At the mouth of Nessie

No we haven't been eaten by the Loch Ness Monster. The prefix "Inver" can mean "mouth" as in mouth of a river or where a river leads into the sea, a lake or a loch. Therefore Inverness is the town at the mouth of the River Ness where it leads out of Loch Ness.

Last weekend we booked a cheap backpackers for a night in Inverness. The quick trip involved four hours driving there, through Perth, and five hours driving home, via Glen Coe. But boy was the scenery worth it!! We were absolutely spoilt with the weather. Every time we got out of the car the rain/hail/snow stopped whilst we looked around, only to begin again once the journey continued.
After terrific burgers in Perth (almost as good as the ones in North Melbourne at Burger Republic) we followed the A9 north into Perthshire, passing two fairytale castles.Alice, a radiographer at Crosshouse, had recommended a lovely walk at The Hermitage and the sun came out as we pulled into the car park.
We had great fun with the camera (sorry Jono, we're still learning the manual functions). The Hermitage was apparently a leisure park in the 18th century, You can still visit a cave, built two centuries ago, that was built as a shelter from the harsh weather. Within the grounds you can also see Britains tallest tree (a Douglas-fir), standing at 59 metres.

The River Braan was absolutely gushing, hinting at the conditions we were headed for further up in the Highlands.On Saturday evening we tasted the gastronomic delights of the Highlands. Greg tried Wild Pigeon and Jane ate Scallops (perhaps they weren't so highlandish - do scallops live in lakes?). Our backpackers was an absolute gem. The room had stunning views across the river to the Cathedral and the Castle could be seen out the side window. The sun was shining on Sunday morning while we hunted for our compulsory breakfast coffee. It was nowhere to be found. Brunch has definately not caught on in Britain. We took some more snaps of the castle and bridge before heading down the road to hunt Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. No the big green thing is not the monster...
Entry to Urquhart Castle (at £7 each!) was a out of our price range so we happily took our pictures over the fence. Hmmmm... have we done this before at a famous British sightseeing attraction?
The road ahead was spectacular. Although the top of the mountains were often covered in misty clouds, the sun poked through to reveal snow-capped peaks. We saw Ben Nevis in all its snow-covered glory. It's the UK's highest mountain reaching 1,344 metres.
Then the sun shone again as we passed through Glen Coe, a beautiful valley not unlike the Gap on Dunloe in Ireland which we walked through last year. Glen Coe is also one of Scotland's popular skiing and hill-walking areas. There were plenty of cars parked beside the road as we drove by despite the snow falling outside. We did brave the icy wind for a few quick snaps.
The last two hours of our weekend journey finally delivered the sight we'd been waiting for: Highland Cattle, or as Beck calls them "Hairy Cows". Following several U-turns on the A82 we arranged a good viewing point and finished off the storage space on our camera with pictures of the darling beasts. Does anyone know their purpose apart from being lovely to look at? Are they for beef mainly or just improving Scottish tourism?

No Birthday Blues for Jane (including sky colour)

The weekend before Jane's birthday, Beck and Paul came to visit from London. We drove them several hours down the coast to the small fishing village of Portpatrick. Its a pretty picturesque place with plenty of pubs selling good meals. That is, once you've determined what Scotch Broth entails. We wandered through the craft shops and the lighthouse gallery, sampling some lovely jams and lemon curd. The rain came and went, came and went but it couldn't have been a proper Scottish holiday for the two Londoners without true Scottish weather.

Before they left they presented Jane with a surprise early birthday cake. It was great to have some Aussies around even just for a weekend.

On the 2nd of March, just when we thought Spring had sprung, Scotland told us to hold our horses with more snow! The daffodils were coming out but Janice from work informed us that the real Spring began after Easter. We snapped plenty of pictures to remind us of these days when we return to Oz to face 35-40 degrees.

Greg will not miss preparing the car for its journey to work each morning.

BACK TO 14/09/07 Family Reunion in Lyon, France

Following a rather stressful train trip involving three train changes and two trains being delayed just for us, we arrived to the wide smiles of the Mitchell family. Jane's parents, Greg and Bron, and brother Jono, met us at the train station, having navigated the city of Lyon for an hour in their hire car just to be there to greet us.Jono was studying his final semester of Law at Lyon University. The two Gregs, Bron and Jane stayed in a rather small apartment (not much bigger than the apartment in Southampton, but for four!) just near the crayola-shaped building in the photo above. Lyon is a lovely city on the intersection of two rivers, the Rhone and the Saone Rivers. Overlooking the city is the Notre-Dame de Fourviere basilica, perched atop the Fourviere hill.Inside the basilica there's plenty of gold leaf and almost garishly coloured mosaics but the grandeur is impressive.

In the afternoon New Zealand was playing Portugal in Lyon for the World Cup Rugby. Despite valiant efforts to scalp tickets, Greg Mitchell was the only one to see the Haka and the match to follow. From this point the Altmanns developed a keen interest in the World Cup, stopping to view most of the following games at various big screens across Europe. Anyway, Dad missed out on a scrumptous picnic by the Rhone!Whilst in Lyon we ate some terrific meals. With help from Jono we avoided the infamous black Andouille sausage (only to eat its cousin in Scotland several months later).The girls and their Gregs. We navigated some brilliant markets and made the most of the set menu options at several restaurants in the Old Town of Lyon.We couldn't eat French for a whole week straight so one day Jono took us to a pizza place he'd discovered (conveniently just down the road from an Aussie Bar with day's Rugby scores).

Jane particularly loved the Zoo in Lyon. Its a huge park that people skate in, run around the perimeter, and kids (plus some grown-ups) go crazy over the FREE Zoo. Some people preferred to soak up the serenity.Sadly some of the animals did not seem happy. This elephant rapped to an internal beat for the whole 10 minutes we watched him. He just rocked backwards and forwards, making some very unelephant-like motions.Atleast the turtles and pelicans were happy enough to breed - although the unusual extent of turtle breeding whispers discontent.

Lyon has some impressive artwork. We visited the museum with its impressive collection of paintings to suit all tastes. Picasso and Monet were two of many artists represented here. Even the streets oozed art. Here's an interesting use for the side of a building. Lyon also enchanted us with this statue. The horses actually have steam coming from their nostrils. Its not difficult to imagine this pack of horses coming straight at you.

Girvan or Apollo Bay?

On Australia Day we decided to visit the beach. There were certainly some similarities between Girvan and our favourite beach, Apollo Bay, Australia. However we'll look forward to some more sun when we return to Oz.In the photo below, behind Greg you can see the island of Ailsa Craig. It's a granite island, made famous for two reasons. Firstly, they make world-renowned curling stones for the sport, curling, where stones are thrown across an ice rink to get as close to the 'house' as possible (similar to lawn bowls). Secondly, there are huge numbers of gannets that nest here so the island has become a bird sanctuary. Whilst reminiscing about the beach and home, Jane had a deep thought: You never know when you're going to be torn from stability so make each moment count.

The Essence of Scotland: Wallace and Burns

A couple of weekends ago, Greg and I visited the town of Stirling, site of the famous "Battle of Stirling Bridge". Stirling is about 45 minutes north of Edinburgh and it's been an important Scottish town for centuries. This is where the Highlands meet the Lowlands. The River Forth cuts much of Scotland in half, east to west, and for a time the Stirling Bridge was the only crossing. Here William Wallace and his army made a surprise attack on the English army, showing the English that the Scots wouldn't give up their country without a fight. Wallace's spirit lives on in Scotland and we've found they're a very feisty and protective bunch (and are still very competitive with the English). The Wallace Monument stands guard over Stirling on top of Abbey Craig. This 5 storey tower houses a museum and the climb to the top is well worth it just for the view. If you look closely you'll see Ben Lomond and other mountain peaks covered in snow. The tower's first floor covers the story of Wallace. Luckily we watched Braveheart just the week before - this movie comes highly recommended minus the last scene (says Jane). The second level contains about 12 busts of famous Scots including James Watts (electricity), Livingstone (an influential medical missionary and explorer in Africa in the 19th century), Robert the Bruce (one of Scotland's greatest kings) and of course Robert Burns. More about Mr Burns a little later.

The next floor tells the history of the tower itself. It was a long time coming with a competition about the design, disputes about the design and problems with payment to build it. There are Wallace Monuments all over the world including one in Ballarat, unveiled in 1898 in the goldfields!
Stirling also has a castle (see it on the hill in the photo of the winding river above). The guide books say " if you only visit one castle in Scotland, go to Stirling Castle". We'll have to do that next time since the car park space ran out of pounds. The old town which runs down the hill from the castle has plenty of interesting old buildings, and ruins, including the old law chambers which have been converted into a theatre (the architects won an award for their restoration).

And there are blue plaques on many of the buildings to tell you something interesting. If you can make out the carvings below you'll see a combination of Scotland's Thistle, Ireland's Shamrock and England's Tudor Rose.

After leaving the cobbled lanes of Stirling we drove on through Dukes Pass into the Trossachs National Park. The weather was turning bleak and it was getting dark so we'll save a good hill walk for another day.At the end of that working week we organised a Burns Night/Australia Day Dinner. Burns Night is a celebration of Robert Burns' life, usually held on his birthday, January 25th. Scots like to get together for a supper, wearing kilts, and recite his poetry whilst listening to bagpipes and eating haggis. We both tried haggis and enjoyed it but will hesitate to let it enter our regular diet considering what's contained inside, including several thousand calories! 16 people from Crosshouse Hospital radiology came along including a couple of South African Radiologists also keen not to miss this insight into Scottish culture.
Pauline (middle) brought some tartan napkins and Anna (left) bought us a " Guide to a Burns Supper".

Then Stephen read a large portion of "Tam O" Shanter", one of Burns longer poems. For those of you who don't know, the old Scottish language is very different to modern English, so we didn't pick up a whole lot of the poetry but it sounded like a song to hear Stephen's voice. It was a Burns Night/Australia Day dinner so we wore Australian flag stickers on our chests and the cork hat we brought all the way from home just for such an occasion. Then Jane read "A Bush Christening" by Banjo Paterson which needed a little interpretation but got a few laughs. A great night was had by all.