Scotland the Bravest

[Click on a picture to enlarge]

After arriving back in Milngavie (Millguy) on Saturday night - it didn't feel too late as it's getting dark after 10pm now - we decided to head north on Sunday morning. We left Milngavie and drove along the bonny banks of Loch Lomond again, this is becoming very familiar to us! We continued north via Glencoe, and then travelled through the most incredible mountains we've ever seen. The road actually goes between the mountains and not over them, making them seem even larger than they are. The scenery was incredible, as you can see in the photo's. We stayed at Fort William on Sunday night, and then up again early Monday morning and travelled on to the Isle of Skye. The scenery continued to be amazing, with incredible mountains and Lochs. We went over the Skye Bridge and drove to Portree, one of the towns on the Isle. On the way back, we stopped at Eilean Donan Castle and decided to go for a walk through. We're so glad we did as it was very much worth it. It had actually been restored inside in the late 1920's, and had been lived in so there was a lot to see, including a Banquet Hall, kitchens, guest rooms etc. There were some exhibits there including some locks of hair belonging to various monarchs, including Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie. It was very interesting and in a spectacular setting as well. We then kept going, looking for Nessie as we were driving along Loch Ness and onto Inverness for the night. This morning, we left Inverness and travelled to Laggan (another familiar name), where Monarch of the Glen was filmed and then a bit further on to see the Castle that was used in it as well. We ended up in Fort William again - Ben Nevis is here which is huge and still had a covering of snow on top- and then drove through Glencoe and the mountains again. [Kerry]

A couple of other comments ....

• yes Nick, Matt and Karen's house does have double glazed windows - really effective in keeping out the cold!
• Matt's mighty RAV4 diesel averaged a credible 5.7litres per 100 km or 49.3 miles per gallon over the last 5 days. Excellent figures but at nearly 1 pound per litre or $2.50 Australian a litre you can see why most cars are small with small motors. Plenty of caravans on the road all hauled by 4 cyclinder cars.
  
• Apart from the excellent motorways most of the roads are quite narrow which can make life quite interesting at times! The top photo is a main road through a town!
  
• Roads in Scotland are made for motorbikes. Most are in excellent condition with plenty of corners and fantastic scenery. Just make sure you bring excellent wet weather gear with you at all times. [Craig]