Scotland Day 4: Sea, Islands, Glens, Moors, Falls, Mountains, Forest and back to the City

Today we really saw a wide variety of scenery, about as wide as you can get. First on the itinerary this morning was a walk to a hill overlooking the city.   It wasn’t very far but it was rather steep.  It was really grey and overcast and drippy so we took some panarama shots and headed back down to load the bus.  

Next stop was Glen Coe site of the Mac Donald massacre.  We stopped at the visitor’s centre but opted not to pay for the exhibition but just wandered around the nearby woods and got some cool post cards in the shop. 

A little further in we pulled over and took pictures.  We scattered and had tour group members all over the hill side.

This area is near where they shot Hagrid’s hut for the later Harry Potter movies.  Leaving the glen we entered Rannoch Moor which really looks like it could have been the dead marshes in Lord of the Rings.  Also there are lots of shots of Rannoch Moor on webshots for wallpaper.

We had lunch at a place called the Green Welly Stop which has petrol, shops and restaurants.  I wanted to get something reasonably edible and not so take out.  I opted for soup.  One of the soup options was lentil which I’m not really a fan of and I didn’t know what Cullen Skink was- surprise fish soup! I’m not a big fan of that, but it was good.  I mostly ate the potatoes and broth and tried to ignore the fish which meant as I got further down I ended up with a big cup full of fish.  

Then we stopped in Killin to see the Falls of Dochart that run right through the little town.  Once again we were like a bunch of monkeys running all over these rocks in the river.  It’s a good thing that no one fell in.  This was one of the many moments where I was glad that I was not the 'teacher' in charge of the trip ;)

 As we headed toward’s Stirling Kev told us about Robert the Bruce and the Battle of Bannockburn and started teaching us O Flower of Scotland. 

I was disappointed that we didn’t stop and see Stirling Castle. 

Stirling was surprising in that for a very old town it looked and felt very comtemporary compared to everything else I’ve seen here.  There were lots of new buildings but more than that there was a little more space and it didn't feel as though everything had been built right on top of each other.  It was really lovely. We took a group picture at Bannockburn and then headed into Edinburgh.  


We checked in to our hostel and then Ashley, Sydni and I headed to Sainsbury’s to pick up some groceries.  We headed back and used on the kitchen’s at the hostel to make dinner instead of going out to eat.  It was so convenient.  I decided against the pub crawl for the evening and instead stayed in, took a shower, balanced my budget and thought about journalling.  I ended up chatting with my roommate Halima about a religious life and the moral down fall of society.  It was really interesting.