From Farm To Croft

So today we said good bye to our hosts Jamie and Morag and our animal friends and headed off to Crieff to work for the next three weeks. We really enjoyed working at Barndromin farm. We learned a lot about farming and sheep, did lots of hiking in the highlands and just had tonnes of fun hanging out on the farm. 

Last Thursday we got a day off and went down to the coast to take a boat tour of the local area. Jamie generously paid for us in return for all the extra work we were doing and we got a great 2 hour tour of the coast. We went and saw the third largest whirlpool in the world and saw lots of wildlife including some seals and a minke whale! Topped the day off with some classic fish and chips in Oban and had a great day off. 

Jamie and Morag have been great and took us along to one of their many dinner parties that they have regularly with their friends. This party was at one of their friends' that live on an island which makes the party a bit more interesting. To get over you have to get to the ferry (first come first serve) and line up, the ferry can only take a few cars but they just squeeze them all on and once were over the ferryman kind of deploys the ramp and revs the engine to keep the ramp on the pier to prevent the ferry from drifting away while you drive off…..crazy Scots. Had a great dinner and met lots of their travelling friends. As soon as around 10:15 rolls around everyone jumps up and once and races a crossed the island to try and catch the last ferry back….needless to say if this was in Canada the Van Bergeyk family would always be stuck on the island. 

Yesterday on our last day at the farm Jamie, some friends and I got up at 6:30am and headed up to Glencoe to hike the anakeigan ridge. It was awesome! Bright sunny morning, a great view and a challenging ridge to climb, what more could I ask for? Apparently it was a grade 3 hike which means that it's the steepest kind of mountain climbing you can do without equipment. So fun. After we got back all of us went out in Jamie and Morag's boat for the afternoon. Did some mackerel fishing, I can honestly say that it's my new favourite kind of fishing. I put the line in for literally 5 seconds and had 5 fish on my line, amazing! Sophie caught a whole bunch too. 

We will be missing the farm life, feeding the chickens, shearing, crogging, driving the quad etc. But now we are making some new friends in Crieff. We're at a place called the Comrie Croft which has a hostel, tea garden, camp ground and bike track. They also rent bikes so Sophie and I can use them and bike around the country side for the next few weeks. Should be lots of fun, we only have to work four hours a day and get two days off. We also cook for ourselves and get a small allowance for food  so it's a bit different from our other jobs. As usual there is lots to do around the area and we will get to check out a new part of Scotland!