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Saturday

Got up this morning and decided to head for central Scotland, but possibly staying out of England for the next few days as Jim advised there were bucketing rains forecast. Hopped into the car, still feeling a bit like Qasimodo, and rang for some accommodation in Stirling. This of course had to be through an agency with a lady whose accent was heavily leaning towards some Eastern European dialect. Upshot was we got into a hotel in Stirling, much to our surprise (again!) and were then able to choof off without the worry of where to sleep for the next couple of nights. We opted for two nights as we need a lay day, heads too full of what we’ve done and seen and we need to unscramble our heads and dirty washing first before heading further south. With  the rain in the south of the country we may stay another night .

So, heading for Fort William and then onto Fort Augustus where the 5 lock cascade is. By-passed FW and went on through to FA through some of the most astounding scenery yet. We took a couple of pictures and concluded that the scale of those hills won’t translate well onto either a post-card size print or a computer screen, so as in many cases before and probably in the future DV we’ll have to enjoy the memories of these spectacular hills with the aid of the aforesaid pics. The locks are a marvel, even today over 100 years later. Although converted from manual to hydraulically actuated lock gates and sluice valves in 1962,Telford was without doubt one of the giants in the engineering field. He designed the Caledonian canal, still considered one of the world’s great engineering projects, as well as the first suspension bridge, the Menai bridge, along with a string of other firsts. Almost as diverse a portfolio as CYO’Connor of Kalgoorlie pipeline fame. Enough of engineering history, look these guys up if further info is required.

The road for the first 150km was primarily alongside waterways including Lochs Lochy and Ness. Would you believe it? The elusive water lizard wouldn’t even stick its nose above the surface; very disappointing! We stopped at a war memorial for the commandos, very tastefully done, very much a British understatement until you think a bit harder. With pictures of young guys who died fighting in Afghanistan and many wreaths surrounding the circular memorial “garden” it was a moving experience, especially when one’s own son has served in the military.

The drive south through the Grampians mountain range was interesting in that many of these huge hills were bare of trees, an environment so different from the alpine areas I have visited, perhaps the tree line here is much lower than in Australia as these hills are probably much higher. While we saw many signs warning of deer crossing, we were not fortunate enough to see any. After Pitlochry we turned off the main road and followed the scenic route to Stirling. Arriving there with only a sketchy indication of which hotel we’d booked, found it quickly and were ensconced in the penthouse suite. Pretty neat room with some excellent sloping ceiling section for banging one’s head into. The shower recess is small here too, I can’t quite wash my feet without lifting them up, even on the diagonal. Maybe the back problem exacerbates that issue.

Spent a large chunk of the evening going through the proposed travel back to London and concluded fairly quickly that we have more things we want to do than the time required to do them, The conclusion we came to was that in all likelihood, given the opportunity for some more travel, the things we want to take a second bite at will be on the second bite, health and wealth allocation dependant. So it will be Newcastle, York and Billy Wagglestick’s birthplace, and then to return the car to London on Saturday, train it to Victoria Station, adjacent to our hotel, and start the Eu tour. The days fly by and the kalaedoscopic blur of wonderful countryside scenes and those fabulously retained and restored buildings which speak so eloquently of the Australian cultural history brought here by a spectrum fro. convict to aristocrat, may eventually become unscrambled through the sorting out of our many photo’s when we get home again.