scotland
Sunday 10/9/06: YOUTH HOSTEL, EDINBURGH, 1 night:
Left iains for Edinburgh. With them, went to a park called arthurs seat mountain and passed the ugly parliament house, and went to Edinburgh castle. There we left iain and Madeline and found our hostel called Edinburgh central – very squishy, noisy and stuffy – the worst night of sleep in my life. At least it had wifi.
Monday: shopping along the royal mile, esp a random shop with lots of sayings which I recorded on my phone. Went to Britannia. Drove up to pitlochery – beautiful quaint town and hostel.
PITLOCHERY YOUTH HOSTEL, 1 night:
Tuesday: walk through pitlochery, saw the hydroelectric dam and salmon ladder, went to the smallest whisky distillery in Scotland, edradour, and learnt how to set up my own distillery in the backyard, not that I ever would.
INVERNESS YOUTH HOSTEL, 1 night:
Drove through a pretty national park and mum got pissed off at the bad drivers. Found Inverness and she parked in a car park and said she was going on a ‘rendesvous’ and left us to find the hostel. Then we crusaded through the town trying to find her amongst the one way streets.
CARBISDALE CASTLE YOUTH HOSTEL, 1 night:
Wednesday: drove down the south end of the river ness which turns into loch ness. Did some short walks and had a picnic along the rocky beach up on the lush green grass. Drove through amazing scenery by various lochs and barren mountains and rolling fields, up to Carbisdale castle (haunted, and very cool). Did a short walk to a deserted town / hamlet and a pub. Took some video around the castle and played table tennis listening to the accordian and the violins (there were a big group of german tourists sharing the hostel with us, so we reaped the benefits of the group entertainment.)
That night I actually got to sleep. But at 2am I woke up because I was dripping in sweat. I had covered myself in the doona for some protection against the ghosts, but I kicked it off and attempted to go back to sleep. I was listening to the sounds in the hostel: the occasional creak and door slam, which I assumed was someone going to the bathroom. I was lying on my stomach, and suddenly the whole room went really really cold, and I started shaking. This chill ran down my body and my hair prickled. I started shaking more and more and it became uncontrollable. My whole bed started shaking. Then I had this ‘vision’ (I wasn’t asleep because I could still hear the others breathing) – of me driving along this really dark road at night –you couldn’t even see more than a metre in front of you. This long slender white hand reached down next to my body – I think it could have been mine. I looked down at it and then suddenly there was this really loud “honk honk honk” of a truck. I looked up and an oncoming truck’s headlights blared at me, point blank. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. it was like something was holding me down. I felt paralysed. It took a lot of physical strain to actually move – and when I did I flipped over to my back violently, and lay there in the dark. I think the ghost was passing through every room and going into peoples bodies to give them a prophecy of their death. How morbid, but I am not kidding about any of it. For the rest of the night I refused to go to sleep, incase I had a freaky dream about things eating my souls, but at the same time I didn’t want to open my eyes, incase this spirit was sitting on the chair at the base of the bed. I must have finally got to sleep, but I woke up again at 4am, and my heart was pounding. There was a lot of noise going on in the rooms around me, mainly downstairs. There was a yell, doors slamming, and footsteps everywhere. I knew it couldn’t be 20 people going to the bathroom at once. So I thought, in my delirium, “oh that silly ghost, running into things. What a clumsy thing. Must be on something.”
Mum reckons it could be the start of night-terrors, which she says are worse than nightmares because you can still see the images of your dreams the moments after you wake up.. it could be, because I know I wasn’t asleep in that vision, and mum gets them, and her mum had ESP too.
BROADFORD YOUTH HOSTEL, 2 nights:
Thursday: had a beautiful drive through an amazing scottish mountain range, and past loch ness. There, we went to the exhibition on loch ness, which pretty much proved there couldn’t be a loch ness monster. I still think there could be something down there, its just smart and knows not to come up to the surface. Some parts are nearly 200m deep, so why come up, especially during the day. We crossed over the bridge connecting to the Isle of Skye, which Saint Columba passed through before reaching the neighbouring isle of Iona. There is a st columba chapel here, where he baptised this old man, who, immediately as the water hit his forehead, he dropped dead on the ground, just at st columba’s vision had predicted a few days ago. Maybe he had night terrors too. A lot of people say skye is like the whole of Scotland condensed onto one island, which I would agree to. The whole island is about 50 miles long, so It took us a whole day to drive around the most part of it. We stayed in a very homely youth hostel, with a tiny tiny room, but with an amazing view of a loch, especially at sunrise.
On the island there are lots of ‘heilan’ coo’s” (highland cows), and strange looking sheep, that seem to defy gravity and treck across treacherous ridges to pick their favourite section of grass, even though it is all just as lush. Maybe the essence of danger spices up their grass??
Or maybe I am just insane.
There are tall mountain ranges, lochs, and the clearest reflections of mountain ranges I have ever seen – a mirror image save a few ripples and a bit of blurring at the tops.
We went to Portree, and I bought a cool celtic wall hanging. We also bought a CD of celtic music: accordions, fiddles, treble recorders, tin whistles and of course bagpipes. So we listened to the bag pipes happily piping out endless tunes, my favourite being the famous “skye boat song”, as we gazed out the window in awe at the lochs and bare mountains with rockfalls scarring the landscape. We had a great walk up the Man o’ storr, where, ontop of a STEEP grassy knoll, we got nearly a 360 degree panoramic view of the whole island, stretching out to the sea, and Scotland in the background. The layers of mountains were 7 layers thick!!
We continued around the island, also stopping at kilt rock, a sheer cliff reaching down to the sea, with deep pleats in the rock and a long thin waterfall. Funnily enough, I think more tourists visit the island than actual residents. The few houses are dotted around sporadically, not really keeping to the towns, and each is identical: almost german, being white with fake slate black roofs and stone walls.
I love it how there is so much gaelic on this island too. All of the signs are in gaelic with English subtitles. Gaelic was pretty much wiped out in Scotland after the 12th century, but they are putting in a huge effort to revive it, even having a gaelic speaking radio station!!!
CRIANLARICH (said with a lot of hokking and gagging) YOUTH HOSTEL, 1 night:
On Saturday, our last night in Scotland, we had a long drive through yet more mountain ranges, the tallest in Scotland. We visited ben nevis, the highest point in Britain. Got the chairlift up (it’s a skiing paradise of course) and did some walking along the peak, where mum dropped the camcorder and broke it. I swear she is cursed with technology. I couldn’t believe it.)
At least the hostel had a spacious room, or I think mum may have blown her top!! We did have an infiltration of children in the hostel however, which didn’t exactly promote a calming atmosphere. We went out for a pub dinner, and james ordered a huge serving of the scottish trademark, haggis (meat…stuff packed in stomach tripe), tatties (potatoes) and needs (turnips.) He went a bit insane after it, coming up with a few crazy ‘anne’s adventures’ movies (from little Britain.)
We drove and drove the next day, stopping at Glasgow briefly, but getting lost and wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible because it wasn’t very clean etc…
Bye bye Scotland fair ye well!!
Left iains for Edinburgh. With them, went to a park called arthurs seat mountain and passed the ugly parliament house, and went to Edinburgh castle. There we left iain and Madeline and found our hostel called Edinburgh central – very squishy, noisy and stuffy – the worst night of sleep in my life. At least it had wifi.
Monday: shopping along the royal mile, esp a random shop with lots of sayings which I recorded on my phone. Went to Britannia. Drove up to pitlochery – beautiful quaint town and hostel.
PITLOCHERY YOUTH HOSTEL, 1 night:
Tuesday: walk through pitlochery, saw the hydroelectric dam and salmon ladder, went to the smallest whisky distillery in Scotland, edradour, and learnt how to set up my own distillery in the backyard, not that I ever would.
INVERNESS YOUTH HOSTEL, 1 night:
Drove through a pretty national park and mum got pissed off at the bad drivers. Found Inverness and she parked in a car park and said she was going on a ‘rendesvous’ and left us to find the hostel. Then we crusaded through the town trying to find her amongst the one way streets.
CARBISDALE CASTLE YOUTH HOSTEL, 1 night:
Wednesday: drove down the south end of the river ness which turns into loch ness. Did some short walks and had a picnic along the rocky beach up on the lush green grass. Drove through amazing scenery by various lochs and barren mountains and rolling fields, up to Carbisdale castle (haunted, and very cool). Did a short walk to a deserted town / hamlet and a pub. Took some video around the castle and played table tennis listening to the accordian and the violins (there were a big group of german tourists sharing the hostel with us, so we reaped the benefits of the group entertainment.)
That night I actually got to sleep. But at 2am I woke up because I was dripping in sweat. I had covered myself in the doona for some protection against the ghosts, but I kicked it off and attempted to go back to sleep. I was listening to the sounds in the hostel: the occasional creak and door slam, which I assumed was someone going to the bathroom. I was lying on my stomach, and suddenly the whole room went really really cold, and I started shaking. This chill ran down my body and my hair prickled. I started shaking more and more and it became uncontrollable. My whole bed started shaking. Then I had this ‘vision’ (I wasn’t asleep because I could still hear the others breathing) – of me driving along this really dark road at night –you couldn’t even see more than a metre in front of you. This long slender white hand reached down next to my body – I think it could have been mine. I looked down at it and then suddenly there was this really loud “honk honk honk” of a truck. I looked up and an oncoming truck’s headlights blared at me, point blank. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. it was like something was holding me down. I felt paralysed. It took a lot of physical strain to actually move – and when I did I flipped over to my back violently, and lay there in the dark. I think the ghost was passing through every room and going into peoples bodies to give them a prophecy of their death. How morbid, but I am not kidding about any of it. For the rest of the night I refused to go to sleep, incase I had a freaky dream about things eating my souls, but at the same time I didn’t want to open my eyes, incase this spirit was sitting on the chair at the base of the bed. I must have finally got to sleep, but I woke up again at 4am, and my heart was pounding. There was a lot of noise going on in the rooms around me, mainly downstairs. There was a yell, doors slamming, and footsteps everywhere. I knew it couldn’t be 20 people going to the bathroom at once. So I thought, in my delirium, “oh that silly ghost, running into things. What a clumsy thing. Must be on something.”
Mum reckons it could be the start of night-terrors, which she says are worse than nightmares because you can still see the images of your dreams the moments after you wake up.. it could be, because I know I wasn’t asleep in that vision, and mum gets them, and her mum had ESP too.
BROADFORD YOUTH HOSTEL, 2 nights:
Thursday: had a beautiful drive through an amazing scottish mountain range, and past loch ness. There, we went to the exhibition on loch ness, which pretty much proved there couldn’t be a loch ness monster. I still think there could be something down there, its just smart and knows not to come up to the surface. Some parts are nearly 200m deep, so why come up, especially during the day. We crossed over the bridge connecting to the Isle of Skye, which Saint Columba passed through before reaching the neighbouring isle of Iona. There is a st columba chapel here, where he baptised this old man, who, immediately as the water hit his forehead, he dropped dead on the ground, just at st columba’s vision had predicted a few days ago. Maybe he had night terrors too. A lot of people say skye is like the whole of Scotland condensed onto one island, which I would agree to. The whole island is about 50 miles long, so It took us a whole day to drive around the most part of it. We stayed in a very homely youth hostel, with a tiny tiny room, but with an amazing view of a loch, especially at sunrise.
On the island there are lots of ‘heilan’ coo’s” (highland cows), and strange looking sheep, that seem to defy gravity and treck across treacherous ridges to pick their favourite section of grass, even though it is all just as lush. Maybe the essence of danger spices up their grass??
Or maybe I am just insane.
There are tall mountain ranges, lochs, and the clearest reflections of mountain ranges I have ever seen – a mirror image save a few ripples and a bit of blurring at the tops.
We went to Portree, and I bought a cool celtic wall hanging. We also bought a CD of celtic music: accordions, fiddles, treble recorders, tin whistles and of course bagpipes. So we listened to the bag pipes happily piping out endless tunes, my favourite being the famous “skye boat song”, as we gazed out the window in awe at the lochs and bare mountains with rockfalls scarring the landscape. We had a great walk up the Man o’ storr, where, ontop of a STEEP grassy knoll, we got nearly a 360 degree panoramic view of the whole island, stretching out to the sea, and Scotland in the background. The layers of mountains were 7 layers thick!!
We continued around the island, also stopping at kilt rock, a sheer cliff reaching down to the sea, with deep pleats in the rock and a long thin waterfall. Funnily enough, I think more tourists visit the island than actual residents. The few houses are dotted around sporadically, not really keeping to the towns, and each is identical: almost german, being white with fake slate black roofs and stone walls.
I love it how there is so much gaelic on this island too. All of the signs are in gaelic with English subtitles. Gaelic was pretty much wiped out in Scotland after the 12th century, but they are putting in a huge effort to revive it, even having a gaelic speaking radio station!!!
CRIANLARICH (said with a lot of hokking and gagging) YOUTH HOSTEL, 1 night:
On Saturday, our last night in Scotland, we had a long drive through yet more mountain ranges, the tallest in Scotland. We visited ben nevis, the highest point in Britain. Got the chairlift up (it’s a skiing paradise of course) and did some walking along the peak, where mum dropped the camcorder and broke it. I swear she is cursed with technology. I couldn’t believe it.)
At least the hostel had a spacious room, or I think mum may have blown her top!! We did have an infiltration of children in the hostel however, which didn’t exactly promote a calming atmosphere. We went out for a pub dinner, and james ordered a huge serving of the scottish trademark, haggis (meat…stuff packed in stomach tripe), tatties (potatoes) and needs (turnips.) He went a bit insane after it, coming up with a few crazy ‘anne’s adventures’ movies (from little Britain.)
We drove and drove the next day, stopping at Glasgow briefly, but getting lost and wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible because it wasn’t very clean etc…
Bye bye Scotland fair ye well!!
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