Road Trip in the Highlands Part One: Wildlife spotting in Rothiemurchus

Friday, May 23 to Wednesday, May 28

Don’t you just love when spur of the moment ideas work; ideas that have essentially come from thin air and work out to be a fantastic idea, like our trip up to the Highlands with our lovely flatmates Trav and Dweebs. We basically hijacked their trip they had been planning to celebrate Dweebs’ 30^th birthday. After tossing up whether we were going to attempt the West Highland Way or not, it didn’t take much twisting of the arm to take up the off-the-cuff suggestion that we join them on their road trip instead. 

And we got tick another thing off the 'things-to-do-before-we-leave-Scotland-list.'

"Rothiemurchus is one of the glories of wild Scotland" 

- Sir David Attenborough

Day One

After going halves in the cost of petrol, picking up Dweebs on the way and with Carhouse* packed to the brim with food and camping essentials we were off. As Carhouse doesn’t have car seats we had to set-up camper chairs in the back behind the front seats so we were facing the sliding door, as to not look too suspicious to the authorities.

After a lovely three-hour drive through the Scottish countryside we arrived at the Rothiemurchus Camp and Caravan Park just before 8pm and just in time to check-in. J and I were quite lucky because Trav had called the campsite to try and book on our behalf and had a left a message, but didn’t quite chase it up, so when we actually talked to the site manager, we were almost told we were not going to be able to stay.

We were quite surprised that we were almost told there was no room, because it seemed to us that there were plenty of empty tent spaces on the grounds.

J and I set our tent up beneath the trees, and then went over to Dweebs and Trav’s site to have two-minute noodles for dinner and to drink some of the home brew. We then stayed up till the wee’ hours playing Carcassonne and games of Bulls*** that our flatmates lovingly nicknamed ‘s*** bomb*.’

We even managed to stay awake till midnight to ring in Dweeb’s 30^th Birthday.

Our wee tent in the background at Rothiemurchus Camp and Caravan Park.

Day Two

Today was Dweebs' 30^th birthday and we celebrated by all of us having a bit of sleep in and then having a bacon and egg fry-up for breakfast.

Carhouse with birthday balloons to celebrate Dweebs' birthday.

While we were eating our delicious breakky we noticed that Carhouse was parked next to a birds nest – a dug out cavern in the ground – where a bird quickly darted to and from carrying food into.

Attempt number 20 of trying to take a photo of the bird.

After breakfast, on our way to the toilet block Dweebs spotted a Red Squirrel* running quickly across the path and up the tree. She hurriedly told us all, and we were standing underneath the trees, craning our necks, trying to catch a glimpse for a while. 

Just after midday we finally left the campsite to walk to the town of Rothiemurchus and into Aviemore.

Dweebs decided that for her birthday she wanted to do an activity at the Rothiemurchus Centre and we all chose to play a couple of rounds of tennis; which was £10 per a court for an hour, including racquet and ball hire. Which we felt was a bargain!

During our game of doubles, which I believe Trav and Dweebs won, we walked on towards Aviemore, the most well know town in the Cairngorms National Park.

The snow capped Cairngorms.

It was such a scenic walk too from Rothiemurchus, with the sun coming out and highlighting the magnificent mountains in the backdrop and crossing over River Druie on an old bridge and heaps and heaps of golden yellow bushes (known as Whin).

Our tour of Aviemore included seeing heaps of bunnies hopping about in the park in the middle of town and going to Tesco for BBQ supplies for Dweebs’ birthday dinner.

After getting back to camp, enjoying a late lunch and rest in the tent, the boys got some information from the site manager on where to spot some wildlife and suggested we follow around the Glen Einich walking trail that ran off the campsite through the Wildlife Reserve.

It was great for wildlife spotting – we saw herds of Roe Deer, black slugs* and some type of toad frog. Though we didn’t see any Pine Marten*, apparently quite the sleuth, but our inside informant* said one had been sighted lurking around the campsite, like quite the Pink Panther.

The 'common' Black Slug with it's feather-like back. 

Spot the heard of Roe Deer.

We finished the night with a BBQ next to Carhouse and drinking beer and wine whilst playing more hands of s*** bomb and even getting in trouble by the campsite manager for causing 'too much' disturbance. 

It was a great ending to the first part of our Carhouse adventure, the next day we were off to Orkney. Too be continued…

*They had bought Carhouse three years ago, when they first left London for their road trip around Europe. He is an old ambulance that had been kitted out by his previous owner as a campervan and they nicknamed it Carhouse, because it’s a car and its house and that particular name was only meant to be temporary until they could think of a better name, but it stuck.

*Whoever loses gets lovingly sung to, “S*** bomb, s*** bomb, you’re the s*** bomb” by the rest of the group, who have kindly borrowed the tune of Sex Bomb by Tom Jones.  

*Red Squirrels have received endangered status in the UK and we so happened to have one running around the campsite we were camped at.

*Apparently quite common after telling a friend how weird and wonderful us four found these critters.

*After finding out that these animals actually hunt and eat Red Squirrels we had changed our minds about how much we actually wanted to spot one.

*Also known as the campsite manager.

A list of things to do before we (J & I) leave Edinburgh and Scotland

We have started planning our travels that will take us away from this lovely city we have called home for the past year and a bit - to places yet visited in Europe, leading us right back home to Brisbane. The flight is booked for August 7, at 7:15am. A time and date that is ‘set in stone,’ unless we had endless streams of money at our disposal to change that date (which we do not) that is when we will be saying ‘see ya later’ to Edinburgh.

In light of that I now have started making a list of all the things we should see, do and try before we leave, in Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland, so we don’t feel like there was much left undone here, to experience new things and to do things that will bring us joy for years to come when we reminisce about the good times we had, so here it is:

- Visit a few different beer gardens in Edinburgh.

- See puffins on a boat trip from the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick.

-   Go on a day trip to St. Andrews.

- Go on a day trip to Peebles and walk in the surrounding forest that inspired J.K Rowling to write about the ‘Forbidden Forest’ in the Harry Potter series.

-  Visit the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

-Visit Jupiter Artland, especially for the chocolate-painted room exhibition on in May.

-  Go up the Scott Monument.

-  Go camping somewhere during May 20 – May 28.

- Go to the Scotch bar at the Balmoral Hotel to taste a few rare drams of whisky.

- Walk all or part of the West Highland Way.

- Visit Dundee.

-  Go see the Falkirk ‘Kelpies’ statues.

- Hire a rowboat on Union Canal.

-Have a White Russian at Lebowskis bar with my Lebowski-obsessed colleagues.

-Drink at the Sky Bar that only opens on the first Thursday night of the month.

-Stay at the Balmoral Hotel (daydreaming about this one).

-Relax at the MacDonald Marine Hotel’s day spa in North Berwick.

-  Have afternoon tea at the Dome.

- Play golf on an actual golf course.

- Ride the tram to the airport.

- Get a “better together” badge.

- Get a “yes Scotland” badge.

-  Go surfing off the Scottish coast.

- Do the gelato tasting evening at Mary’s Milk Bar.

- Walk up Corstorphine Hill.

-See Danny Bhoy live at the Fringe Festival (my fave Scottish comedian).

-  See the fairy pools on the Isle of Skye.

I know it’s a long list, and we only have four months to try and fit everything in, but dammit I’m going to try!

Me and J dressed up for a boat trip from the Scottish Seabird Centre in 2012 where we saw seals.

"Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the Journey." - Pat Conroy

If you have any other ideas of things you’d think I should experience before I leave Edinburgh, then comment below or tweet it to me. If I can do it I’ll post a photo up of my experience. 

A night in Inverness: the 'gateway' to the Highlands

Saturday, March 22 – Sunday, March 23

A couple of weekends ago, J and I both experienced the rare occasion of having a Saturday off (if you work in retail, you’ll get me) and so we decided to head off into the sunset – or in this case on a beautiful sunny morning in Edinburgh – we headed to Inverness.

Day One

We left Edinburgh at 8:25pm on a Megabus bus, which cost £38 for the both of us return. I originally wanted to go to the Cairngorms, but considering we only booked accommodation the night before, we didn’t have much choice, considering they were still getting a little bit of snow fall still.

We had a budget of £40 for the both of us, for the night. Even all the bed and breakfasts were all booked out around Aviemore, so there we were on the bus heading to Inverness.

We passed breathtakingly beautiful snowy landscapes and we were there within three and bit hours.

We walked to Bazpackers Hostel from the bus station, which was passed the Inverness Castle* and adjoining to the Castle Tavern. We were shown to our room by the some-what quiet host – then he showed us around and then left us to it.

The view from Bazpackers Hostel yard.

I changed my boots to a different pair and we walked back to Castle Street, turning left on the bridge to the other side of River Ness, passed Inverness Cathedral, following the river upstream, where we crossed over another bridge to Ness Island.

You could see where Salmon fishermen would stand usually, when it’s the right season, unfortunately they weren’t out when we were there. And apparently if you’re lucky you can catch glimpses of seals – again, it wasn’t the right season. 

On Ness Island

Now these footbridges are not ideal if you don’t have good sea legs and are walking across with someone like, let’s say J, who loved shaking the rails, making the bridge wobble and sway. All the while he had the cheekiest grin on his face, whilst testing the suspension of these old bridges to the limits.

One of the foot bridges over to Ness Island.

We couldn’t believe how fast moving the river was, an indication they had probably had a bit of rain up there recently. The river had swallowed a few patches of daffodils and some of Ness Island.

The Koi Carp in the pond at Floral Hall

We explored Ness Island, crossing three or four other bridges*.

Then we went to Floral Hall – a quaint botanical garden that had beautiful tropical flowers and a cool succulent/cacti garden, complete with a pond holding Japanese and Israeli Koi Carp. 

After looking around at the plants we sat down at the café for tea and coffee and cake; J had a carrot cake and I had a Victoria sponge. 

Then we walked back through Ness Island, back to the town centre. We popped into a Scottish chain shoe store* (I won’t give the name away because I work in the Edinburgh franchise) to see what the Inverness store looked like (nerd I know).

We then wandered through the Victorian Market, and old arcade full of different shops, I think when it was originally founded it was used as a fish market. We just wandered around as it was late in the afternoon and a lot of the shops had started shutting.

A clock at the Victorian Market

After popping into the Tesco Metro across the river, we headed back to the hostel to chill out in front of the fireplace in the lounge room. Then we got changed and we headed out for dinner across the road at La Tortilla, a Spanish tapas restaurant where we met up with a colleague of mine and where another one worked*.

J and I shared four tapas dishes; garlic chicken, tortilla, haloumi and courgette pakoras and salt and pepper calamari. I enjoyed this with a glass of red, and J with a pint of Estrella. It was delicious – I think my favourite was the garlic chicken, though you probably wouldn’t have wanted to get closed to me after I ate it. And to top it off J and I shared torrijas (similar to French toast) sprinkled with cinnamon and served with ice cream. It was something we had only tried once when one of our old Spanish flat mates had made it.

Afterwards J and I popped into the Castle Tavern, for a couple of night caps. We had a pint each to start with of Happy Chappy from the Comarty Brewery, which went down a treat. It was quite packed, so we stood at the bar chatting to the barman, who was telling us how majority of the patrons there that night were tourists and he even told us he was going to have a ‘scoop*’ himself after work (meaning he was going to have a pint).

Then we got a second pint each of Scabber and got talking to a lovely couple from Penrith in the Lake District (not in NSW), who were only in Inverness for the night also. But because they were over 50, they had got the train, which had only cost them £20, each return.

After we finished our second beers, it was a quick walk from the pub and around the back to the hostel. Very handy indeed!

Day Two

After a good night sleep (the bed was really comfy) we waited to use the shower, as there was only one on the second floor, though I realised later on that the bathroom downstairs was huge and three shower cubicles. Silly me!

Then we ate our breakfast (courtesy of Tesco Metro’s reduced section) and got talking to an Austrian and Latvian girl who lived in Cornwall and were spending a few weeks break from university, to backpack around Scotland.

We made our lunch, left our suitcase and headed out. I think what I like a lot about Inverness was all the street signs had a Gaelic translation, it just made you feel that you were in fact in a different country where they can speak a different language.

Not knowing exactly where to go we went to the Tourist Information Centre and asked a girl for her advice on what to see and do, since we only had until just after lunch and it was a Sunday, it left for little opportunity, as there is not a lot of buses running on a Sunday to take us outside the town.

She told us to go to the cemetery, in the Old High Church yard, about 10-minutes walk away, or go to the Culloden Battlefield, but to get to the latter we would have to get a taxi and then pay to get in as well, so we opted for the former.

We walked to the cemetery; the lady at the tourist office said it was a interesting and historical sight as a few of the tombstones were embedded with bullet holes, left by the Jacobites and you can see where executions of some had been carried out. The west bell tower is mostly what is left of the medieval St. Mary’s Church of Inverness, which became a prison for Jacobites after the Culloden.

The cemetery at the Old High Church

We had been walking around the cemetery for a few minutes when it started hailing/sleeting, it was coming down hard, so we went back towards the main strip, stopping at So Coco, a café, where we had macarons and ‘luxurious’ hot chocolates, which helped warm us up.

After that we decided to start walking to Merkinch Nature Reserve – which took about 20 minutes or so from town, we walked along the sea wall, looking out to Moray Firth; we even saw bunnies in the brushes and then we came to the Caledonian Canal.

Moray Firth

J was mesmerised by the feat of engineering* that it is – it runs between the Great Glen – a geological fault line that runs for 100kms east to west. After walking across the canal lock to the to the other side we ate our lunch, where we watched a group of adult swans and their cygnets. We were eating peacefully until one of the cygnet decided to get friendly, jumping out of the water and spooking us.

A canal lock on the Caledonian Canal

The cygnet who was being a bit cheeky

Walking along the canal we passed the ‘Titanic’ Museum – the Titanic Inverness Maritime Museum - a museum this guy had built in the back of his house with a 1:10 scale model of the maiden ship. After some urging from J, we walked through the back yard, resembling a collection of boats, even R2-D2 from Star Wars, with it all resembling, well a junk yard, though there were some awesome boats and even a mini submersible. Then we came to the actual museum part; we were greeted by who we think was this man’s son, after giving a donation (it was free to enter) we walked around the vast collection of movie posters, maritime objects and even a speed boat-simulation game, before we left. Those it was a bit ‘odd’ you could see this man had a passion and he was working hard to turn his dream into a reality.

He even asked if we wanted a cuppa at the little café set-up he had made inside the Titanic replica before we left. It is definitely worth the visit.

The 1:10 scale model of the Titanic

Welcome to the Titanic Inverness Maritime Museum

We then continued our walk along the canal, back through town, back over Ness Bridge and back to the hostel. Where we collected our suitcase and walked to the bus station.

On the way home we even saw deer, wandering around the snowy hills of the highlands.

I think Inverness was a great town, it is definitely the 'gateway' to the highlands. If we have another chance to go there, I'd definitely like to see Culloden Battlefield and we were thinking we would like to go up to the Orkneys from there as well. 

Inverness

*Inverness Castle was completely different to the Edinburgh Castle, it was newer, since the previous castle was destroyed by the Jacobite rebellion and it is now the Inverness Court House.

*There probably wasn’t that many, but I lost count due to my dizziness caused by J shaking every single one.

*Probably shouldn’t give the name out for legal reasons, but it’s a great shoe store, you should check it out.

*From the store I can’t tell you the name of!

* We spotted a bunny in the garden next to the pub as we were walking in.

* He has been a little obsessed of late with watching the More4 programme - Great Canal Journeys – a four-part series about Prunella Scales (you may remember her from Faulty Towers) and her husband Timothy West.  

Now this weekend, we're off to Pitlochry for two nights. We're hopefully going to go to a whisky distillery and we might even go salmon fishing. Who knows! I'll post about that next week. Until then, drink lots x