and away from the mainland but now many people use the bridge to travel to and from the Isle of Skye.

Today, Cara told us many more interesting facts and stories on the coach along the way, including:
- Loch Klunie is a lake which sits over old houses. In summer, the water level is low enough to see the tops of some houses.
- There is lots of deforestation in Scotland because timber is biggest export. There is now a new law that they need to plant two trees for every tree cut down. There is currently 16% forestry in Scotland and aiming to be 25% by 2035 (it used to be 96% forest many years ago). There have been a lot of effort put into achieving this goal including the introduction of tubes for planting trees (which stop the deers eating the young trees and so the trees can grow up straight).
- The shooting season is for one month per year to control over population of various animals.
- Scotland used to have wolves, bears and lynx which became extinct around 300 years ago. They are talking about reintroducing these animals because deer are a huge problem for them.
- Scotland is currently at over 90% renewable energy. The aim is to be at 100% by 2035 (they are on track to achieve this with wind turbines and hydro electric dams).

We made our final stop of the day at the author of Peter Pan’s house, which had a beautiful backdrop and surroundings. It was ‘Whisky Wednesday’ so we tried some whisky from our driver! Very smooth and warming!

We arrived in Inverness, the capital of the Highlands! “Inver” means “In the Mouth” so it means “In the Mouth of the Loch Ness” (the Loch Ness is just close by and we will visit it tomorrow!) We checked into the hostel and then went out for dinner with the 3 Aussie girls. Daniel was brave enough to try a food challenge to eat £35 ($70) of food in 35min - if he finished it in the time then the meal was free. It consisted of a 4 patty cheese and bacon burger, loaded chilli con carne fries, chicken wings, 2 corn cobs, kaleslaw and a 1L milkshake…unfortunately he fell short by two meat patties, but the restaurant was kind enough to give a 50% discount for a great effort!!

We then went on a much needed walk around town to work off all that food and played some cards with the others at the hostel before calling it a night.Read more