The last King of Scotland

On Monday, we left our lovely tranquil home of the last few days (and it's murky water!) and started the long ride back down the UK stopping in Edinburgh over night.

We pretty much blasted heck out of the minibus all the way, only stopping twice all the way - once to visit Loch Maree and once because I was dying for a pee!

Loch Maree was lovely but very marshy so difficult to get close. We did manage to get some great photos though. I have to say, Scotland is the easiest photography I have ever done - you just cant seem to go wrong! The scenery is forever changing, in colour, light and even texture. If you don't like how a photograph turns out, just wait a couple of minutes until the sky changes and a new shadow is cast, or the sun shines a slightly different shade of gold against the peat earth.

We had a bit of a stress getting into Edinburgh - the SatNav got us lost and we nearly ran out of petrol! But we made it in the end. In the evening we tried out a few of the local bars. One of them was called Banshee's Labrynth which is supposed to be the most haunted pub in Edinburgh and was made up of several rooms including a dungeon complete with shackles! It was all pitch black just with the occasional red or green light paving the way through the corridors. I had a whale of a time jumping out and frightening the life out of people! Childish? Probably. Fun? Definitely!

On Tuesday morning we got up bright and early to visit the castle. Edinburgh is stunning during the day, it's still very medieval - you can see that it was never bombed during the war!

On the way up to the castle, I met a lovely old man called Tom who will be ninety one on his next birthday! I think I made his day by saying he didn't look a day over seventy so he let me take his picture in full Scottish attire.

And a man playing pagpipes - the only one we saw during the whole trip, I was beginning to think they were made up!

The castle was huge and had some great views of the city below.

At one o'clock every day, they fire a canon through the turret wall. Unfortunately, we didn't get any decent footage of the canon going off, Paul took a photo but jumped so much with the bang that all he caught was a big blur of city and a puff of smoke! One of our group videoed it but got "memory card full" just as the fuse was lit! Never mind, I think our puff of smoke serves as a great memory of the trip!

After the castle, we walked back into town for lunch and bought some of the most amazing (and definitely theee most expensive!) fudge I've ever tasted!

Home now... time to start planning the next trip!