Scotland: the land of beautiful scenery...

I had been looking forward to our 5 day driving trip (with Morgan's family) up to and around Scotland, and I was not left disappointed - it was absolutely, overwhelmingly, amazingly beautiful! Everything was SO GREEN. Our trip basically saw us drive up to Edinburgh for the first night, then drive up through the Highlands to Inverness, down the Loch Ness and just over the bridge to the Isle of Skye to stay in the tiny village of Kyleakin for the second night. The third day was spent driving around the Isle of Skye - 2 hours of which Tammy, Greg, Eliza and I were left stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere with no phone reception (in an absolutely amazing place though!) whilst Morgan played good samaritan to some guy whose car had 2 busted tyres... everything is shut on a Sunday so they had to drive back to the mainland. After seeing most of the island we then left and drove down to Fort William where we spent night number 3. Fourth day we wandered down the west coast, through Glasgow, detoured off to find Hadrian's Wall (the drive there was through some of the most quaint and quiet little villages - so peaceful and delightful!), and then made our way to Lake Windermere for our last night in comfort in a B&B (all other nights were spent in hostels, the state of which declined from night-to-night). And finally, the fifth day we drove around the Lakes District some more and headed on back home with a quick detour into Birmingham to Cadbury World only to find it shut 1/2 hour before we arrived; however, the shop was still open so we stocked up on cadbury delights and drove home.

It was somewhat funny in that the fourth day of driving (down the west coast of Scotland) was planned to be our scenic part of the trip; however, the most amazing scenery was definitely seen beforehand. I was so overwhelmed with the landscapes that I would constantly be wanting to stop and take photos and video footage and regretted that I hadn't been able to film the entire journey, or take more photos. Unfortunately the roads don't really cater for people wanting to stop and take photos (tiny, narrow, windy roads) so we didn't get enough photos for my liking. I think I shall have to find a really good coffee table book of Scotland and the Lakes District to make myself happy! My favourite landscapes (in order) are these: driving from the bottom of the Loch Ness west to the Isle of Skye; driving around the Isle of Skye; driving through the Lakes District; driving down the west coast of Scotland; driving through the Highlands. The Highlands were far from what I expected too - I thought the enormity of the hills I saw driving out to the Isle of Skye covered in green grass would be what I would see in the Highlands. But the Highlands just seem to be exactly that "higher land" and there are lots of big hills, but with no trees or any green. Quite amazing really just how sparse it all is out there and how the landscapes differ throughout the country.

Other things of note:
- we shall have to revisit Edinburgh sometime as all we did was a really quick walk around the new side of town and down the Royal Mile in the old side of town. The old side of town is absolutely stunning. It's what I expected Paris to look like actually.
- There are heaps of cool castles all over the place - we stopped at quite a few and just wandered around and took photos. I really wanted to stay in one but they're pretty expensive :(
- We also saw 2 lots of cygnets (baby swans are so much cuter than adult ones!), highland cattle, belted cows, and various varieties of sheep (so many sheep, I thought I was in NZ!) - white with black heads, grey with white heads, brown sheep, normal white sheep; but unfortunately I didn't get to see any otters.
- the great thing about travelling in "summer" over here is that you get lots of daylight in a day which meant although we drove about 6-7 hours each day we still got to stop and see a lot!

All in all, I had an amazing time, and if you're into scenery like me, then I'd definitely recommend driving around the western side of Scotland!!
- esther :)

ps. we had only one decent CD, that was (fittingly) Roddy Woomble singing about Scotland, that we had on repeat throughout those 5 days - needless to say we won't be listening to it again anytime soon!


... photos here ...

we've been busy!

hi all, thought I'd give a bit of an update on the other things we've been up to recently. The weekend after Paris, we went to what is now my most favourite live concert ever - MUSE AT WEMBLEY!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was soooo good! We booked only a week before (after I managed to convince morgan we could go) and so got seated tickets, but they were just to the right of the stage and raised so we got a great view, without losing our spot :) [btw, the handdryers in the toilets are crazy!] They played for ages and then did 2 encores, far out they're awesome! If you haven't heard them yet... go listen to them! Matt even played a grand piano with a transparent lid (ando - the drumkit was see-through too!)

Also that weekend, on being shown a review in TNT mag, larissa and I went to covent garden and got our hair cut at Hair by Fairy. Sounds dodgy, and when we went there they were playing loud heavy metal music and all the hair photos on the outside of the shop were of people with dyed pink/green hair and dreadlocks etc... a bit scared, but we went in and about 15 minutes later (and only 13 quid!) we were new women :) Definitely be going back there again.

the next week saw us come to thursday 21st ie aleisha's 21st birthday! I had the day off sick as I was coming down with a cold, and morgan just had a day off, so we took aleisha to the london eye in the morning. Then we walked around piccadilly circus, leicester square and walked to carnaby street. We also found some discount We Will Rock You tickets so we bought those (which we saw later that night...was okay, not too awesome). Then we surprised the Johnston's at the airport and later we all went to Luigi's around the corner (highly recommended) for some delicious Italian pizzas.

The weekend saw us take the Johnston's to the Borough Markets - so much yummy food! We tasted strawberry champagne chocolate truffles, greek yoghurt cheese cake, delicious basil pesto genovese (the real stuff!), dried strawberries and had spanish chorizo burgers. So much good food. Make sure you head here if you're ever in London. Then a walk around the obligatory sights - Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, St James' Park & Buckingham Palace. The great thing about going to the food market & duck pond in the park today was the fact that morgan just bought a crazy 70-200mm zoom lens, so we got some sweet photos with it (which we will post...sometime). He even attracted another crazed photographer with a similar-sized lens who started talking to morgan. After this we took the Johnston's to Holland Park to see the squirrels, and then had some Ethiopian food at a restaurant in shepherd's bush.

The following week saw the arrival of the Heazlewoods, and just last weekend, the sad departure of leishy :( :( :( It was so lovely to have her here. On her last morning we all went out to Chelsea stadium so leish could get some photos for her friend and on our way back this nice old lady said to aleisha "your friend looks like prince harry... except he has red hair I think... and lots of money... (and then turning to morgan) do you have lots of money?" HAHAHAHAHA I laughed for ages ;) Morgan and I also attended a 1st birthday party for Zac (extremely cute baby!) who's the son of a guy called Charles that morgan used to work with, out at Reading. And the day before, Morgan, Leish and I travelled up to Cambridge and wandered around some absolutely stunning colleges. It was so beautiful!

This past week has seen a bit of panic around town what with the terrorist activites and a bit scary how close to home some of it is. Like I get out of work and pick up the daily paper to find out that our tube station at Hammersmith was closed because of a suspect package. And then I read that someone associated with the explosion in Glasgow had been detained back home in Brisbane. And Heathrow airport apparently closed about an hour after aleisha's plane departed from there. In the midst of all this, it's comforting to know that my life is in God's hands and that there is nothing I can do about any of it. So, with that in mind... we're off to Scotland this weekend ;) Driving up there and around the island - we leave tomorrow morning!! So you can look forward to lots of lovely photos :) - esther