{"id":307,"date":"2006-06-07T00:47:09","date_gmt":"2006-06-07T08:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/?p=307"},"modified":"2008-06-22T10:11:55","modified_gmt":"2008-06-22T17:11:55","slug":"jersey-to-inverness-part-i-of-a-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/?p=307","title":{"rendered":"Jersey to Inverness: Part I of a Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: pictures that go with this entry can be found here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

3 June Saturday (I think?)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Okay, so the next installment is from the first class coach of the Inverness to Newcastle train on our way back to London, but there\u2019s a reason for that.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

We left Jersey on a stunningly beautiful day. Bright clear skies, lovely little white puffy clouds, and a wind off the back end of TWO glaciers around about the Arctic Circle. I have absolutely fallen head over heels in love with Jersey and intend to come back as soon as I can for the longest I can. It\u2019s a charming community and I imagine even with the fog the weather is lovely (so long as you have a stout windbreaker).<\/p>\n

Our flight was set to leave a little after 10 and touch down at Gatwick a little after 11. I was hoping<\/u> that we would then be able to catch a train that would take us to King\u2019s Cross in time to catch the noon train to Inverness, but it was not to be. Firstly the train we caught was a whistle stop tour between Gatwick and King\u2019s Cross and secondly it was delayed. Oh well, no harm done, I was really planning on catching the 1300 from King\u2019s Cross to Inverness via Edinburgh. Yes, I am truly going native with my times, the cause of this primarily is the difficulties I\u2019m having with this keyboard. It\u2019s so much easier to put in the minimum of punctuation marks.<\/p>\n

Anyway, there we were on the 1300 from King\u2019s Cross to Edinburgh. We paid 40 pounds for the upgrade to first class and boy howdy, let me tell you, first class is the way go. Seats are wider, there is considerably more leg room and you get (on some trains that is) free wireless internet access. Despite what came next I\u2019m still firmly of the opinion that train travel is the only way to go. You\u2019re blasting along at 90-100 miles an hour, you can see where you\u2019re going, you can get up and walk around\u2026\u2026 Train travel is it.<\/p>\n

We had a bit of lunch, and I slept while Andrew worked on photographs. We didn\u2019t realize, because we weren\u2019t keeping track of time and we didn\u2019t know where we were in relationship to where we were supposed to be, that the train was ever so gradually more and more delayed though. And what we didn\u2019t realize about the Thatcher administration\u2019s privatization of the train system (that Maura had been complaining about) is that there is no more BritRail and there are no more Intercity 125 trains. So we were on a whistlestop tour stopping at every station (or at least most of them) between London and Edinburgh. So that by the time we were about half an hour from our 1740 connecting train from Edinburgh to Inverness, we were actually about 35 minutes from Edinburgh (if you understand what I mean).<\/p>\n

The Great North Eastern Railway folks went through the carriages and took a count of those of us that were likely to miss this connection so they could call ahead and let the ScotRail folks know to hold the connecting train. Very kind of them. We packed up all our stuff and were ready to leap up and run as soon as the train stopped at the Edinburgh station. And it would have worked, but our parents brought us up to have nice manners. We were seated just in front of the vestibule doors which meant that there was a luggage rack between us and the doors. Up the aisle, just as the train is slowing comes old fart and his wife. They took up their stations, one in front of the door of the carriage, the other right in front of the luggage rack, unloading every bag in the universe. I assumed they were in the same hurry that we were to catch the 1740 to Inverness. Except they weren\u2019t. They were just interested in clogging up the vestibule and standing in front of the door so that we were forced to stand there, jittering, for a very crucial 2-3 minutes until the train guard came by and told the wife that she had to push the button to open the train door.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh!\u201d she said brightly, pushed the button, let her husband off with the luggage and they wandered off aimlessly in the direction of the taxis. While we were left blasting our way through the crowds at the station just getting through the ticket gate as the 1740 to Inverness was pulling away from the platform. While we were wailing and tearing our hair, the train guard came up and told us we should go and talk to the reception people at the GNER office. We walked back in the direction she\u2019d pointed and blew into the reception office (literally, heavy winds) to tell our tale of woe to the woman behind the desk.<\/p>\n

She listened to our rant and said \u201cI\u2019d have pushed him out the way!\u201d then offered us the phone to call the White Lodge and let them know that we\u2019d be late. There was a final train from Edinburgh to Inverness, but it didn\u2019t leave for two hours and it pulled into Inverness at a little after 2300. Urgh.<\/p>\n

I could not be more impressed with the aplomb shown by Margaret and Jackie McRae, the owners of the White Lodge. You\u2019d think they were used to panicked calls from disgruntled Americans that had missed trains and were planning on showing up on their doorstep at ungodly hours of the night. They\u2019re a lovely couple, more about them later.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

So we sat at the station in Edinburgh for two hours. Gave us time to get some dinner (Cornish pastries from a shop at the station) and to sit down and get really<\/u> familiar with the terrible coffee and the construction project at the station. Andrew argued with the wireless connection which was, at times, present but unaccessable, and I alternately read and stamped around looking for a rubbish bin and\/or a wrinkly old dude in a yellow pants suit to kick.<\/p>\n

I promised Andrew I\u2019d stop ranting so I\u2019ll take this opportunity to say that if we hadn\u2019t caught the 1940 to Inverness I wouldn\u2019t have had the chance to see the red deer, the Sitka deer, the bunnies, the hares, the buzzards (a small hawk that seems to like sheep fields), and the lovely calm lake full of fishermen who were taking advantage of the on coming evening hatch. On the whole I\u2019d have preferred getting into Inverness at a decent hour, however.<\/p>\n

We pulled into Inverness, after another whistlestop tour, at a little after 2300 just as promised. The train was almost deserted by the time we got to Inverness, the station was all but closed. Dark, damp, chilly, and entirely uninviting. I had a brisk row with a machine that promised to sell me a tourist map of Inverness and probably amused the snot out of whichever security firm is watching the closed circuit TV cameras at the Inverness station, pounding on it, hitting the coin return button a dozen times or so and then falling back on calling it filthy names in whatever language I could come up with (okay, only three, Kato sensei never taught us any Japanese profanity and I didn\u2019t hang around with native Japanese speakers at the right time in my life to pick any up) and flipping it the bird when it ate my pound coin and didn\u2019t spit out a map or return my coin.<\/p>\n

Andrew called a cab while I was fighting with the useless machine and we were deposited promptly on the doorstep of 15 Bishop\u2019s Road, Inverness. The White Lodge Guest House.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Margaret McRae, I\u2019m not even going to try and translate the Gaelic for Margaret back into English, was up waiting for us. She clucked at us and hustled us upstairs to our room. The rooms we\u2019ve been getting have been progressively smaller. If we were to stay in one more British guest house in the next 10 days we\u2019d have to sleep standing up. But there were two (twin) horizontal beds with blankets and flat rectangular things that were masquerading as pillows (I was later to start referring to mine as the Highland Pillow Torture, but I\u2019ll get back to that) and it wasn\u2019t an effin\u2019 train carriage!<\/p>\n

Sleep is good. Sleep is very, very good.<\/p>\n

We did, of course, sleep right through breakfast. When we blearily made our way downstairs, Margaret met us. We had a brisk conversation about what we would be doing for the day, she gave us some pointers on how to get into town and had a chat about Gaelic. She was pleased to meet another Margaret and referred to me by the Gaelic for Margaret for the rest of our stay.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Wandered downtown across the river Ness. Pedestrian footbridge absolutely had harmonic vibrations in the wind that we were able to enhance by walking in step. MythBusters should come to Inverness and try to collapse their pedestrian bridges (or at least reinforce then so they don\u2019t collapse!). Downtown Inverness is a shell of a wonderful ancient city surrounding a core of tourist trap. The tourist section was quite helpful though, we were able to drop into a tea shop, The Lemon Tree, and get breakfast and then find the Tourist Information Center (sorry, Centre) to find out how to get where we wanted to go. Andrew finally got his proper English breakfast (I did too), of fried egg, sausage, bacon, beans, mushrooms, and grilled tomatoes with toast, marmalade, and coffee. The food was all, without a doubt, proper British tea shop food. It wasn\u2019t bad, but it was much along the lines of \u201cand if you have to keep the sandwiches fresh, wash them!\u201d Regardless, I didn\u2019t need lunch on Thursday.<\/p>\n

We had intended on going to Culloden Field on Thursday. We went to the Tourist Center, but couldn\u2019t find a tour that was leaving any time soon, so we got information about how to get there via municipal bus from the very helpful staff behind the counter. We wandered off to look for the municipal bus stop we were aimed for and promptly got butt lost. Well, not really, I did have a vague notion of where we were, but it just didn\u2019t turn out to be where we had expected to go. Oh well.<\/p>\n

Wandered around Inverness for a bit tamping down our breakfast. We wandered through the Victorian Market, a combination of Pike Place and downtown Waikiki with butcher shops and fishmongers side by side with cheesy cashmere and tartan shops and shops selling cream fudge in packages marked \u201cThanks for\u2026..(watching the cat\/dog\/house, watering the plants etc.)\u201d. It was enchanting and enchantingly awful at the same time. When we finally got back to the Tourist Center we were just before the departure time for the Jacobite tour to Culloden Field and the Clava Cairs so we hopped the tour bus.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Culloden Field doesn\u2019t actually exist. Actually where we went was the site of the battle of Culloden on Drumossie Moor. It\u2019s the site of the last pitched battle on British soil, the place where the Highland Army of Charles Stuart were plowed under by the English Army of George III and thus failed to restore a Scottish king to the throne of Scotland. In a lot of ways (I get this from our tour guide from yesterday, an utterly engaging Highland lunatic named Graham) Culloden marks the end of the Highland way of life and the vicious suppression of a culture as fierce as that of the suppression of the Japanese in the US during WWII.<\/p>\n

The battlefield is creepy. Within an hour the battle was over and almost 2000 people were dead or dying. The real kicker is that the English had orders to kill the culture as effectively as they could. As soon as they were done shooting the English army tore off across the Highlands killing and burning whatever else got in their way for a week or so. Relatives of the dead weren\u2019t allowed to retrieve the bodies from the battlefield and they, as well as the wounded, were tossed into piles and burned.<\/p>\n

The place is quite thoroughly haunted. Stones mark the spots where the pyres burned and there is rough approximation of which clans burned where. The place is a heather and gorse covered bog, incredibly rough terrain, squashy in spots, with the sounds of trickling water (apparently from nowhere) and a howling wind. Haunted, haunted, haunted.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s a gift shop at the interpretive center. Seems a little disrespectful, rather like purchasing tack-o-rama t-shirts and stuffed toys at Pearl Harbor.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I tried to find the Gordon clan stone. Those who aren\u2019t related to me and\/or haven\u2019t met my Uncle Don won\u2019t know that my mother\u2019s family (Dorwards) are a sept of the Gordon clan and there were a good number of Gordon kilted madmen waving swords at the English cannons at Culloden. We poked around and couldn\u2019t find the Gordon stone, nor even the position they\u2019d held in the Highland army line. Since we were on a time deadline I had to cut my geneologic quest short and hop it back for the bus. We took a lot of pictures and since I mentioned that I had a connection to the Gordons the nice dude behind the admission counter at the interpretive center came up with a clan newsletter which I intend to forward on to the appropriate family geneology mavens.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Next stop Clava Cairns. At least the people who were sacrificed and burned at this site were done so so far outside of living memory as to make this site less haunted. The cairn site is close to 5000 years old and while it\u2019s not as cool as Stonehenge, it\u2019s still one of those miracles of prehistoric engineering with LARGE standing stones of a type of stone not found for at least 100 miles. The tour guide pointed out that while there was considerable bird life all around the cairn site there weren\u2019t any birds directly around the cairns, something that Andrew and I had seen on our first trip to The City of Refuge on the Big Island. It again begs the question whether or not there is some sort of spiritual juju keeping the birds off the cairns, or simply whether it\u2019s racial memory on the part of the birds whose ancestors were all slaughtered for the impertinence of pooping on the cairns. The world will never know.<\/p>\n

The tour guide also told us a story that he swears is true, about the Tourist Center getting a package from Brazil containing a stone and a letter about how the author of the letter had taken the stone from the Clava Cairns and had suffered nothing but bad luck since he had taken it and would they please take it back. He swears it\u2019s true, but since we have the same sort of information about lava stones from the Big Island, I\u2019m disinclined to believe this one as thoroughly.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

We got back to Inverness a little after 5 and found (miracle of miracles) a restaurant that was willing to serve dinner before 6. By far this Italian place, just underneath the Tourist Center served us the most unremarkable meal we have had so far. Generally just by staying out of the tourist joints we\u2019ve had superb luck with food, but we were hungry, still tired, and unwilling to walk around to try and find somewhere to eat. The pasta wasn\u2019t bad, merely unremarkable. This was absolutely a tourist joint.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

An early night was called for all the way around. I was asleep by 8:30 and in the early stages of being introduced to the Highland Pillow Torture. Sleeping in strange beds with strange pillows of random numbers and degrees of fluffiness over the last ten days has started to do a job on my neck and shoulders which are touchy to begin with. The pillow that I ended up with at the White Lodge was firm. Very firm. I purchased a travel pillow from REI before we left and while that is much poofier than the Highland Pillow Torture it alone isn\u2019t tall enough to support my head and neck properly while the combination of the two was distinctly too tall. It was a frustrating night of turning pillows, squashing pillows, folding pillows, switching pillows and trying to sleep without a pillow, but we both still managed to get enough sleep.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Breakfast at the White Lodge is a thorough affair. Cereal, fruit, yogurt, and juice are out when you come down to the dining room. If you\u2019ve ordered a \u201ccooked breakfast\u201d you are then also offered porridge, and a farmhouse breakfast (egg, tomato, bacon, mushrooms, and sausage). And regardless of whether you are getting the cooked breakfast you\u2019re stuffed with toast and marmalade and coffee or tea until Margaret and Jackie are convinced you\u2019re replete. We ran across a couple from Mountlake Terrace (about 15 minutes north of our home for the non-native Washington reader) and I had a wonderful discussion with the wife about growing black currants since she was volubly enamored of the black currant jam.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Yesterday we\u2019d decided that what we really wanted to do was to take a tour around and see Loch Ness. We\u2019d decided that putting me on a boat for a tour of the Loch was a bad idea and as it turns out we were quite correct. By the time we got there yesterday there was a vicious chop and a heavy wind and I know I\u2019d have been thoroughly seasick despite the scopolamine patches. Heck, I was almost sick just watching it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

I described our tour guide as an engaging Highland lunatic. It also occurs to me that I\u2019ve described most of the people who have driven us around\/been tour guides as either madmen or lunatics. I wish to explain.<\/p>\n

Overall I have found these gentlemen to be quite personable, polite, and delightful people. Every one of them, with the exception of the Jacobite Tour guide who was much more staid and proper, has had such an utterly extroverted, upbeat type personality as to make them entirely engaging and hopelessly amusing. A useful thing in a tour guide, and genuine I hope, especially in Graham\u2019s case. It seems like it would be a really tough persona to don every day.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

And now to Graham and Canny Tours. We picked up an information pamphlet in the Tourist Center about this tour that advertised itself as taking you around the whole of Loch Ness. Started at 0930, was advertised to end at 1830. A good day\u2019s outing we thought and the price was absolutely right (25 pounds per). We got there early and sat around waiting for the bus to show up. At 0925 when we and a couple of American college girls were getting a little antsy, we wandered around the corner to find our bus, and outside it a dude in a kilt and sporran sucking on a HUGE coffee from McD\u2019s talking to a youngish looking one legged dude on crutches. Okay, that\u2019s a little surreal.<\/p>\n

Dude in the kilt seems to be in charge so he introduces himself, confirms that he is, indeed, our driver for the day and hustles us on to the bus. The bus has room for 16. There are 5 of us. This is a good thing.<\/p>\n

Graham introduced himself in between pulls on his coffee and driving. Told us that there were two C words we were not allowed to utter on his bus, \u201ccute\u201d and \u201ccold\u201d. The scenery is stunning, the animals are handsome, the wind is bracing, the water is invigorating, but nothing is either cute or cold. Graham has been driving tour busses a little too long I think. He truly seems to enjoy it, but he\u2019s got his own style that I\u2019m sure is not popular (and therefore, I am sure, is suppressed) for most regular tour busses. Turns out that he is co-owner of Canny Tours and since the other three tourists yesterday were the two college girls and the one legged (as it turns out) New Zealander, he asked and we absolutely told him we had no problem with him being himself for the day. This was also a good thing. Graham then proceeded to spend the next 9 hours telling us Highland history, Highland stories, dirty jokes, and a good deal about sheep farming, all framed in this wonderful Highland lilt, that I found I had no trouble at all understanding, interspersed with occasional bits of Gaelic, Scots English, and some occasionally very rude language that would have blanched most tourists. He was, as I discussed above, utterly extrovert, amazingly funny, and quite undeniably the best tour driver in Scotland. www.cannytours.com<\/a>. Look him up if you\u2019re ever in Inverness, he is absolutely worth it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Oh, and I forgot. As we got on the bus, Andrew and I were discussing the local bird life. We had been introduced to Jackdaws the day before (which I find charming), and along the river we\u2019d seen a fair number of Sooty Terns. I was explaining to Andrew the difference between tern bills and gull bills when the Kiwi (who was seated behind us) piped up with \u201cOh are those gulls? I thought they were albatross.\u201d I was explaining to him the difference between gulls and albatross and mentioned that both species biteth like crocodiles. Graham asked what we were talking about and when I told him we were talking about gulls he replied \u201cGulls?! They\u2019re bloody pterodactyls!\u201d which I thought was pretty amusing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Where did we go? Everywhere. We went back to Clava Cairns, we went back to Culloden and heard a great deal about Scottish history on the way. Graham started with Robert the Bruce, went through Mary Queen of Scots (describing her as \u201ca bit loose in the knickers\u201d), ended up at James I (\u201ca nice Protestant boy\u201d) as we pulled into Culloden and went through James II, James III and the Stuart Restoration as we were standing on the battlefield. We drove from there to Loch Ness where we met up, on a completely windblown beach, with a buddy of Graham\u2019s who has dedicated his life to living on this beach scanning the loch with binoculars and sonar equipment for Nessie. We didn\u2019t see the monster, nor did we purchase any of the plasticine Nessie statues that this friend was selling to help finance his lifestyle. For some reason there was a HUGE turnip bobbing along a few feet off the beach. Loch Ness monster bait?<\/p>\n

We drove up into the mountains on the west side of the loch seeing more red and Sitka deer on the way. Graham took us up some scary looking logging type roads, stopping at one incredibly beautiful spot to let us out and give us a demonstration of traditional Highland dress. He had eight yards (the appropriate amount for a great kilt and plaid) of naturally dyed, felted Highland wool cloth. The one legged Kiwi (for the record I only describe him as one legged because of events to come later) volunteered to be the model for the day and so was lain down on the pleated plaid. Graham told him he had to close his eyes for the next bit and when he refused Graham told him \u201cOh please do, otherwise you\u2019ll get a view of Scotland that you really weren\u2019t expecting!\u201d a statement that was made clear when, in getting the plaid done up and belted, he had to step over the Kiwi\u2019s prone body. I did mention that Graham was wearing a kilt didn\u2019t I?<\/p>\n

We drove way<\/em> up into the mountains at the north end of the Loch, went wandering around in the glens and glades past the north end then stopped in the town outside Fort Augustus for lunch. Quick stop at the grocery store for cheese, bread, fruit, and cans of haggis (oh man, y\u2019all absolutely will not believe these cans of haggis). The cheese, bread, and fruit were delightful; we did not eat the haggis. I don\u2019t think anyone was meant to eat canned haggis. Its fate is going to be that of the Spam I\u2019m sure, merely a conversation piece, unless someone is a truly hardy soul. Do me a favor, if any of you ever actually want<\/em> to open one of these things, let me know so I can arrange to be in the next county well beforehand. I decline to say more.<\/p>\n

We also resisted the \u201cNessie Nougat\u201d although it was a very close thing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Anyway, a lovely lunch beside the canal and the locks that run from Loch Ness north into a second loch whose name I don\u2019t recall, then a wild trip way up into the mountains on the northeast corner of Loch Ness ending at the castle where the first part of Highlander was filmed. It has a name, but at the moment I don\u2019t recall it, nor do I remember exactly where the information pamphlet that has the name is. It\u2019s the ancestral seat of Clan McRae, okay? Look it up somewhere.<\/p>\n

Okay, so the castle.<\/p>\n

Cool castle. Still inhabited by various McRae cheiftans (currently a minor Earl and his family), utterly photogenic. The tiniest, narrowest, stair- and doorways that I\u2019ve ever seen anywhere. No joke, I was having to walk sideways at times and Andrew was hunched pretty much the whole time we were indoors. We went outdoors fairly quickly, being pretty much uninterested in the history of Clan McRae which is mostly what the interior exhibits in the castle are centered around. The outdoors was much more interesting and the wind was absolutely invigorating. Really. I\u2019m not just trying to avoid using the word \u201ccold\u201d, although it was a bit chilly (neener), it was just that we had been sitting on a bus most of the day and the wind did blow the cobwebs away. And my hat, and my hair, and I swear I saw a rock picked up off the beach and blown away. Mmmm, bracing!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

At some point on the way back down the road from the castle, in the middle of a story about a giant poet (that is, a giant that was a poet, not just an enormous poet) named Oblan, Graham interrupted himself, said \u201cOh! Hang on a minute!\u201d and started to hum the Imperial March from Star Wars into his microphone. As we passed another tour bus going in the opposite direction he made an incredibly rude gesture out the window and flashed them his chest. When we all stopped laughing he went on with his story but we stopped him and demanded an explanation. I would like to note that Graham had, up until that point, been enthusiastically positive about all other tour guides and had waved politely to all the other busses that we passed. Turns out that this particular company is corporate owned and has the nasty habit of finding out the itineraries of independent tour companies then offering the very same tour at a few pounds less per head and driving the independents out of business. Now the best part of this is that Canny Tours has gotten complaints from this company about the attitude that their drivers show to the drivers of this company\u2019s busses, but since Graham and his partner are the only drivers and also the owners of the business they can, with straight faces, say \u201coh yes, we\u2019ll talk to our drivers about that\u201d and then ignore the complaints completely. It\u2019s an utterly devious, entirely Scottish scheme and I love it. We asked why he didn\u2019t moon them, he said that he\u2019d done it a few times, but his bus \u201cends up getting a view of the tackle\u201d and he didn\u2019t think that was quite polite. You absolutely have to meet this guy if you\u2019re ever in Inverness.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

We stopped at a community center in some small village outside Castle Urquhart along the eastern edge of Loch Ness. It was a little confusing because here is this absolutely nowhere town and we pull into a gravel parking lot outside a very deserted community center whose restrooms have won the \u201cBest Loo of the Year\u201d award for 2006. Seems a little elaborate for a potty stop, but whatever I guess. Graham kicked us all of the bus and said \u201cnow here\u2019s where you get what you can\u2019t get with the bigger tours\u201d and proceeded to lead us off through the trees along what had to be a well known local hike, but absolutely couldn\u2019t be known to the larger tour companies. In and out of trees, wonderful quiet Scottish forest above the river Ness ending up underneath an abandoned bridge above a waterfall. The one legged Kiwi was in his element. We were on top of a rock ledge above the river and he turned to Graham and asked \u201cDoes anyone ever go down there?\u201d When Graham confirmed that yes, people frequently did go down to the river and even went whitewater rafting along the falls, the Kiwi couldn\u2019t be stopped. He, Graham, and the two college girls went merrily scaling down the cliff at speeds that Andrew and I couldn\u2019t hope to match. They ended up at the water\u2019s edge, we stopped a good deal above it. Watching this dude maneuver with his crutches was something else. He was like a monkey, I was quite impressed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ended up back on the bus heading towards Castle Urquhart which was lovely, but not really worth stopping at for very long. Basically it\u2019s the ruins of a castle along the eastern shore of the loch at a promontory which made it the place<\/u> if you wanted to control shipping along the loch up until the early 1900s or so. Pretty, but not really that interesting.<\/p>\n

From there we absolutely failed to stop in Drumnadrochit which is the town for Loch Ness Monster tours. It is a tourist trap to end all tourist traps. We didn\u2019t go to the Official Nessie Museum, we didn\u2019t go to Nessie 2000, and we didn\u2019t end up at any of the gift shops where you can purchase chocolate Nessie Poo or Haggis Poo. I think, overall, that this was a very good thing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

We ended up back in Inverness at about 1845. Decently late enough to find dinner at most any restaurant. We fell into this hotel restaurant across the river from the Tourist Center where I had (guess) lamb and Andrew ate a chunk of cow bigger than his head.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

We packed, we showered (the water pressure at the White Lodge could be described as nothing more than \u201cgentle\u201d) and got ready to hop it the next morning. Our train was set to leave Inverness at 755 so we figured on getting to the train station at about 730 so we could get our seats in plenty of time. I traded pillows with Andrew.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Margaret and Jackie were up and cooking when we got up the next morning. Our taxi was scheduled to show up at 715 and so there was no way we were going to get a \u201cproper\u201d breakfast which doesn\u2019t mean that Jackie didn\u2019t stuff us full of coffee and toast while we were eating cereal and drinking juice. Absolutely wonderful couple. The taxi showed up and when Jackie noticed he said \u201cFinish your breakfast, I\u2019ll hold the bugger off!\u201d which made me snort juice. These two are another absolute gotta do if you\u2019re ever in Inverness.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Our train was a little bit of a kludge. We hadn\u2019t realized that we were traveling on a Saturday and both the London tube and National Rail do \u201cessential engineering works\u201d on weekends. So our train, instead of being Inverness to Edinburgh and Edinburgh to London was scheduled to be Inverness to Newcastle with a bus for an hour from Newcastle to Darlington and then the train again from Darlington to London. Urgh.<\/p>\n

Oh well, at least we\u2019ll be in first class again. Lovely roomy seats, free internet access etc. Nope. Not on this train! Turns out that the train we were on is a much older set of coaches and they haven\u2019t been outfitted with wireless yet. Sigh. It was a long trip, but the seats were<\/u> roomy.<\/p>\n

I would like to mention, however, that on my birthday last year I started in Baltimore, got up at an awful hour to attend a lecture, got on an airplane in the middle of the afternoon and flew to Salt Lake City where I found that my connecting flight to Seattle was delayed until 1030 local time so that when I finally landed in Seattle it was 130 a.m. on June 4th<\/sup>. All the while I was sucking down NyQuil in the hopes that when the plane changed altitudes my sinuses wouldn\u2019t explode. Spending 9 hours in the first class compartment of a train whistle stopping it through some truly stunning scenery (the Highlands first thing in the morning with a clear sky and a light mist trailing coyly around the sheep covered hilltops are unsurpassed) with my husband by my side instead of a cranky furloughed soldier from Iraq is a MUCH better way to spend my birthday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This is, as it says above, part I of a series. Between lack of internet access, lack of sleep, and lack of time for want of wandering around (gasp) actually being a tourist, I’ve gotten a little bit behind. There are four more pages currently written, but I’m not quite done yet with this most recent part of the story. In the interests of not having a post that is umpty thousand pages long, I’ll post up to the current date when I get it finished (likely tonight or possibly tomorrow depending on how late we get back from dinner tonight).<\/p>\n

–M<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: pictures that go with this entry can be found here. 3 June Saturday (I think?) Okay, so the next installment is from the first class coach of the Inverness to Newcastle train on our way back to London, but there\u2019s a reason for that. We left Jersey on a stunningly beautiful day. Bright […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uk2k6k"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.uncle-andrew.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}