Our Holiday Begins

Tuesday 13 July 2010




This year we found ourselves in the wonderful position of having an extra long summer break because we are changing schools. As always, the first 4 weeks or so are spent with Bill's boys in Manchester catching up with family. When they flew back to their mother, it left us with a full 5 weeks before we fly out to our new adventure in Dubai.

Knowing that we had so many options open to us only made it harder to make a decision. We flirted with going to India (getting visas seemed too hard & it's monsoon season as well), eastern Europe from Albania up to Croatia, Ireland and finally we thought about going to Scotland with the aim of visiting the highlands and islands. It was this that really got both of us excited – I wanted to see wildlife and Bill had always wanted to explore a part of Scotland he'd never been to before.

So, somewhat at the last minute, we hired a car for 2 weeks (the plan was to drop it in Glasgow & catch a train & ferry to Ireland for the rest of the holiday) and phoned Bill's relatives in East Kilbride to let them know we were coming for the night.

We started our adventure by picking up our hire car from Manchester airport on Monday and driving up to East Kilbride. Bill's aunt had not only found us a bed for the night, she had organised a party with lot's of Bill's relatives that he hadn't seen in years. It was a great night & we felt bad about leaving before lunch the next day but needed to get on the road.

Bill's uncle gave us directions to avoid Glasgow city itself & get onto the road to Loch Lomond – somewhat tricky as there was a “shoogle” to be negotiated along the way.

Our first stop was at Luss on the shores of Loch Lomond, & although quite pretty, felt very touristy with loads of day-trippers from Glasgow. We watched some pretty smart swans helping themselves to picnics while the picnic owners tried to both keep their distance & shoo them away. We didn't stay long & continued on our way, driving the length of the loch & up into the highlands. The scenery was stunning, although the weather started to close in. We saw lots of walkers as we went through the Glencoe gorge. We were looking out for accommodation, but we saw lots of “no vacancy” signs. We kept going through the most stunning of scenery & when we got into Glencoe village on the edge of Loch Leven, we found a place to stay at the Glencoe Hotel.

Our room had a view over the loch & as we'd been driving for hours, decided on a walk around the village to explore. We discovered there wasn't much choice for an evening meal, so later we tried our luck at the hotel. Not great – as we are both vegetarians, the varied seafood menu didn't do much for us & the only vegetarian main was macaroni cheese. That's what I ordered, Bill managed to get them to make a sandwich. His sandwich was stale but still better than the pathetic attempt at macaroni cheese I was served. The least said about it the better.

Despite the food, the weather continued to improve, & later that evening we saw the light on the loch & just had to go out again with our cameras. Although we didn't stay out late enough to catch the sunset (around 10pm) we did get some great evening shots of the boats on the water.