My trip to the Scottish highlands

Hello everyone

My family and I have just been away on a short break to the Scottish highlands and I thought I would share some snaps from when we were away. There are actually quite a lot of cruises that go up to this part of the world from Southampton and elsewhere. Caribbean Princess for example is doing a few itineraries this summer and Autumn up to Scotland and beyond, as is Cunard and Cruise and Maritime do it regularly too. The below link is an example for a Caribbean Princess British isles cruise in September!

http://www.cruise.co.uk/cruise/princess-cruises/caribbean-princess/10-sep-17/100575/?affref=alexandera

For  our trip, we started off in Inverness and the drive from the airport to town in the evening was a good indicator of what was to come. The view of the coast and mountains in the distance as we drove into town was beautiful and framed by a lovely sunset.

On the flight up from London my son Sean was super excited about seeing Nessie and on the way in to land at Inverness he asked if every river, stream or bog was Loch Ness and if nessie was there!! After a quick hotel night in Inverness, we picked up a rental car.

Me and Sean looking for Nessie

We then headed out to Loch Ness proper and picked up our prebooked cruise out on the lake  there (not a cruise ship like the QM2 but still!). I joked to Sean that I saw Nessie but mainly it was just a beautiful flat day on the Loch and we had fun getting some lovely photos and climbing around in Urquart castle on the lake shore.

The scenery in Scotland is mind blowing and totally comparable with the best New Zealand (my former residence) has to offer alongside the famous Scottish hospitality and the history that you can see (as well as whisky distilleries).

After the cruise we drove straight up to the northern highlands past Ullapool to our hotel which was quite literally the only building for miles at Altnacealgach.

View from the top at Knockan crag, it felt a lot higher than it looks!

This was our base for doing a bit of walking and we were recommended to do the Knockan Crag walk. Up until now my son Sean wasn’t always the most adventurous about climbing and heights but we made him the leader of our little expedition and he quickly took to this role guiding us up the track to the very top of the hill. The view at the top was incredible as was the info on how the area was formed in the visitor centre below.

We drove from here to Ullapool, which is a lovely wee fishing town, for lunch and from here on to the Isle of Skye. I w

Eileen Donan castle from “Highlander”

as hugely impressed by Eileen Donan castle and tried to explain to Sean that his namesake Sean Connery had once been in a film here, Highlander. He was unimpressed and more interested in getting out of the cold and to the next hotel.

After that we went to the Isle of Skye, I was a little underwhelmed in general with Skye, if I’m honest. I thought it was a bit overpriced and had more tour buses than anywhere else I had seen in Scotland so far and just felt a bit too much of a tourist trap.

On top of a hill at the Fairy Glen Isle of Skye

I much preferred where we’d been up north but we all enjoyed the “fairy glen” and Sean enjoyed being the leader going up the hills there again and wanted to climb every single one before we left! This is one of the strangest places I’ve ever been, it is basically a set of grassy mounds that are all tightly packed on to a random little road which isn’t really signposted.

That didn’t stop people coming and having fun climbing around like we did and we enjoyed it immensely, even stopping to have a picnic on top of our own personal mound! We also went to the Talisker distillery on Skye and had a wee dram too whilst we were there. Sean said this was “yucky” and being not much of a whisky fan myself I have to agree but it was a good experience nonetheless and the smell of the distillery alone from outside was lovely.

We then completely missed our ferry by trying to get up to the Old Man o’ Stoor and realizing it would take a bit longer than we had factored in. So a mad rush to the ferry on the south of the island ensued, behind a rather dodgy driver who kept weaving onto the wrong side of the road, much to my chagrin and occasional flashing of lights.

The ferry was a wash out from Armadale to Mallaig but despite the weather when we got to the other side we wished we had factored in longer to spend in this part of Scotland. The drive from here to Fort William was incredible with breathtaking lakes and mountains around every turn. We saw the Glenfinnan viaduct from Harry Potter fame on the way as well and took a few quick photos. This rather than doing what some people have been doing and climbing all over it etc and getting into trouble and the national media!

We had a night in Fort William and went to probably the best Wetherspoons in the UK there, then decided to have a drive around the Great Glen at the foot of Ben Nevis. We did a few walks around here and Sean and I did a rope crossing to a waterfall which again tested his (and my) appetite for adventure.

I’ve never been afraid of a fast paced holiday packing a lot in and am used to long distance driving so the next stop was the Cairngorms for our last night.

We stayed at Grantown on Spey and got upgraded to a suite in the hotel which was nice, I suspect they werent used to having families at the hotel so maybe it was just to separate us a bit from the regulars in case we were noisy but it was welcome all the same!

In Grantown we went to an amazing pub which only did pies and had Airfix planes, a jukebox and old school game machine, which Sean gravitated straight towards which had the games from my youth like Arkanoid, Pacman and Donkey kong. Oh, and all childhood reminiscing aside my steak and blue cheese pie was very tasty as well.

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g190790-d2663930-Reviews-The_Craig_Bar-Grantown_on_Spey_Aviemore_and_the_Cairngorms_Scottish_Highlands_Sco.html

I tried haggis for the first time for breakfast at the hotel and forcing myself to forget what it actually was, I found it really nice!

Snow on top of the mountains, I haven’t seen that for a while!

Finally the next day we went up the Cairngorms mountain railway and saw some snow at the top, we also stopped at the Boat of Garten RSPB centre where we saw Ospreys and a red squirrel up close which made my day.

To end the trip we drove to Culloden, the scene of a brutal defeat of the Jacobite rising. It was a sobering experience and wasn’t too long after the commemorations of the battle, so a reminder that the English and Scots haven’t always got on, luckily we are in happier times now!

So all in all a pretty epic trip, our little rental car drove about 700 miles in 6 days and I was totally exhausted at the end of it. It was totally worth it though as Scotland and the highlands in particular have so much to offer and are a great place to take a family or even take a cruise!