inverness, scotland

The flight into Inverness was super short. It seemed like the stewardess had just finished her take-off spiel, and before you knew it, she was giving her landing spiel! We took a bus into town, and the driver was so crabby! He wouldn't let anyone on the bus until all the luggage had been loaded first, which was understandable, but he was just so pushy about it! Shouting in his Scottish accent and grabbing luggage from people. He almost had a fit when Mike passed him his big pack when it was still SUITCASE loading time.. and he made Mike pass over his daypack much against Mike's arguing and protest. Mike's daybag has all his valuable like laptop and camera in it and he is always so paranoid about it being zipped up and he is SO protective of it. As soon as we actually got on the bus Mike took it out of the luggage pile anyways. I was also standing by Mike, and the driver shouted at me to sit down. Sheesh. Once we found our hostel we just walked around a bit. We quickly realized that there wouldn't be much to do in the actual town of Inverness, so we started to think about some day trips since we were booked there for three nights.

The next day we didn't really do anything at all. I think we've definitely slowed our pace compared to when we first started this trip! I think it's partly the weather, and partly that we've been in some really small towns lately... maybe it just seems like we're slowing down because there hasn't been that much to do! Compared to a city like Berlin anyways, where we were scrambling to see everything in time.. hehe.. We ended up just going to the huge mall across the street, which was the first of it's kind that we've really seen so far. There's tons of shopping here, it's just not set up like the conventional malls we have at home. We saw this cafe called Lemon Tree (which is funny because that's our secret code to alert each other if there's something fishy going on, like a lurking pickpocket or something!) which we were going to eat at, but there was a wait and we were starving, so we kept looking. Thank goodness we kept looking because we stumbled upon one of the greatest places we've eaten yet! It was called Jimmy Chungs and it was an all you can eat Chinese buffet. It wasn't a crap buffet either, there were TONS of things to choose from, with dessert and everything. The best part was that it only cost 2.99! (Pounds that is, so about $6 CDN) We must have sounded so ridiculouse shouting excitedly to each other from across the buffet: "Shanon, look over here, spare ribs!", or "Mike! get over here, they have 10 different kinds of chicken!" lol..

After a massive meal (where Mike had one course, dessert, then went back for another course, hah) we found the only internet cafe in the town so I could upload my blog from Ireland. I had had it ready to go for so long, just never a chance to actually upload it. I bought a memory stick so I can type it up and get my pictures together, save it to the memory stick and transfer it to whatever computer has the internet. The computer I was using there was super slow and copying/pasting my blog and uploading my pictures took 1.5 hours. and ended up costing me 4.50 Pounds a.k.a $9 CDN! ARGHHH.. everything is super expensive here in the UK. It's hard because things are priced the same way they would be at home, which is misleading. For example a premade sandwich might cost around 3 Pounds, like it would cost $3 at home, except with the exchange rate being literally double, that makes it more like $6 CDN..Aiyy yyaaaa.

In the morning we still hadn't quite decided what we wanted to do, but we sure didn't want to sit around the hostel all day! We also didn't really want to do the whole Loch Ness thing either, even though that was the closest thing to Inverness. There is no Loch Ness monster, so basically we would just be going to look at the lake. We didn't want to do it just for the sake of doing it, so we decided to go to Aviemore instead. It was only about a 40 min train ride, and a good base city for all sorts of outdoor activities. We thought about going quadding but it cost 35 Pounds for one hour! Thats 70 CDN! No thanks.. We talked to the girl at the tourist info office and she recommended us this hike in the Cairngorn Mountains. We bought the little book about the trail and set out to catch the bus up to the car park at the base of the mountain. When we got there we went to the little ranger station to ask for more details about the trail, and the guy laughed when he saw our little book. He said there was no way we could get by with it because the trails weren't marked and said we would need an ordinance map and a compass to navigate parts of the plateau. Basically he advised us against that hike, but gave us a map for a much simpler route which included walking up the car road for most of it. From the way he was talking we were kind of freaked out so we just went with what he said. We started up the car road, but it was WAY to easy and not at all what we were looking for when we set out for a hike! We deviated a little up a much steeper path instead. The landscape was a lot different from any hike we've done in Vancouver. There were no trees, just big rolling hills. It was very easy for us to see where we were and far in the distance to where we were headed. No trees or bushes to get lost in or anything! We actaully ended up seeing three reindeer! It was very cool, they crossed our path right in front of us..

We had the sandwiches that we had packed once we got to the peak. It was SO cold and windy; I couldn't wait to get moving again and warm up. The route the ranger had recommeded suggested that we just go down the way we came, but we decided on continuing the much larger loop and going the other way down. Maybe if there was bad weather we might have run into some problems, but it was clear and we could tell where we were going at all times. We felt like the ranger had freaked us out for no reason..pfffft , he should come to Vancouver if he wants to see a REAL mountain. LOL, just being cheeky.. Of course he can't just send people out there without warning them. The weather could have changed, but we were lucky it was a nice day! It also helped that there were a LOT of man made paths everywhere, even if they weren't officially marked with signs.. they were super easy to follow.

We finally got back to the car park 7 hours later! (The one he suggested should have taken only 2.5hrs). The shops and the ranger building were closed by then, so we left our "safe return" note in the box and waited for the next bus that would take us down. I really had to go to the bathroom, so as two employees were leaving I asked if there was anywhere that was unlocked with a bathroom. He was going to let me into one of the buildings really quick, but then decided he might as well just give us a lift down into town. That worked out great for us because we would've had to wait 45 min. in the cold for our bus! We caught the train back to Inverness and I thought of a new cheap meal to make for dinner: make a bunch of rice and just add a can of soup for flavour.. yummmmy. I carry around rice with me, so I only have to by the soup, which is always under a dollar! Mike also found Nando's sauce in the grocery store. I think he almost fainted! All he can talk about is how much he misses Nando's.. Add that to the things he has to carry around now, lol. Together we've got rice, soysauce, garlic powder, ketchup, nandos sauce - just some basics! hehe..