It took 4 hours to get to inverness from Edinburgh by train, and started
snowing on the way, but luckily was fine again by the time I arrived.
The accomodation is abt a 10 min walk into the centre of town, which is
fine as the weather has been nice both days so far. I will catch a taxi
back to the train station though, simply because I'll probably hurt my
back if I try to pull my 2 cases up the hill and it will only cost 4 or 5
pounds. The
man who runs it (and is probably in his late 60's) obviously has dogs as the whole downstairs area smells of 'dog'. The rooms
upstairs do not smell and each has its own en suite, so that is nice.
Breakfast this morning was not a pleasant experience - trying to block
my nose and eat some fruit and toast was hard, but then the man brought
out 'breakfast' consisting of bacon, eggs, mushroom, sausages, cooked
tomato, baked beans and haggis (and you didn't get to serve yourself!). I
had about 2 mouthfuls of mushroom, and eggs, and one of bacon before I
discovered a hair in the food and decided that I could not eat anymore
without gagging. I felt bad leaving a full plate, and the man asked if
there was anything wrong with the food when I went back down. I know I
probably should have said something, but he was trying so hard, so I just lied and said that I dont usually eat
breakfast and would just have some yoghurt tomorrow!
Last night I went on a walking tour about 'crime and punishment'. There
is so much history in Inverness - dating back to 565 AD! The tour guide
was very informative and dramatic, and got everyone to have a go at a
scottish accent! It was good fun. There were about 8 others on the tour;
all part of a group of engineers in Scotland for 3 months of training
in the oil and gas industry. One of them was from Brisbane (Carindale,
where the big shopping centre is!) and I got along well with a girl from
Canada too. We all went for coffee/hot chocolate afterwards to warm up
before they caught the last train back to Aberdeen. I walked back along
the bridge to my accomodation and took some photos - there are rainbow
coloured lights that light up the bridge at night, and silver fairy
lights in the trees lining the Loch - my snap shots didn't do it
justice, but I bet Dad could get some amazing pictures there!
This morning I went on a tour to Urquhart Castle, and the Loch Ness
exhibition Centre, which included a 1/2 hour boat cruise along Loch
Ness. Urquhart Castle is a ruin, but has some great history, and lots of
stairs to climb! Our cruise on the Loch was nice, but I found the Loch
Ness Centre quite a dissappointment. Apparently there are two centres
and this one was just a series of 6 rooms; each room with a video
proving/disproving facts about the Loch Ness Monster - I think we must
have gone to the other centre which the tourist bureau said is more
child friendly. I met two girls from Tasssie on todays tour too!
We got back to Inverness at 2:30pm and I went on another walking tour
(about the History of Inverness) which was good. There was only me and
two other girls from Barcelona and Germany. I went to a pub for tea last
night (they have a family area to eat that's not too noisy) and the
food was cheap and nice, so I will probably go back there again tonight.
I ended up going to an Italian restaurant called Bella Italia. The carbonara was quite bland, but the chocolate cake was exquisite and more than made up for it!!
I had to check out at 10, but my train wasn't until almost 3pm, so I put my case in storage at the train station and had a look around the Victorian markets before lunch, and did one more browse of the main street before taking the train back to Kinross via Perth.
