Our Scotland Experience

Scotland is a really beautiful

We arrived in Inverness first after a 13 hour overnight bus journey then took a 2 hour train ride to get to Kyle of Lochalsh. The Scottish highlands are such an amazing place with the most unreal country side. We then got a 45 minute car ride out to Kinnloch lodge (we had no idea it was going to be so isolated), there was nothing out there what so ever. We stayed there for one night and caught a taxi at 8.30 in the morning back to the train station to go back to Inverness, where we spent the weekend trying to figure out what we would do next.

First thing Monday morning we received a phone call from the House of Bruar offering us jobs with them, so the next day, we hopped back onto the train and headed for Pitlochry.

We were picked up from the train station and taken to staff accommodation which was in a little village called Ballinluig, it was so isolated and we had to walk 15 minutes along the A9 highway to get to the bus stop.

We were lucky to organise lifts to work each day with the people that had transport for themselves (otherwise we would've had to bus it in).

During our time at the House of Bruar we would hire a car for our 2 days off and go explore the countryside, we went to the Castle Eilean Dunnon (from the highlander movies), stayed in Inverness and drove along the Loch Ness, drove through Dundee and up the East Coast to Aberdeen, stopped in at Deans shortbread factory and drove through Keith (that was the highlight).

We also drove through the central highlands to Aberfeldy, Killin (which had an amazing water cascade) and to Stirling where we saw the Stirling castle and the Wallace monument (you know, from Braveheart).

We also had a look around Glasgow and explored the East Coast including Glen Coe (snow region) and Fort William (one of Scotland's old ports).

Exploring Scotland was fun, but we could not live there. Everything's to far away!!

When we left Pitlochry, we headed for Edinburgh for a week where we went on a walking tour which took us around the old and new town we saw Edinburgh castle, the Elephant café (where the Harry Potter books were written), Greyfriars graveyard and Greyfriars Bobby (a loyal little west terrier who stayed by his masters side, even after the master died, bobby stayed next to the grave for 14 years), St Giles Cathedral (where Sean Connery was knighted), the grass markets, where all public executions were carried out.

The tour mostly entailed stories of Scotland's history and the strange (and very very strange) stories of people who had lived here throughout time.

One night we went on a ghost tour, which was pretty lame, we walked through an old cemetery and through a mausoleum, up to Calton Hill which had beautiful views of the city.

Scotland has been quite an experience, but it's time to move on…