Aviemore, Caingorm Mountain, Inveress and Loch Ness Monster!

20th April

Hi everyone!
On Sunday Gregor drove Sally and I from Glascow to Aviemore, which sits at the bottom of Cairngorm Mountain. Gregor drove us to the top and we went by snow-rail which is like a train that takes you up the mountain almost to the very top! A
lthough Sally and I were wearing about five layers we were still a little cold and everyone looked at me like I was a fish outta water which I probably was! It was a fantastic view of the mountain as its the most snow covered in the area and also because you are so high up! The wind was really strong and whipped snow in my face so I'll admit I didnt last very long, but long enough for photos which I will load soon!

After we went to an exhibition on the mountain which was interesting enough and then headed back down to the Hostel and dumped our bags then went to have coffee with Gregor. The town itself was not very interesting despite all the fantastic scenery so we decided to get the morning bus out to Inverness!
We explored Inverness the following day and decided that we would rent a car for tommorow to explore Loch Ness! We started very early with our little car and made plans for how we would catch the moster and lure it back to Australia and make our fortune!
We were chatting as we went along and suddenly we saw the Loch Ness Monster, it was big and scary and heading straright towards us with an evil look in its eye like it wanted to eat us!!
Alright so thats not true (how many of you did I fool?) but we had a good look - we went to the Loch Ness exhibition which I think is jsut meant to discourage you from looking for it but then it blows your mind with tacky merchandise!
We then drove futher along the Loch (it is quite a long Loch) till we arrived at Ben Nevis whish is the largest mountain in the UK! We did have asperations to climb but didnt quite get half way though did take some fantastic pictures! From Nevis we went to Fort William though we didnt find much to do there it was mostly just more fantastic scenery, Scotland has such diversity in closer proximity than anywhere else I have seen!

The following day was a day which we spent most of the day getting the bus back to Edinburgh. We walked through the Royal Mile and discovered the best fudge ever! No, no the BEST FUDGE EVER!! We managed to sample the double chocolate, the coffee flavour and the belgium chocolate and whisky flavour. I want to go back and sample some more but it might mean I buy more and it isnt cheap, but damn its good though!
We also walked down to the Holyrood Palace and went into the gift shop for the Queens Gallery because the gallery itself was too expensive! We then walked back up and did a little more looking around and sat at a nice pub for awhile and then went on a ghost and ghoul tour where you actaully go underground and get told plenty of ghost stories.
Our tour guide was quite good but a lot of the stories can become long winded and they seem to make a joke out of it rather than try and make it scary neither Sally or I cried or screamed once, we were very disappointed! We had also paid an additional amount to go and sit at the pub and get a drink and hear more stories which was good mostly because of the drink but it wasnt very nice Whiskey because it wasnt as sweet at some of the others!
Today we had plans to clmb up Arthurs Seat but rain dampened our plans so we've been trying to occupy ourselves indoors instead. We go back to London tonight by bus and will then be recovering in London before we go to Portugal next week!! Hopefully it will be warmed and cheaper than Scotland.
All the same I have really enjoyed my time in Scotland it has quite a different feel to England, maybe its more relaxed and little more friendly, its certainly has more interesting scenery and the culture is very different from England! I have to put out a big thank you to Gregor and his family as we managed to do and see a lot more with his help and their hospitality was overhwhelming!
If I got the chance I would definetly come back to Scotland...even if it was just for the whisky!

xxoo
Emily

Ps We will upload some more pictures once we get back to London!