Nathan Crogging

For those of you who do not have Facebook, we thought we would post this video of Nathan crogging. This was only his second day, he has improved much since then!

A Week at a Glance

Well some of you might be wondering why it has been so long since our last blog. I could make excuses like we're too busy exploring and seeing the sights etc. But the truth is our host has an excellent book collection that just so happens to have some of my favourite genres...only two weeks left to read them all so...

Last weekend we went hiking with our hosts and some of their friends near Ben Nevis (the largest mountain in Britain) to the Ring of Steall. It was great because we hiked up a picturesque valley to this waterfall and the sun was shining and the mountains were all in the background, it was awesome. After a few hours we hiked to the top of first munro and had an spectacular view of Ben Nevis and the surrounding area. We were pretty tired, we had some lunch and then most people headed back to the vehicles while 4 of us wanted to do the whole ring, which includes 4 munros. So we headed off and it wasn't too bad because once your done the first one your higher and you can just follow the ridge line and you only have to hike up and down…..less. The best part was walking along the narrow parts of the ridge where it was a steep slope on both sides, you really feel like your mouton liming then! The worst  part was the way down on the last one because you have to descend like 3,000 feet and your knees feel like jelly by the time you reach the bottom. So that was on last friday. 

The rest of the weekend we headed off back to Edinburgh to help our hosts paint and fix up their flat that they rent out. Did some painting and some cleaning. Morag took us out for a nice italian dinner so that was very nice of her. Other than that this week has been pretty normal just doing some more shearing, I've got the technique down now so i'm not as sore anymore. 

On thursday we went to the Isle of Mull for the Tobermory Highland Games. Took the ferry and then the bus to a small but pretty town on the north part of the island. Experiencing the highland games was tonnes of fun, all kinds of cool events and strength contests. Highland dancing, pipers and foot races. Of course I had to participate in the open 440 yard foot race. Didn't win, but I did get a small consolation bottle of Tobermory whiskey haha. The set up was great because where all the events took place was beside a hill where everyone could just sit in the grass and watch the whole event. 

Yesterday we went and did some shearing at one of Jamie's neighbours' farms. Lots of hard work but he is going to pay us for the help that we gave him. Also our hosts have paid us some money already for all the extra help and work we have put in on the farm which is awesome and unexpected. Only a week and a half until we head off to our next job. But we will be really sad to leave the farm. I think we enjoy the farm life!

Barndromin Farm

We are finally settled again but this time on a beautiful sheep farm/B&B in Oban. This family, just like the last, has welcomed us with open arms and has so far made our stay very comfortable. It actually reminds me a lot of home, it is as though we have just joined the family and are carrying on with the family chores. Without these families or this entire HelpX experience I am not sure I would have made it this far without considering the option of going home. When Nate and I are living in scummy hostels and trying to find a place to eat our dinner that is not the side of the road it really makes me miss my bed and my family. But thankfully that is not the case most of the time (and yes I do realize that those scummy hostels and road side dining is our choice), we have been blessed with these people who took us in not having a clue who we were and gave us a bed and fed us and have so far treated us as more than strangers.
So for a change Nate and I are for the most part working separate most of the time. I tend to stay within the home and/or Bed and Breakfast changing over rooms, ironing, cooking and just general cleaning. While as Nate spends his days out in the fields tending to his flock.


Like Sophie has said things have been great here on the farm and we are enjoying our time here. I spend most of the time helping Jamie do a variety of things with the sheep like dosing, organizing them for culling and spraying them down for flies etc. Today we started sheering, my job is to basically wrestle the sheep out of the pen and toss them on their bums so he can grab them right away. It's tough! Especially as the beginning when I didn't have clue what I was doing. Now I have the technique down though and it's a bit easier but wow I will be sore tomorrow! I usually just work all day with Jamie so in compensation for all the extra work we are doing our hosts are going to pay for a trip to the Isle of Mull for us, which is fantastic.

On Sunday we had a day off and went with our host to hike up a munro to see some rare flowers (He is  quite the flower enthusiast). A munro is anything over 3,000 feet in Scotland.....I said to myself 3,000 feet can't be that high. Big Mistake! So we headed off on this day trip with our bikes, first we biked 6km to the mountain and then hiked all the way up it. Brutal, my legs were trembling on the way down to say the least. Lots of fun and Sophie is basically a mountain girl now.




Didn't have an amazing view cause we were in the clouds but still some great scenery and a great experience! Definitely the highest mountain I've ever climbed. Tomorrow we will be out shearing again (my poor arms!) and then on Thursday we will probably be taking our trip to the Isle of Mull, our hosts our farmers so we don't really work around the weekend but more the weather. Lots of fun and learning  tonnes!

Highland Fling - Day 4/5

Day 4

Headed out to see Loch Ness first thing today. Lots of people took a boat cruise on the Loch last night to find Nessie and see the lake. Call me an unbeliever but I didn't want to spend the 12 pounds to tour a lake. This morning we stopped and did the "Nessie Haka". Which is basically a dance our guide made up to summon Nessie from the lake, based on the New Zealand Haka of course! We all had fun trying to summon Nessie from the lake. Afterward I climbed up the Nessie model and almost knocked the neck/head from the giant Nessie….ops. 

Next we went to the site of the Battle of Culloden which took place in 1746 the Jacobites versus the Red Coats. Long story short some of the highlanders wanted the old scottish king back on the throne and led by their candidate almost reached London to overthrow the current king. Initially they were quite successful but in this battle their were essentially slaughtered. After this battle the English began doing the "Highland Clearances", this cleared a lot of Highlanders off their land and resulted in many Scots migrating to places like Canada. The battlefield was very sobering, but very well laid out with flags denoting the locations of both forces so you could imagine what it was like for the highlanders to charge the redcoats. After the battle the English behaved badly and would let no one bury the dead. They also went about the countryside killing anyone who they thought was a jacobite and burning all kinds of houses. Our guide says that the British army will come and visit the battlefield to teach soldiers how not to behave after a battle which I would quite interesting. 

After the battlefield we headed off to see some old burial mounds that are well over 3000 years old. Very interesting because there are all these standing stones and then these big piles of stones with a little path in the middle. Apparently the standing stones used in the structure were quarried miles away, so they would have had to carry or drag the stones miles because the wheel hadn't been invented yet! 

Then we headed off to see this odd well. Sophie calls it the creepy well and I tend to agree with her, it's really called the cloth well though. Apparently people believe that the well has healing properties and that if they take a piece of clothing of a relative or sick person and tie it to a tree nearby the well their relative will be healed. At first I thought it was stupid, but then I just felt sad for people that believe that this spring of water can heal their loved ones…..

Our tour then headed off for a whiskey distillery tour! I wouldn't mind learning how whiskey is made, but I didn't want to pay the eight pounds for the tour. So our great bus driver Don drove us to the local town where me and Sophie just walked around and saw an old abbey which was pretty cool in itself. 

Went back to the same hostel we were at the night before and cooked up so yummy fajitas in the kitchen, it was nice to have a self cooked meal again. At the pub that night we had some live entertainment, a one man band who played the harmonica, guitar and had a foot drum and foot tambourine. He was pretty good and would play any song requested!

Day 5

Now we're headed back to Edinburgh! Mixed feelings as we are looking forward to the sheep farm but also going to miss our new friends we made on our tour. First stop we made on the way back was to a Commando monument which commemorates all the commandos who trained and lost their lives in WWII. The area we were in is where all the commandos did their training. The commandos were raised in 1940 when the war was at it's lowest for England. The best men from British regiments were taken and given special training to conduct extremely dangerous and important missions. They served everywhere from North Africa to mainland Europe and over 1700 commandos died during the War. 

The other neat thing we saw on the way back to Edinburgh was a Cathedral in Dunkeld. Nothing to special just an old cathedral but inside were these white haired elderly ladies who are bell soloists! They just play hand bells to old hymns like 'How Great Thou Art', they were great. They do it to raise money to completely restore the old church. The other cool thing they had in the church were old colours that had been taken into battle by British soldiers in the Crimean War and Northern India rebellions and looked super old and battle worn. So awesome! 

That was our last stop for the day, after which we drove to Edinburgh and said good bye to some new friends and our bus driver Don. Now we are back to hosteling until tomorrow!

Isle Of Skye - Day 3

Today we woke up on the Isle of Skye after a night of watching a beautiful sunset over the island and watching Italy get ruined in the euro cup. Also spoke to some of our fellow travellers and got some advice about where to go in Italy and all their adventures. It's really neat talking to all the different people on our bus, where they've been what they've been doing or where they are going to go. The one fellow on our tour is part time in the Australian Air Force, Infantry trained and has done a tour in Iraq so it's been interesting talking to him and others on our tour. 

It's hard to keep track of everything we do in a day because you just see so many castles and hills and monuments but I will try and remember accurately all the names and places we went to. First off we headed to a place with glorious view of the surrounding hills and our guide told us a story about faeries and after the story we all had to dip our faces in the river so that the faeries could make us even more good looking then we already were, so that really woke us up! 

After that we headed north to the Old Man of Storr, which was just a large hill with some interesting rocks at the top that gave us an amazing view of the mainland and surrounding hill. You could literally just sit there all day and appreciate the view! It was quite the climb and our guide says he has only gone to the top twice with other groups. It was cool seeing all the sheep in the hills around us and they just climb around no problem. 

Then we headed off, exhausted to some cliffs and other look outs, all gorgeous and giving us just great views. We stopped at an old 2000 year old ruin that some old vikings had built and that archaeologists can only guess at what it use to look like. It's neat just walking through their rock ruins imagining what it was like over 2000 years ago.

After we finished there we headed off to Fort Augustus near Loch Ness, where we are staying to the next two nights as we travel the surrounding area. These hostels have been great because they actually have kitchens with pots/pans etc. where we can cook our own meals at night, which cuts down on a lot of cost as don't have to go out every night. Tonight we bought stuffed crust pizza from the grocery store! So cool! You can buy stuffed crust pizza here it's awesome. They also have lots of quick meals that aren't make of crap and that don't have lots of preservatives in them so those have been great too. 

Tomorrow we will be off touring around loch ness and inverness which will be lots of fun. Super exhausted from that big hike up the Old Man of Storr though. The Isle of Skye kind of reminded me and Sophie of the West coast meets the East coast of Canada because of the fishing villages and all the mountains nearby. Anyways lots of fun ahead, Cheers!

Canada Day! - Day 2

Nathan has been hogging this blog lately, for someone who did not want to have one at all he sure seems to be avid about keeping everyone in the know. But I thought it about time to share a little about our life from my perspective. As Nathan has already mentioned we have left our wonderful family in Aberfoyle and moved on to a tour of Northern Scotland. 

Scotland is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and words nor pictures seem to capture its beauty. Today we officially began driving through the Highlands and they are even more magical than I described the forests in Aberfoyle. This is the place for Nathan and I, there are waterfalls coming out of every crack and I mean every crack, you can stand in one spot and be able to see 5 waterfalls. And the mountains are just majestic! We had a short stop over in a village called Glencoe which was the home of the Glencoe massacre if you want to look it up it is quite an interesting historical read, and were able to go for a wee hike up the mountains over a river and passed a waterfall it was incredible! The mountains are definitely a glimpse into the powerful God we serve! Then we continued throughout the day just winding in and out and up and down around the mountains, it actually was at times making me car sick and I never get car sick but its constant S turns. We stopped over and saw many monuments and castles and historically significant things that Nathan loved to both read and climb. He is beginning to get a reputation among our fellow tour mates as a monkey man, because he literally hops up and climbs anything remotely climbable. We had a slight pull over to view a very a Canadian sight, which was relevant since it was Canada Day! One the side of this one mountain these Italians come up and build like hundreds of inukshuk every year, they all get knocked down and blown over when winter comes but they keep coming back to build them every spring! It was an interesting site we were able to share a little Canadian culture, although I could not really answer many of the questions since I do not know the meaning or purpose of them, does anyone?

And as a side note Nathan forgot to post my favourite part about yesterday so I get to show you instead. This is Hamish. He is a highland cow, and they are just the cutest things I have ever seen. They are furry like dogs but look like a cow and have this bright bright red hair! I just loved them! And there were baby ones too! I think we should import some and have them on the farm they would make a good tourist attraction since Caledonia does mean Scotland-it would not be a stretch. 

And as of now we are sitting on the Isle of Skye which so far is turning out to be a amazing mix of the east and west coast, with the feel of a small fishing village but yet with mountain ranges that go on forever! But this trip is definitely an adventure, Nathan and I are beginning to finish each others sentences which has never happened before but that just goes to show how much time we spend together…but it is a wonderful blessing! 

Highland Fling - Day 1

This week we are taking a tour out of Edinburgh with Haggis tours of Northern Scotland and the highlands. Luckily we are only with a small tour of 11 people including us on one bus. So it's really neat because you get to know your tour mates really well. One Greek, Two Canadians (Us) and the rest are aussies funny enough. Our tour guide is Don who is a great funny guy and knows all the history quite well. 

Don and the Bus

The tour is great, Don gets to take us wherever he likes on the way to Oban, our first destination. So we first stopped in stirling which we had already seen but we saw some new things like the wallace monument. 

Don's knowledge of Scottish history makes the trip that much more enjoyable (for me at least). After stirling we went to an old church the Don had never been to before and explored it, very cool as well. History is everywhere!

We were ahead of schedule so we decided to stop at another castle along the way, Dunstaffnage castle. Don subtly suggested we could sneak into the castle without paying the four quid to get in. Everyone else got stopped trying to enter without paying but I sort of snuck in the back way and explored the castle on my own. Not worth the four quid but still very cool. 

Afterwards we headed off to Oban (yes the same oban where we will be staying the rest of this month). A very nice town, a lot bigger than aberfoyle that does a lot of fishing and where you can buy fresh caught fish and chips. We will definitely be doing that. Looks like a great town with lots to see around it. They also run ferrys to the nearby isle of mull where there are more castles and neat things to explore so we are planning on going there this month too. 

Went to our hostel for the night which was very nice and had a fully equipped kitchen which was really nice for cooking instead of having to spend the money eating out. Met an American girl at the hostel who was travelling by herself and became friends with lots of people in our group. So she asked Don if she could join the tour and we now have an even 12 member group! At night we all went as a group to the local pub/bar and saw some traditional scottish music and dancing. It was awesome! They taught us some dancing and also just did some performing for us. The group often sung in Gaelic which was really cool and they had bagpipes, a flute, piano, guitar and a fiddle. The music was awesome, you really felt like you were in Scotland after listening to them. Afterward we went to a different pub and got to know some our fellow tour members better. After the initial shock of us be married so young passed we got some great job ideas and recommendations from one of aussies who spent the last year living in London. Tomorrow we will be heading off to the Isle of Skye and Fort William which should be great!