21st-27th August - Edinburgh and Haggis tour of Scotland(In Progress)

21st We woke around 6am nice and rested and dry. David went downstairs and totally cleaned the bikes and Catriona updated the blog. We had breakfast then set off for Edinburgh Castle. We waited in line in the pouring rain to buy our entry tickets and while waiting it stopped raining. The place was very busy/crowded but apparently not as crowded as if it had been a sunny day. We had great views over Edinburgh as we walked around the castle. We visited the National war museum and read about the history of the castle on the story boards around he place. We also waited in line to view the Honours of Scotland which are their crown jewels. Angry grey clouds started to roll back in as we were leaving that part of the castle. We also visited the prison and the war memorial while we were there. We left the castle to have lunch at the Quakers restaurant again. After lunch we went to see the Georgian house, a Scottish National trust building at no 7 Charlotte square. It was very interesting reading all about the different uses the rooms had and we finished off our visit watching a video of what life was like back in Georgian times, very interesting. We had another stroll along Princes street and then off to see Jimeoin on ice It was a very funny performance and we were glad we went. When we exited the theatre it was bucketing down with rain again so we had to head back to the hostel. We pittied the poor people watching the tattoo tonight.

22nd After breakfast we booked our accommodation at Phi Phi island and checked our emails. We phoned Sara who we were staying with tonight to get her address and then we then set off on a walking tour of Edinburgh. We were shown many interesting things and told interesting and amusing stories along the Royal Mile and surrounding areas. Oldest building in Edinburgh Writers Museum

After the tour finished at around 2pm we went to check out another couple of kilt makers and find out where our tour leaves from tomorrow. We also managed to find the hostel we will stay in when we return from the tour. Around 6pm we set off for Sara’s house and managed to find it no troubles at all. We met Sara and she even made us a lovely dinner. We had a good time chatting about work, cycling and sustainability.

23rd Woke to the alarm at 6am, got up had showers and breakfast. Sara showed us the way to walk back to the royal mile where our tour was to leave from. We passed through the parkland, under the whale’s jawbones and through the medows to get to the Haggis office. We checked in and waited outside the office for our tour leader/driver to pick us up. There are 22 of us on the 5 day compass buster trip so there is plenty of room on the bus and for our luggage (which we don’t have much of anyway). The tour leader Allan introduced himself and we set off out of Edinburgh towards our first stop at Dunkeld where we walked around an old 13th century abbey. Alan gave us commentary along the way and had some funny things to say. We passed over the fourth bridge which is a very impressive structure for its age. We were stuck in a traffic jam for over an hour due to the local council doing road works on the busiest weekend of the year. We stopped for a walk around the hermitage with its waterfall. We stopped for lunch in Dalwhinnie. We shared soup and haggis, neeps and tatties. After lunch we visited the Spean Bridge.Mill Whisky centre and tasted some single malt whisky. After the whisky stop where David bought the worlds smallest bottle of whisky we went to the memorial to the WWII commandos overlooking Ben Nevis. It was getting late so we headed off to our night time spot of Fort Augustus on the shores of Loch Ness. We checked in, had dinner and set off on our cruise of Loch Ness where we managed to get a video of Nessie.>

After all the excitement we headed back to the hostel for an early night.

24th Set off this morning at 9am and our first stop of the day was Urquhart castle on the shores of Loch Ness. As with most of the castles we have seen it was in ruins. We drove on through Drumnadrochit otherwise known as Nessie central and stopped at a hotel with a gift shop attached where I managed to buy a Dunbar tartan scarf, just like Mum’s. From here we visited Culloden battlefield, where in 1746 the Jacobites had their last uprising and were slaughtered. There were flags showing the lines of the Hanovian troups and the Jacobite troups. There were also stones marking the graves of many of the clans who had members buried there. There was also a little stone hut called Leanach cottage that was right on the edge of the battlefield. After this very sombre trip we headed into Inverness for lunch. We had our usual Sunday roast. After lunch it was on to the Glen Ord distillery for a guided tour and tasting at the end. The Glen Ord distillery is owned by the same company that now owns Guiness. The single malt whisky they make here is called Singletons and is mainly shipped to Singapore. After our distillery trip we headed off to Dornoch beach for a walk on what they call the silver sands.
Dornoch is apparently where Madona married Guy Ritchie were married. All refreshed from the crisp sea air we headed off to our overnight accommodation Carbisdale castle. Yes you read right we are staying in not only a castle, but a haunted castle. It has been a youth hostel since 1945 and is home to a female ghost and an art and sculpture collection. It also has lovely views over the Kyle of Sutherland. We had a nice relaxing night in the Library
before retiring to our separate rooms as for some reason YHA’s don’t have mixed dorms.

25th We spent the morning driving over to the Isle of Skye, stopping off along the way at a small hotel for a coffee break. We had lunch in Port Righ, the main town on the Isle of Skye. A pretty little town on the water with a small harbour. After lunch we headed to the Farrie falls where we could make a wish to the farries if we took a mouth full of water at the top of the falls and did not swallow it until we walked back down to ground level and made the wish there. We had good views of The Storr from there as well and the ground was very boggy. We next stopped off at Kilt Rock where Alan told us the story of the Scottish Giant and Finn McCool the Irish Giant, the story was exactly the opposite of what we were told at the Giants Causeway in Ireland. We then had a very hairy ride to the top of the mountain to Quirang (cuith-Raing)Lookout. It was well worth the ride up for the spectacular views even though it was blowing a gale. We stopped off on our way to the hostel to get beautiful forever by sticking our face in the Sligachan river for 7 seconds. Can you see how beautiful we look now? We then headed back to Saucy Mary's Hostel at Kyleakan, checked in and went for a walk to the ruins of a Viking castle Caisteal Maol. After our walk it was back to the hostel bar for dinner and a few drinks. Stephen one of the guys on the tour decided to go for a swim so we all went out and cheered him on.


26th First stop of the day was Eilean Donan castle.
It had been blown up in the 16th century during a Jacobite uprising and was rebuilt in the early 20th century. We had a tour around the castle which is still used as a holiday house by members of the MacClean clan. We passed by a herd of hairy coos and stopped off along Loch Gary with it’s spectacular views.
We then headed into Fort William for lunch before heading off to Glenfinnan which is a tourist destination for 2 reasons. The first and most important is that the viaduct there is used in the Harry Potter movies.
The second is that it was the landing point for bonnie Prince Charlie.
It was raining hard so instead of heading off to see another sight before our night time stop we headed straight to Oban and checked into the hostel. Another SYHA so David and Catriona are in separate rooms again. We had a nice relaxed night in the dining room chatting with Jannet from Hornsby and Peter from Central Australia who is cycling around the UK as well.

27th 9am start this morning and our first stop was Glencoe the weeping glen which is the site where the Campbells betrayed and murdered the MacDonald clan.
Beautiful views with all the waterfalls and sheer rock cliffs, even though it was misty and raining. We next stopped at a viewpoint looking over the Black Mount where a buck was waiting in the car park.
We stopped for lunch at the Green Welly in Tyndrum where we chatted to 3 guys from near London who were cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats they were on their 9th day out of an estimated 12 day ride. From Tyndrum we headed for Killin to view the Falls of Dochart which were more like rapids than water falls.
Our next touristy stop off was at Kimahog where we met, fed and photographed Hamish the hairy coo.
Our last stop of the day was at the William Wallace monument at Sterling.
After our walk up the hill to the monument we headed back to Edinburgh and farewelled everyone from the tour. We then had a short stroll down to our hostel for the night.

16th - 20th August Coast and Castles- Newcastle-Upon-Tyne to Edinburgh

16th Set off around 9.30am as the Fort did not open until 10am. When we arrived we found that there was a special event on. They had people dressed up in Roman garb, some as centurions and others as general soldiers and women. There were 3 men on horses practicing for their cavalry exhibition that afternoon.We wandered around the site for about ½ an hour then set off back over the Tyne to North Shields on the ferry. We headed to the alternate end to the Hadrian’s wall cycle route at Tynemouth, it is also the beginning of the Coast and Castles route. We rode around the coast past Tynemouth castle where they also had a special event going on with people dressed as minstrels and knights etc,then on through Whitley Bay and stopped at a pub in Hartley for lunch. We set off again past a cute little harbour at Seaton Sluiceand on through Blyth where we stopped at a large supermarket to buy our dinner supplies. We passed a la couple of large power plants along the way up the coast. One of them had a few windmills. We Rode through Warkworth and it’s large castleand on to our overnight camping spot at Birling,but not before we rode about ½ mile up the road and realised we had passed it. The extra mile brought our total for the day to 47miles. Another sunny day but the wind was very cold and strong

17th It started raining around 4.30am and rained on and off all morning. We packed up between showers and set off toward Alnmouth,a pretty little town at the mouth of the Aln river right on the coast.We cycled along quiet country roads to Boulmer and on to Craster. Our first stop was Dunstanburgh Castle where we had to walk our bikes about a km as we were not allowed to ride them. Dunstanburgh Castle was built in the 12th Century as a power symbol and is now in ruins as the owner was put to death for treason. We wandered around for a while then headed off to Embelton for our Sunday roaast. There were two other cyclists at the pub where we stopped who had based themselves at a local caravan park and were doing day trips in the area. After lunch we visited Low Newton-by-the-sea a cute little village like a pirates cove. We then set off for Seahouses to buy supplies for dinner before heading to the caravan park at Waren. On the way we passed this sign and for anyone who listened to popular music in the 80's you will know how funny it is.We arrived early at 5pm and were able to dry the tent out before setting it up. We then went out to pick some blackberries we had passed on the side of the road on our way in. We ended up having ridden 34 miles. We had beautiful hot showers which we always enjoy at the end of a long days riding.

18th We woke to what we thought would be a beautiful sunny day as the sun was shining on our tent. By the time we had breakfast and packed up the sun had dissapeared. We headed off to visit Lindisfarne Island (Holy Island), it was a long ride into the wind and rain over a causeway that was only open today between 8am and 2.30am as it is underwater until 8.30pm this day.We stopped off to have a hot chocolate and a slice as it was bucketing down with rain and we were drenched. We locked our bikes up there and walked out to the castle. The castle was closed sso we just walked around and took some photos,We chatted to a couple and thier children who had cycled out there. The husband had 2 kids one about 3 the other around 6 in a trailer and a dog on a lead, there was also a son who was around 13 and the wife on her own bike. They were from the midlands and told us that summer was not usually like this and wished us luck with the weather. We stopped in at the cafe again for lunch and the couple we met at the pub yesterday came in to say hello as they had seen our bikes outside. We headed back off the island, this time with the wind behind us but still raining. It was a tough ride in the rain, in parts the route was over farm land that was boggy,having to open and close the gatesand the bikes got covered in mud. We finally made it into Berwick-on-Tweed with it's impressive bidges and found a J D Wetherspoons that actually had internet access. So Catriona based herself there updating the blog and checking emails while David went out to information and found us Accommodation at the Berwick Backpackers Hostel. We ended up having dinner at the pub before heading back to the hostel for a dry nights sleep. After leaving the pub we rode down to the hostel, stopping to take a few misty shots of the bridges. At the hostel we dropped our bags off in our room and were able to hang our tent up to dry. We then went into the lounge/kitchen where we both had a cup of tea and chatted to Kate who we were sharing the dorm with.

19th We didn’t wake up until 8am this morning as we were in a dark room and were having such a good sleep. We quickly packed up our bags and had the breakfast that was included with our accommodation in the lounge/kitchen. We hosed down our bikes before setting off for a quick look around Berwick-on-Tweed and then heading off up the coast. It was a hilly start to the day into Scotland and I (Catriona) started to dislike all the little contour lines on the map. The cycle computer decided it did not want to work anymore, most likely due to all the rain, so we had no idea of how fast we were travelling. We passed the gate house to Ayton Castle which looked quite spectacular but we couldn’t see the actual castle. We stopped for morning tea at Ayton and David noticed this strange dark patch on the ground that followed him wherever he went, I think from memory it might be called a shadow. We then road on to the little sea side town of Eyemouth for lunch but the sun disappeared while we were inside. We had a long uphill ride after lunch but luckily it was all on road or path and not through muddy paddocks like yesterday. We had some lovely views of the coastline until the fog started to roll in. We passed many ffarms and a few power stations. We made it to Dunbar just before 5pm and the fog was rolling in and out so we were able to take some nice pictures on the coast with both the mist and without it.

Now you see it

Now you don't

We set up our tent at the Dunbar, Belhaven Bay caravan and camping park and had most of our dinner at the picnic table before the clouds started to roll in, and much the same as South Shields we got into our tent to finish off dinner and it started to rain although not very heavily and it didn’t last long. We worked out from the map that we cycled 36 miles and because of the hills it seemed much longer.

20th Well the weather has finally got the better of us. We woke this morning to steady rain and thought “we have had enough” so we rode back into Dunbar to check out the train times.We took a photo of the local scout hall just because it was 1st Dunbar.
We just missed a train and had a 2 hour wait for the next one, so we went to a coffee shop with wifi and booked out bus ticket and accommodation for after our Haggis tour. We tried to book accommodation for tonight but had no luck. We caught a cross country train to Edinburgh for only £5 each and watched all the scenery out the train window pass us by, staying nice and dry. When we arrived in Edinburgh it was pouring rain. We went to the closest hostel but it only had beds for one night, not two. We then headed off to the information centre, there were people everywhere as the ½ price ticket booth for the festival was just outside. We tried phoning a few more hostels which were also booked out and decided to let the information people do the work for us. After numerous phone calls the guy managed to get us a double bed in the Castle Rock Hostel for £50 per night for 2 nights.

We rode straight there, unpacked our gear to dry it off and even managed to hang up our tent and fly to dry. We then headed out to have a look around and find a kilt maker. There were people handing out leaflets for shows about every 2 mitres and also many street performers. We managed to find a kilt maker and find out the hefty price to have a kilt made. We then set off to have a bit more of a look around as the rain had cleared. We managed to get a few good shots of the castle and the old buildings in town.
We then headed off to buy some food and then headed back to the hostel for the evening. On the way we stopped to watch an acrobat from Melbourne, Australia performing in the street.
We also passed the huge queue waiting to get into the castle for the Tattoo. We went to bed listening to the sounds of bagpipes and fireworks from the Tattoo.