Land of Proud Hearts and Mountains Gray

It's a bit before 9pm and we're hanging out with a group of Australian's in the tv room at Hatter's Hostel in Liverpool. NSCI or whatever is on the television, Jake is reading one of the David and Lee Eddings books on his kobo, Noah is busy with music and somesuch (I'm learning not to ask) on his phone, and I am about to attempt to cover our past few days Inverness in a single pass.

We had a few days in Inverness, much of which was spent outside of Inverness itself and travelling along Loch Ness and beyond.

We arrived in Inverness late Monday, made our way, rather successfully I might add, to our B&B and then headed out for a bit of a walk. Quick note on accomodations. While our B&B was comfortable enough I've concluded that, through no particular fault of it's own, B&B's are our least best option for places to stay. Why? Because. No laundry facility. No real kitchen to speak of. This particular one also charged for breakfast, and for towels. Nope, not again I don't think.

But let's put that aside and look at the sky for a moment. Scotland has got great sky, and Inverness is a magnificent place to view it.

That particular view is from the hill where Inverness Castle perches itself overlooking the River Ness.

It's not really a castle these days mind you, and the current building is rather modern, and is used for the Sheriff and the courts. But the land itself is where the older castle, fort and all that used to be. So it's nice to have something there I suppose. And it's got a good sky behind it too.

I think what I like about so much of the UK is that there are plenty of places that do not have lots of tall buildings, which means you get way more sky then you do in places like Toronto, where buildings seem to always be getting in the way of what could be a half decent view.

We leap-frogged to dinner. Well, they did. I thought better of it. I'm feeling old.

The next day started nice and blue but turned grey and wet about the same time we got on a bus to take the two or so hour trip out to Eilean Donan Castle. The sky continued to be impressive.

As did Loch Ness.

And the Highlands in general.

Eilean Donan Castle is reputted to be the most photographed castle in Scotland. This may be because so many tours stop at it on the way to the Isle of Skye, or it could be because they are including all of the outtakes from Highlander and half a dozen other movies featuring Sean Connery. Okay, maybe not that many, but ya, it shows up in the occasional movie.

And I agree, it does a good job for itself. It broods well.

It is everything you'd think a Scottish castle should be I suppose.

Honestly though, a bit disappointed. Not sure it was worth the 60 odd pounds sterling it cost for the three of us to get there and back, plus the 20 odd pounds for entrance into the castle.

Wait! What's that? You can go inside? Where' the pictures then? Well, you're not allowed to take pictures inside. That said, I don't know that I would have.

Eilean Donan was a ruin up until the early 20th century at which time it went through a significant restoration and became a habitable home. The interior now, is a cross between hokey bad theme park manikins, and current family photo album. The materials they provide don't really offer much in terms of the history of the castle and surrounding area.

But it's great on the outside, so if you happen to be in the area, it's worth the walk-about, even if only to help keep it's numbers up in the "most photographed Scottish castle" category for Tourism UK.

This is an old building in Dorien, the town where by the castle. I liked the building because it reminded me of the wall I took a shot of with Neil during our Saturday trip. Lot's of stone piled together really well, with seemingly not much mortar holding it together in many places.

The walk along Dorien was quite lovely though, and thank goodness for that, as we did have a fair chunk of time to spend before the next bus back to Inverness.

 

And yes, this is one of the times when I wished I knew how to drive. In fact much of the UK trip has had me realizing how it would be different if i did. Ah well, still seeing lots.

Like these lovely whatever they ares.

And of course I get to have one of these, which would not be the case were I to be driving.

Now, the Talisker is important because it:

1. Is one of my favourites.
2. Is my Dad's favourite.
3. Is currently the only single malt from the Isle of Skye, which we were quite near. Apparently there is another distillery being built, so that distinguishing point will eventually be lost.

Both the bartender and the one local fellow at the bar feel that Talisker is too peaty. They're entitled I suppose. And maybe it is, but it will always have a special place in my liquor cabinet. Near the front.

We then headed back to Inverness, enjoying more of the lovely brooding highlands, made more so by the rain that I was told was still the tail end of Bertha.

And Bertha had been busy. Rivers were running very high, and very fast. We had heard stories of bridges being washed out and the like, but were fortunate to not encounter such an issue.

The next day dawned sunny and blue and promised to be a good one, which was excellent news as we were taking a coach tour out along Loch Ness to Urquahart Castle and then a river cruise back along the Caledonian Canal to Inverness.

Still a fantastic sky over Loch Ness.

Our first stop was the Loch Ness Exhibit Centre which gave us a reasonably good history of the loch and the search for one of the world's favourite leading ladies - Nessie. It was an interesting exhibit, comprised of six or so rooms, each playing a 10 minute film addressing some aspect of the Loch and the search for it's monster.  The exhibit did an excellent job of being fair, and ended with a lovely phrase that did an excellent job of sitting on the fence. It went something like this:

Loch Ness. Is it a veil waiting to reveal it's mystery, or a mirror, reflecting our imaginations?

I can only hope to conclude a blog entry with that kind of quality.

Sandy our coach driver then picked us up and took us along to the Corrimony Cairn, a small, but quite intact burial site, including 11, not 12, but 11 standing stones. Short ones, but standing nonetheless.

You'd think we were starting a band.

And by intact I mean that it is well preserved and the tunnel into it is still partially covered. It's not like we were staring at a corpse or anything, so not that intact.

This would be the back cover.

And who can go into the highlands and not get a picture of a highland cattle. Well, likely lots of people, but Sandy was kind enough to stop the bus near this fine fellow so we good all catch a quick peak or pic, or both.

It was then off to Uruqahart Castle, still a ruin, but oh so much more educational then the restored Eilean Donan. Okay, I will stop going on about that.

Yes, Urquahart Castle. It's got a long history which I am not going to share with you here, as I'm getting a bit tired, and I'm sure you can all look it up if you are actually interested.

They even had a trebuchet. I look forward to Marc building one of comparable size and taking it to the park.

Actually Maciej could likely do it too. Yes, I have two friends who build trebuchets for fun. Perhaps you guys should meet.

Parks and Rec is not going to thank me for that. Anyway...

This is Grant Tower. Grant was given the castle for having done something very useful for someone who was in a position to give him a castle.

Probably got him on the Sunshine list.

And here is the castle from the loch, as we headed out on the Jacobite Queen to head down the Caledonian Canal to get back to Inverness.

So a couple of quick words on the Caledonian Canal and then some pictures without me interupting them. The Caledonian canal runs almost 100km through the highland region. Only about 1/3rd of it is man made and the rest of it is made up of four lochs: Dochfour, Ness, Oich, and Lochy. Yes, Loch Lochy. No points for originality on that one. You can almost imagine how it got it's name. "Well Hamish, that certainly is a lochy looking loch, what shall we call it?"

And the rest, as they say, is history.

And still the sky continued to be super cool and accommodating.

And eventually we came through one of the canals locks. Yes, locks in the loch. Where are Abbott and Costello when you need them?

The next day also dawned quite nicely, which was great as we were planning on spending our last day in Inverness actually in Inverness.

So we headed into the core of the city via the Ness Islands, conveniently located in the River Ness, near our B&B and connected by a series of bridges. Also convenient was that these bridges were all nice and operational, something that had been a question as the waters of the River Ness were running higher and higher each day as more and more water emptied into Loch Ness and then down into the river on it's way out to sea.

And we had watched the water rise over our few days there. We had also watched them busily shoring up the banks in the heart of the city to keep it from flooding. Bertha had definitely been a busy lady.

But the park was lush and green and being a set of slender islands had the continuous sound of flowing water all around.  Makes for a good walk, and an excellent place to read one's book. Which ones did, but that was later.

Oh, I nearly forgot. On the way to the islands we stopped and played frisbee for a bit in the recreational park near the B&B. Noah had been wanting to kick a soccerball around but unfortunately the centre there did not rent them out, so we were stuck with the flying disc thingy. Much fun was still had though, so weep not for our loss.

Back to the park.

Still in the park.

And along one of the four (I think it was four) bridges we crossed along the way.

I'm reminded of Victoria Park in Kitchener that also has a couple of islands connected by bridges that we have walked along on several occasions. I like parks. I like bridges. They go well together. Kinda like the unedible version of chocolate and peanut butter.

So what I found neat about this particular point is that you're looking at an overpass that had water flowing from the "mainland" to the main part of the river, and passing over another part of the river that I am guessing was a man made mini canal, much like the one in York that was made to try reduce the chances of flooding. I could of course be totally wrong about that. Still cool though.

This is the interior of the Catholic Cathedral in Inverness.

This is the interior of Leaky's Bookstore in Inverness, a former church.

Interesting juxtaposition. I'm wondering which one my father would rather spend a day in.

This is another of the churches in Inverness. It has the distinction of being built on the spot where St. Columba preached and converted the Picts to Christianity sometime in the middle of the 6th century. So it is seen as the starting point for Christianity in the highlands.

Incidently St. Columba also figures into our trip to Loch Ness the day prior. One of the earliest recorded stories of the Loch Ness Monster is of St. Columba going out and banishing it to the depths of the loch after it had killed a pict.

This strikes me as the myth version of a "stop the viking attack" kind of thing (think about what their ships looked like), but that's just something I came up with as far as I know. And I know nothing about this stuff.

And here's a view of Inverness, just for the heck of it.

And then we made our way home. Via the park.

There and back again.

So we're done with Scotland for now. An amazingly beautiful, friendly country, with the best possible accent ever. In many ways it reminds me of our time in Nova Scotia, and more specifically Cape Breton. Both are places that have called to me for as long as I can remember, and I know they'll be calling me back.

Tá m'árthach foluaineach lán d'eascanna.

Ask Charles.