Inverness, capital of the Scottish highlands. And it’s actually a small city. The activity in Inverness largely centres around the train station area, where the main shopping district is just next to it, so is the bus station. The only castle in the city lies at the end of the shopping street, which isn’t far either. Everything seems small and cosy, except for one thing: there’s no pub kitchen open for business after 9pm. Unbelievable? Yes, I can’t believe it either. Reaching Inverness at 8pm on Monday, me and Yan Neng did not realise this fact either. We went to check into our hostel, and the reception did not tell us about this when we ask about eating places. While we were walking around at 9.30pm, asking every pub that we came across whether they still serve food, all their kitchens are closed. WTF. We had fish and chips and steak pie off a fast food joint, stuff ourselves all too full with a jumbo smoked sausage, some fried shrimp thingy whose name I can hardly remember and hot lentil soup. But still, that’s our 1st fast food in all the days we’re in Scotland.
We haven’t really got time to explore Inverness actually, for most of the days we spent here are to use it as a launch pad to explore Loch Ness and the highlands. Yes, Loch Ness lie 25km from Inverness, they both feed off the River Ness that runs from the north. Our first tour was by Puffins Express. As the name suggest, we’re here to watch some puffins!
John O’Groats
I booked this tour on the net, for 27 quid per pax for a day trip. And guess what, I didn’t know exactly where old Johnny Groaty was till the last day. I booked it after reading that it has some good wildlife and the likes. Actually, John O’Groats lie in the north of Scotland, almost the northernmost tip. Yes, we went all the way up without knowing. Along the way, we are fed with terrific coastal scenery, wildlife like the red deer and seals, farm life like the highland cows (Yan Neng is so thrilled by them everytime she sees them) and most importantly, puffins! We did see a couple, and it’s not easy to see them. I guess we were just lucky, ha. All the way up at John O’Groats, where the stacks and cliffs form so beautiful a picturesque scenery that it seems the rest are not that important. No city buzz to distract me from being one with nature, ha. We were also brought into the forest to see some gorge where the valley is less than 1 metre in some places! And the waterfall here is pretty cute too, all very Robin Hood like. Typical British forest I guess, I can’t really tell the difference between English and Scottish treetop landscape, haha, at least not here. I must say, highland coasts are mostly cliffs, like the highlands broke off into the sea. The rock formations are gorgeous, it puzzles me how we travellers always look towards Europe for travel destinations but miss out on UK beauties. At least for me, I’m not willing to miss out on what the British landscape has to offer me. No wonder travel magazines always rate Britain as one of the top choices when it comes to natural landscape. It’s as varied as I can imagine, except for some gigantic magnificent waterfall and a good mountain to climb like Kilimanjaro.
Loch Ness
I think this place is not just a ‘been here, done that’ kind of tourist location. In fact, taking on the tour to bring us to Loch Ness and cross the lake on a cruise to one of the more prominent castles in Scottish and English history costs us only 16.50 quid. And guess what, we are the only ones who took up the tour that day. Hence the entire bus only has me, Yan Neng and the cute old man for a driver as well as tour guide. He has his sleeves full of stories for us everywhere he drove us. So, we got pretty much a personalised service, haha. Going on the tour means we got no time for Loch Ness Monster exhibitions. You must be screaming, what did you go Loch Ness for? Actually, the beauty of the trip does not like in some stupid myth or legend. To be frank, Loch Ness offers so beautiful a landscape you can’t forget even weeks after visiting it. The long-ish lake, flanked on its banks by highlands and their forests, gives a tranquil feeling. Couple that with the lake mist that accompanied us on our cruise makes it all magical. Well, it was actually a foreboding of a storm which kinda caught us a bit, but by then we had reached Urquhart Castle and entered the exhibition centre for some weather shield. By the time we finished the exhibition, the weather cleared and it’s all sunny and bright again on the ruins! I must say, the castle is a very good place for taking beautiful pictures. Why so? Picture this: a medieval castle built on the banks of a loch famous for its monster, and all its surroundings are filled with high grounds and forests. As the Chinese saying goes, got mountains got water and got antiquity, what’s more to complain about? Haha, don’t know what I’m talking about anyway. But I seriously took a whole lot of pictures here. Wouldn’t ever mind coming back again, though I’d do a trek from Fort William to Inverness through Loch Ness. That should be interesting, ha.
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