Friday both Jess & Esther had the entire day off work so I got to have the pleasure of their lovely company ALL day - lucky me! In the morning we went for coffee at the café where J.K. Rowling used to go & work on the Harry Potter books when she was first writing them because she was broke & couldn't afford to have heating in her house & it was freezing cold in winter & this place is lovely & warm. We spotted a group of Potter-enthusiasts in the corner wearing home-made Harry Potter shirts…that's dedication.

We then caught the train out to North Berkley where you can walk along the coast of Scotland & see various castles, & sometimes, if you're really lucky…a puffin! Now that we'd established that puffins are in fact real animals & are not mythical (as I somewhat suspected…how embarrassing) or extinct (no, that's the Dodo bird) I was very excited about seeing one. Unfortunately we did not…they are rather elusive birds & you really have to take a boat off to some of the smaller islands to actually see them. Actually a poor, dead, baby seal washed up along the coast was the only wildlife we saw that day. So not so successful on that front! But we still had a fantastic time despite the lack of fauna.

We had a poke around the little stores on the main street, which has a very Dunsborough-like, small town feel to them. Then we sat by the beach eating out packed lunch, watching the Scottish families set up their colourful cotton shades around their areas on the beach (not entirely sure what the purpose of these is exactly…privacy? Sun protection? Seems unlikely as there weren't really many people or much sun out that day!). I was once again reminded of just how good we have it in Australia as far as our beaches (amongst MANY other things) go. Still, there were a fair few red-headed families out making sand castles & relaxing on the beach despite the cloudy weather & the rather lackluster beach. After lunch we went for a walk about an hour or so up the coast & back…no sign of any puffins! :( *Sigh* On the way back to the train Esther insisted I pick up some tablet to try…it's kinda like crumbly, super sugary fudge, & very Scottish. It was…hmm…sweet! Very sweet! But I still prefer my good ol' home made caramel fudge recipe :P

In the evening we went to a Ceilidh, another super Scottish experience. It was one of the most fun evenings I've had on my trip & I really wish we had this kind of thing back in Perth. It's a Celtic tradition where big groups of people come together to participate in traditional dances, usually to traditional music. So we gathered with a couple hundred other people in a big hall on a university campus. And it was a really mixed group of people…most were young, probably about our age, & likely students at the university. But there were also several older couples, including some very dressed up older gents in their kilts who wiped the floor with all of us & had clearly been going to these dances for years.

Most of the dances are partner dances, but there was never any shortage of partners as guys would just come & ask you to dance & then thank you for the dance at the end. It was fantastic! I had so much fun! You would all stand up there & the guy in charge would slowly call out the steps a couple of times until everyone had the hang of it, then the music would start up & you'd whirling round the dance floor amidst all the other enthusiastic people!

One partner I had was a little TOO enthusiastic, & so focused on remembering the steps & staring at his feet (bless him) that he forgot to watch out for other people, whirled me around a little too vigorously & we both went crashing onto the floor in the middle of the dance floor. I was in fits of laughter despite my mortification, but he went positively bright red in the face & stared even more intently at his feet for the rest of the dance. Fortunately he was confident enough to come back & ask for another dance later in the night & that time we both managed to remain standing…I think he managed to recover a little of his pride & confidence after that!

We danced & danced & danced for hours until we were all puffed, sweaty, & red in the face, then we all joined in for the final dance where two long lines of people face each other & you basically link arms with every single person (& your own partner in between each other person) & swing yourself all the way down the line. It's kind hard to describe & you really need to see it to understand how it works, but it was fantastic fun! Oh what a night :)