Highlands Round 2: Now With More Cows

Wow its been a whole week since I last posted. I'm just gonna go ahead and blame that 100% on Kate, as on our travels together, rather than switching cameras all the time, we just took the other's pictures on our own camera, so I've been waiting to get the pictures of me from her.

So yeah. Kate's fault.

Obviously all credit for photos of me thus go to Kate, while the rest are my own.

The tour we took this time was the Hairy Coo's free highlands tour.

This is the Forth Bridge, a cantilever railway bridge over the Firth of Forth, just west of Edinburgh. It connects Edinburgh with Fife. 

So to get to Edinburgh to Fife you'd cross the Forth Bridge over the Firth of Forth.

You're welcome.

The bridge was begun in 1883, took seven years to complete, and cost 98 lives.

The Forth Road Bridge is just east of the railway bridge and was built in 1964 to replace a centuries-old ferry. There is also apparently a good chance it is going to be decommissioned soon, as when it was built there were very few cars in Scotland, and the engineers did not take into account the exponential increase in automobile ownership.

Hi Kate. 

The National Sir Walter Wallace monument from a distance.

Have I mentioned yet that I love the forests here?

They're so magical and old-world.

The first stop was at the Sir Walter Wallace monument, where we walked up the hill to the monument itself.

It was a really impressive sight. We didn't go inside, but apparently the tower houses his broadsword, which would have come up to his chin. I guess he was a tall dude. 

Stirling. I love how unlike Canadian cities the cities here look... you see this, and you know you're in the UK.

The tower was built in 1869.

There was a small path leading off the main one to this lovely "viewpoint"... which Kate and I mercilessly made fun of.

According to our tour guid, the official explanation for the large mound there is that it is the old gardens for Stirling castle. The unofficial explanation is that there is a UFO buried there.

LITTLE FENCES DIVIDING FEILDS.

Stirling Castle. Supa historically and architecturally interesting.

If I'm gonna keep gallivanting about with my DSLR, I'm really gonna have to stop cradling my camera so awkwardly in every picture taken of me.

Stone fences. Man.

Our very subtle and understated tour bus. Tourists? Us?

Nah.

Not us.

Sheep are everywhere.

How is this country *this* picturesque?

See all those little white spots? More sheep.

I love how half the tourist sites here are like "MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS WAS HERE ONCE SHE STOPPED HERE FOR A SNACK DID YOU KNOW THAT"

The Romans called Scotland Caledonia, meaning forested area.

Most of the pine trees in Scotland were planted by the Forestry Service after the war, when they realized that they had deforested much of the area, because they grew much faster than the native deciduous trees. Now, they are concentrating on replanting native trees.

What is apparently a hotel. Supa casual.

Also where we stopped to feed and pet some hairy coos.

Sorry, there is about to be a lot of pictures of cows.

THEY'RE JUST SO CUTE.

Lookit that face.

Kate made a friend.

Perfect day for running about the countryside.

We also stopped at Loch Katrine, which is the fictional setting of Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake. 

Our final stop for the day was Doune Castle which is where all of the castles except for the final one in Monty Python and the Holy Grail were filmed. 

It was set to close shortly after we arrived, so we didn't actually go inside, but instead just wandered around the outside and took pictures.

Yah think?

Overall, another excellent tour, and a good jaunt about the area just north of Edinburgh with Kate. Definitely didn't get anywhere near as far north or into the highlands as we did on the other tour I went on, and it involved a lot more stops, but was another fun and informative tour, and the payment structure was definitely suited for my budget!