Cairngorm mountains and Loch Ness

2 days ago.....

Train on the right - 1/2 way up the mountain.

We awoke and headed down to breakfast (which was provided) and boy was it something. Full Scottish breakfast, black pudding, sausages, eggs, toast, yogurt, cereal, bacon and brewed coffee.. well.. it was such a nice surprise. So we stocked up on our fuel reserves as we were heading to climb a mountain. My hamstring was not really good enough to be doing that, but you don't let things like that bother you too much. We drove to the foot of the mountains where there is a funicular railway (one that has 2 cars and relies on a cable kinda) which costs 10 pounds to get to the top and down again (for anyone who is interested) we were always going to walk up it though. The deceiving thing about mountains (or hills) in Scotland is that although they are small in number ( I think they are around 1000m), they still take a fair bit of effort to walk up them. It only took us 2 hours, but we were sweating and quite hot when we arrived at the top - even though the temperature was about 3 degrees plus a good deal of wind chill. We climbed up the ski run, past the railway station and to the top of the mountain - pausing halfway up to take a picture of the lake that we had taken about 50 minutes before from the shoreline.

The guys bought a few souvenirs from the shop at the top, but I didn't want any of the stuff there. We then headed back down the 'windy path' which was nice, (I was going slowly due to my leg - but only as a precaution really, I didn't want to do anything before we go snowboarding in Austria in a few weeks)

The lake from the above picture

We were going to go golfing after that - but we ended up running out of time (well daylight really) and the Australia Vs England rugby game was on. So we went back and watched that game - which was interesting hearing the English commentary (so so so bias!!!) A dinner of Chinese which was great (and cheap) and to bed.

Loch Ness - Just a lake

The next day yesterday - was Loch Ness day. To our surprise (although I don't know why) our car was covered in ice when we went out to get going... (Did I mention our magnificent breakfast again?) We did the old water trick and headed on our way to the Loch. We were still in good spirits (nothing like a few days before) and arrived about 11am. (we were staying in Grantown Scotland) For those people who were wondering where we stayed, it was the Ben Mohr Hotel - great place - I think made by the breakfast - shower took a while to get hot though if I was picking). Anyway, we went to the Loch Ness information center (6 pounds for a student he he) which was informative, a bunch of videos that goes from room to room telling you about the history of the 'monster' etc. It is actually a waste of time going there specifically. - it's just like any other lake - just with a kinda cool history about it. So we then went nearby to Dog falls - not that special, but it gave us a quick walk through the forest which was nice. We then drove about 1.30 hours back to Grantown, plus some dinner of Cheesecake and pie (the pie was the main course)