Scotland Part I - From Beatles to Nessie

Sitting in the Qantas lounge in Sydney after a week spent seeing family in Australia before my flight back home to New Zealand and thought it was a good opportunity to update my blog which has been terribly neglected since I left Europe.

Our coach tour of the British Isles finished a couple of days before I left Europe and my mum and my auntie flew back to Australia the day after it finished. My last post was on the way back across on the ferry from Ireland to Wales. After we'd driven across the top of Wales and North via Liverpool, we spent almost a week in Scotland then travelled south down the east coast via York and Stratford-upon-Avon finishing in London. Here are some excerpts from my travel diaries from that time:

9/10/13 -
Last night was spent in Liverpool which is yet another place I can add to my list of 'places I'd wished I had more time in'. The accent and dialect is a lot of fun, they seem to drop a lot of letters (and words!)... takes a bit of getting used to. Went out for dinner to a local mexican restaurant and the waitress was possibly the most friendly and outgoing waitress I've met in my life who even hugged us when we left, and when she found out we were Aussie's she showed off her 'Aussie accent' by calling us 'sheilas' all night.

First stop this morning was at the Beatles exhibition...I had no idea both John and Paul's mothers had died before they were 18 years old...would love to go on a tour of Liverpool specifically to check out Abbey Rd and Penny Lane etc (I didn't even know Penny Lane is an actual street in Liverpool - and I call myself a Beatles fan - gosh!).

 

Huddling out of the wind waiting for the coach

11/10/13 -
Crossed the border to Scotland yesterday, the border crossing itself is nothing to write home about (although here I am doing just that) as it consists solely of a small sign. Tonight is our second last night in Inverness, Scotland, and this afternoon we had a free afternoon. Our first stop was a kilt-makers store where I found plenty of things I could buy with my Celtic families' tartan on including key chains, mugs, coasters, ash-trays, you name it they sell it with an image of your family tartan and family name on.

The English/Scot border - if you sneezed you missed it

Yesterday we drove past the Loch Ness and it's funny to finally see something in person that you've heard stories about your whole life and therefore formed an image of in your head, especially when it turns out to be not much like that image in real life. Loch Ness looks much like many other lovely lakes I have seen, large, calm and surrounded by valleys and rolling hills, a beautiful spot but not the grey, murky, mysterious body of water that I had created in my head. Oh and I did see Nessie by the way...


Urquhart Castle beside Loch Ness

Scottish Highlands...

Apparently this bridge is in Harry Potter..,

Purrrdy

My flight home is about to board so I will have to show you the rest of beautiful Scotland later (not to mention that my laptop battery is about to die!).

Still feels surreal that I'm currently in Australia and have been for a week, let alone that I am about to fly home to NZ and sleep in my own bed tonight that I haven't been in for more than seven months! At this point I only feel excited about it and can't wait to be home but I feel confident that once that feeling wears off I will be missing Europe again.



Yet another beautiful castle I can't remember the name of...