Month: May 2011

Europe

Edinburgh

Over the last two days we have driven down to Edinburgh through the Cairngorm Mountains and stopping overnight at Callandar. Before leaving Ballater, we took a walk around the town which has quite a bit if history. Like other rural towns in the mountains, it opened up once the railway arrived. It was by train […]

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Europe

Royal Deeside

When we left Inverness this morning, we first travelled to the site of the Culloden Battle Field. At this site, in 1745, was the final confrontation of the Jacobite Uprising. A battle here, pitted the Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart against an army commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, loyal to the British […]

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Europe

Waitresses, Whisky and Water

We have found that the nicest wines at reasonable prices in this area of the world come from the ‘new world’ wine countries – Chile, NZ, South Africa and Australia. Rather than only use small portions of a large bottle before the wine goes off, many restaurants and pubs sell wine in half bottles and […]

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Europe

John O’Groats

It was a wild night in Thurso last night and I was woken on a couple occasions by the noise of the wind. We had gusts over 80 km per hour and it was quite violent. We had booked a one-day ferry ride and bus tour to the Orkney Islands today and were rather uncomfortable […]

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Europe

The Top of Scotland

We left our rather nice and warm B&B in Stoer in constant rain this morning, and for some reason we decided to take a short detour to see the lighthouse at Stoer Head. It stopped raining briefly, but we decided not to take advantage of a seat in a nearby paddock overlooking the ocean in […]

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Europe

Laide to Stoer

This part of our trip began in a tiny little village and ended up at a much smaller one! We had stayed overnight at the Old Smiddy Guest House at Laide, near Garloch. When we booked it the owner, Julie, suggested that we should eat in and what a good choice it was. We had […]

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Europe

Wet & Windy Highlands

We had some very pleasant nights staying with Tim & Gace at their Grasmore B&B in Portree on the Isle of Skye. It was very to easy to feel comfortable in their home. Tim is a professional landscape photographer, so we had a couple of things to talk about. Anyone who is looking for a […]

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Europe

Isle of Skye

Today was an easy day as we travelled around the northern part of the Isle of Skye. When we left our B&B (Grasmhore, near Portree) this morning, the temperature was 5 degrees. Over the day it warmed up to 11 degrees. We had frequent rain showers, squalls and hail throughout the day, which were interspersed […]

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Europe

Lochs & Castles

Our introduction to the Scotish Highlands included a large number of Lochs and a few castles. We left Oban with its grey/brown granite buildings and headed northeast to Fort William. This took us past the snow covered peak of Ben Nevis and through the towns of Appin and Ballachullish. Just north of Appin is one […]

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Europe

Oban

We’ve spent the last couple of nights in Oban (Scottish Gaelic meaning The Little Bay) which is a resort town on the Firth of Loin in western Scotland. Oban Bay is a near perfect horseshoe bay, protected by the island of Kerrera, beyond which is Mull. Apparently this was just an insignificant town until the […]

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Europe

Introduction to Scotland

Our flight from Dublin to Edinburgh was uneventful and so was our drive to Glasgow for our first overnight stop last night. We were a little delayed in leaving Ediburgh with some shopping for phone cards and a guide book that took a little longer than we expected. We think that we left Dublin at […]

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Every Day Life

Our Site was Hacked

I discovered yesterday that my site had been hacked and was probably distributing Malware to those who had visited. Why people wish to place a virus and possible redirection to a porn site on websites such as mine is beyond me, however I just have to accept that this is just part of a digital […]

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