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!