Last night we had a great dinner and then went walking in the town. We had a look at the harbour area which was so pretty due to the setting sun, and then had a drink in the beer garden of one of the local pubs.
This morning I woke up when my alarm went off at 5am but thankfully due to still being full of cold made the decision to keep sleeping and watch the footy later on. However, when I woke up at 7.45am I was unable to watch on my afl app again as it hasn't been working. I'm so glad it wasn't. Checked the scores and it made me so angry, I've tried to forget about it all day but HOW COULD WE LOSE TO MELBOURNE?!? Lol.
Our first stop of the day was at the Sligachan River. It was absolutely bucketing down at this point but Jamie - who was wearing a kilt as punishment for being late yesterday to pick us up - told us to come down to the river and he would tell us a story requiring audience participation that needed the river. Intrigued, most of us followed. The story was about a beautiful young woman from the Macleod clan who was set to marry a man from the McDonald clan to tie the two together and end hostilities. However on the day of the wedding the woman fell off her donkey (I was the donkey!) and hit her head on a rock, causing her eye to pop out and her to look hideous. On arriving at the chapel the groom took off her veil and was angered at her appearance, and stabbed her donkey, dog and servants all in the eye. The woman fled to the river and was told if she placed her face in the river for two seconds she would have eternal beauty. So her (Cordelia), the donkey (me), the dog (Rob) and the servant (Shane) all dunked our faces in. So good for my cold! Not haha. Anyway, the story ended with the servant being a McDonald descendant so he and the once again beautiful lady married and lived happily ever after.
Jamie then told us of the mounds in the fields that legend says are where the fairy folk live. We then crossed the Skye Bridge which connects the isle of Skye to the mainland. We'll be back there next week, this tour is a bit strange and goes all over the place!
Our next stop was at Eilean Donan, a castle that has featured in several movies including 'Highlander' and 'Made of Honour' with Patrick Dempsey (aka McDreamy from 'Grey's Anatomy'). Eilean means priest in Gaelic and Donan is the name of a priest who first built a monastery on this site in the 6th century. King Alexander II built a castle here to help defend Scotland the Vikings, and it stood until 1719 when it was blown up in the battle of Glenshiel during the Jacobite war. In 1912 John MacRae-Gilstrap (who inherited the land from his ancestors in the Mackenzie and MacRae clans) decided to spend his wife's fortune rebuilding the castle as it would have been. This cost the equivalent today of £16 million - yikes! - and took 20 years to complete.
We had a quick tour around part of the castle and then I spent 1.5 hours looking around by myself while the others got lunch. Sometimes my budget prohibits me from being social (bread and cheese for lunch for me!) but to be honest I quite enjoyed the solitude and it was great to wander around. Spoke to Brendon on the phone for a bit too - his travels are still going well!
Took some nice photos of the castle as the weather cleared, and then Jamie drove us up a hill for more nice pictures of the castle and Loch.
Then he told us a story about a man who approached a witch and asked her to preserve the beauty of his give daughters until they got married. She took this literally and turned them into mountains! We went to have a look at the five sisters mountains, but the weather had closed in and was grey and torrential rain again.
We continued to drive through the Glengarry Valley. Absolutely stunning scenery!!!
Tonight we are staying in Fort Augustus right near Loch Ness. Normally on this trip you stay in Inverness tonight but there's a festival on so we are staying in Fort Augustus and then actually coming back here Tuesday to properly look at Loch Ness and go on a boat cruise (and for a swim!). Tomorrow morning the ten day people (myself included) leave for Orkney and we leave the 5 day people behind.
Tonight we have a pub quiz at the hostel which I'm really looking forward to!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
PS: My Instagram photo got on the haggis website - yay!
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