The Hairy Coo

Me and the cute boy I met at the cafe-
though he not much of a conversationalist

This past weekend some friends and I went on a tour of the highlands for a day. Oh, my, goodness. So many beautiful things were seen. We started off by taking a 6:30 train from Stirling to Edinburgh-thank goodness my mom had sent me some instant coffee, otherwise I would not have been a happy camper! We then walked from the train station to Starbucks to get wi-fi; none of us had looked up directions on how to get from the station to the cafe we meet the tour at. Once we checked in at the bus, we sat down and had some breakfast and waited for things to get underway.

Our first stop was South Queensferry. There are two bridges there, one for the rail and the other for cars. The reminded me very much of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge. This is mostly due to the colors and proximity. Although unlike the Golden Gate, though they no longer have to paint the railway one constantly thanks to advances in paint technology.

Our second stop stop was the Wallace Monument, named for William Wallce-A Scottish hero, or a Scottish terrorist depending on which way you look at it. We hiked up to the base of it, though did not go inside as we didn't have enough time. It was so windy! I had hiked up their before (It's quite close to Uni) so I did not spend too much time at the top, my hands were too cold and my ears hurt from the wind.

We then drove all the way up to Lake Menteith-the only (kind of) "lake" in Scotland. In the lake there is an Island where a four-years-old Mary Queen of Scots chilled out for safekeeping while the English and Scottish duked it out elsewhere. There was also a rope swing that I climbed up on (with a little help, I couldn't get the seat part to stay still when I would jump).

After the lake, we stopped for lunch in a little village that the tour guide was from. He told us lots of good stories, including a very funny one about his mother buying him his grave plot for his birthday-apparently it has a really good view! I had eaten a PB&J on the bus, so I had some chips (or fries) at lunch. They were delicious and exactly what I had been craving the past few days.

After this, we drove into the highlands to see "hairy coos and beautiful views" as our guide, Donald, said. We stopped at Loch Drunkee. This particular loch is named as such because it was a big place of whiskey smuggling for a while and their is/was the belief that you could just get drunk off the water. If smugglers thought they were going to be caught they would pour their whiskey into the loch, or (more pratically) they would put all their bottles in a net with some stones and sink the net then come back for them a few days later. 

                                     

The Bull. Yikes!

Then we saw real hairy coos! They're also known as highland cows, but hairy coos sounds much cuter :). There were two (or three?) adult females, one bull, and a baby coo! I fed the baby coo some bread. But let's be real, although our guide assured us they were friendly I was still a wee bit nervous when I went to feed the him.

Baby coo! So cute I could eat it :)

The Dam

The next stop was Loch Katrine (the "Kat" is pronounced like "cat" instead of "Katrina" which is what I initially thought). This was by far my favorite stop, and definitely my favorite loch (so far at least). Everything was so beautiful! I wish we'd had more time so I could walk around the whole thing. I also learned that the water levels in the loch are rising because part of it has been dammed. See! Who needs school to learn things?

Loch Katrine

Our last stop on the tour was Doune Castle. The word "doune" means castle, which of course means it is named Castle Castle (There is also a Loch Loch). This is where they filmed (part of) Monty Python and the Holy Grail. When the group was looking for somewhere (within budget) to film the movie they had no luck finding anywhere in England because everyone knew who they were and what type of film they would make. They then decided to try Scotland because they thought the Scottish would not have heard of them and that they'd be too drunk to say no. This ended up being true, and they filmed at Doune Castle.

All in all, the tour was really lovely! Donald was fantastic! I just wish I had brought something to take notes with because I did not absorb nearly enough of the information he gave us throughout the nine hours!