Scotland the Bravest

The last week has been pretty quiet compared to the previous week. We picked Matt and Karen up from the airport from their week in Italy. Of course they had a great time and they both looked really well and rested.

On Sunday Matt and I thought we had better start training for the corbett climb next weekend so we walked up Queen's View which is only a few miles north of Milngavie where we are staying. The view from the top is quite spectacular. Look one way and you look over Glasgow - look the other and you look across Loch Lomond. Unfortunately, on the way down I slipped on a wet, steep section and badly strained and twisted my left ankle! The rest of the descent was taken very slowly and now it looks as though I'll miss the corbett climb.

[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]
  

We left Glasgow early Friday morning in the Jacob's Creek mobile, courtesy of Matt, and drove down to The South via Ayre and then down and around the coast to Gretna Green, which is just on the border of England. We then went on to Carlisle, Penrith and then to Keswick. All the names sound very familiar! We stayed the night at Kendall and the following morning drove back to Keswick and then to Windemere. A lot of scenes for the movie Miss Potter were filmed around the Lakes District. There are Beatrix Potter shops and exhibitions there - Kerry's standing near one Peter Rabbit shop in the bottom photo, and it was hard to get her away from it. The mountains, lakes and winding country lanes are absolutely beautiful - the roads are edged in rhododendrens (?) just growing wild. It is a very popular place, there where people everywhere especially the walkers and push bike riders! A quick two hour drive up the Motorway was all it took to get back to Glasgow on Saturday night. [Kerry]

Okay, I know I`ve been slack .... this afternoon I have finally got around to adding something to this blog.

Well, what`s happened in the last week you might ask .... Kerry still hasn`t recovered from the jet-lag. Of course, I`m okay - must be an age thing ....

On the weekend we helped Gavin (Karen`s brother) and Natalie celebrate their wedding at Glenrothes which is near St Andrews, north of Edinburgh. The wedding and reception were in the grounds at some old house and was quite good fun!

Today, Matt and Karen left for a weeks holiday in Italy - somewhere near Naples. Kerry and I dropped them at the airport and then of course took a few wrong turns but had a lovely day wandering around the beautiful Scottish countryside. [Craig]

After a break of nearly 12 months the saga continues ....

The flight over was a non-event. They`ve improved(?) the flight entertainment so that you are supposed to have 28 movies available at any one time and can start watching any one at any time - that is of course if the system was working properly. Sound familar?

We arrived at Heathrow on time and had 1 and a half hours before the Glasgow flight left - should be plenty of time you would think - however it was a nightmare. There were huge queues for everything - from getting a bus to Terminal 1 to going through security. To help things when we got near the front of the queue for the security check Kerry was informed that you could only have one piece of hand luggage - hand bags are included - so we left the queue to try and stuff a full handbag into Kerry`s carry on bag - I made it fit! Heaps of other irate customers weren`t so successful. Everyone there was in the same boat (plane?) .... they had all flown into Heathrow that morning from somewhere and had obviously been allowed to board there original flight with multiple articles only to be informed by the lovely, pleasant lady at Heathrow that only one item was allowed. It was the last thing you needed after sitting on a plane for 24+ hours ....

Our plane was due to depart at 8.30am. We joined the line for the passport check at 8.25am!!

After running all the way to the plane we were the last to board and the plane left 10 minutes late - also, we were informed minus one of our checked-in big bags (turned out to be Kerrys) .... which thankfully turned up at Matt`s later that night.

Despite the fun at Heathrow the plane landed about 5 minutes late at Glasgow and Matt and Karen were there to greet us. Both looked really good! Karen then had to leave to go and board the same plane we had just arrived on for a couple of days in France for work.

When we approached Glasgow in the plane it was covered in a thick fog - the rest of the country was clear and the temp was a brisk 8 degrees. We headed off to the hospital in Byers Road for Matt`s specialist appointment. They are going to change medication for Matt to .... can`t remember the name ... just need to get formal approval and he`ll start on that in a couple of weeks. It was abit hard to concentrate when all you wanted to do was lie down somewhere and go to sleep.

Then off to sunny Milngavie ... and I mean sunny. The fog had lifted and the sun was shining and the temperature reached around 20 degrees celsius - the hotest day I had ever encountered in my trips so far to Scotland!!

Matt and Karen`s flat/house is very nice and the whole area is very pretty. It`s amazing what a difference it makes with the trees having leaves etc. [Craig]