Scotland Part 2

So time for some Wild and Sexy Haggis adventures!!!

Now, last year Sophie and I toured through Ireland on a Shamrocker tour and through Scotland on a Haggis Tour. We had two awesome guides and met some amazing people from all around the world!
Unfortunately over the year we all lost touch. This meant that I was really was surprised to see one of the girls, Julie, who we met on our Ireland tour, walk past the window of Starbucks approximately thirty minutes before the Haggis tour was about to start. I wasn’t 100% sure that it was her so I didn’t say anything. Then waiting in line in front of the Haggis office, I saw her again! And to my surprise, it turned out that she was on the same tour. Two seconds later I found out that I also had the same tour guide as my last Haggis tour. This BLEW MY MIND!!!!! It has been a year, we have all gone away from our previous tours, done our own things, and the randomly all wind up on the same tour, EXACTLY a year later!!! How does that happen???? It was so nice to see Julie again, and be given the opportunity to get to know her better.

So we jumped on the bus with twenty other random people and Chris, our ‘Jobbie’ loving Scottish tour guide. (For the record, Jobbie is slang for poo.... yeah... I know he’s a bit of a weirdo, but just hilarious!)
We were then ready to head up into the highlands of Scotland!

Our trip began with a brief tour of Edinburgh (as we were leaving) and introductions of all the people on the tour. While on the drive back up to Morags, we briefly stopped at one of the many preserved castles.
Before checking into Morags Lodge, we stopped past a store that specialised in selling all things Scottish. Also there we ran into a guy called Ken who ran us through the many details and day to day living experiences of the original Scottish Highlanders. He had an array of weapons that were used in the day, some still with the blood stains on the blades! After a guy on our tour called Lachlan stripped down to his ‘tiny whities’, it was time to head back to Morags for a good old pub quiz. It should be noted that the Back Seat Alliance, which included me, Adam, Julie, Liz, Tessa, Steph, and Kat, technically should have won. However a woman in the group next to us who I affectionately like to call the Trunchbull, cheated off of our answers and then marked some of our answers wrong when they were right! So we came second.... Yeah there are definitely no hard feelings there...

The second day of the ‘Highland Fling’ found us on the shores of Lochness, partaking in the ‘ancient traditional Haggis Tours Haka’ that was sure to bring the great beast Nessie to the surface for a few pictures. Alas, the great sea beast was camera shy that day... We then went on another bus trip to great field, where many years a great battle was fought. It was a fight between the English and the Highlanders (called the Jacobites), with the Highlanders grossly outnumbered, and the battle one-sided. The result of this war banned the use of the Kilt, the Bag pipes, and the Highlander way of life for many years. After that we visited another fort before heading back to Morags, trying a little Haggis (which tasted just like stuffing), and enjoying a little live music from a one man band.

On the third day we travelled to the Isle of Skye. It rained quite a bit and to say that there was wind would definitely be an understatement. But we still enjoyed walking up to a few of the tower ruins, and hearing the story of the Giants Causeway. While driving back however, the buses emergency exit decided that it no longer wanted to remain closed and continually caused us grief on those many tight and cliff face turns! Poor old Adam had to hold the door closed for most of the way! We eventually made it to our next destination, Saucy Marys. This hostel was defiantly a backwards step in the tour as far as ‘the comfort’ go...but it was only for the night! So we just made the most of the bar down stairs.

On the fourth day, we were on the way to Oban. Today saw us gain another member to the ‘Back Seat Alliance.’ Lachlan had previously chosen to sit up the front with a particular girl (Adam calls her lycra girl because he believes that no one should EVER wear as much lycra as she seemed to.) We don’t know what made him jump ship to the complete opposite end of the bus, but we do know that after that day they did not speak again. On the way Chris stopped the bus for a ‘photo stop’ of a lake which was conveniently the shape of Scotland itself. Unfortunately, like the mature adults we were, we were immediately drawn to all the snow on the ground, which quickly erupted in to a snow fight (which ended in our poor tour guide copping a frosty one straight in the ‘boys’). We did find our way to Oban safely (even though the roads were as treacherous as hell!!!) and enjoyed dinner and drinks with the friends we made on the tour.

On the last day of our Scottish tour, we had another interesting trip with the roads being a little challenging for our driver due to snow that had fallen the night before and that was still falling. We also had the opportunity to see the two castles used in the Monty Python films on the way back to Edinburgh. All too soon we ended back at the Haggis office and had to say go bye to all of the amazing people that we had met. Luckily many of us were all in Edinburgh for one more night and we all got back together to have one last meal together. There ended up being nine of us all together. It was so lovely to think that we all enjoyed each other’s company so much that we wanted to get together outside of the tour.

After officially saying goodbye to all of our new friends, Adam and I headed back to the hostel to pack for our flight in the morning to NEEEEEEWWWWWW YOOOORRRRKK!!!