Why would you go to Edinburgh?

What a place!

People have raved about Edinburgh to me for years. Now I know why. Reasons why I think Edinburgh gets such a good rep:

1. It has a lovely, intact historic town 

2. It inspires and produces famous writers

Several writers have drawn inspiration from Edinburgh: Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle. 

The grave of Thomas Riddel and various other parts of Edinburgh may 
have inspired J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books (Note the stones left 
by the grave from fans and haters of Lord Voldemort!)

3. It is hilly

Hilly places just tend to have an edge on non-hilly places.

4. It is compact and easy to navigate

Just follow the Royal Mile: Castle at one end, Parliament, Holyrood Palace and Arthurs Seat at the other.

5. It hosts fantastic, famous festivals

Not its most famous festival, but we really enjoyed ourselves at the Jazz & Blues Festival. While we were there Edinburgh was busy preparing for the Military Tattoo, the Fringe and the International Edinburgh Festival.

6. It has its own castle...on a rock

(It also has the AMAZING Edinburgh castle rock...looks like chalk, tastes like magic and maybe invented by accident!)

Edinburgh Castle

7. It is the poster girl or boy for amazing town planning!

Just look at that!

8. It is a city of depth, angles and alleyways

Edinburgh alleyway

Victoria St: Apparently the inspiration for Diagon Alley, even has a joke shop

9. It is a short walk to get great views of the town

Arthur's Seat

10. It is aesthetically beautiful 

Loch Lomond

After a bus and a train and a stunning but tiring walk around the shoreline, sometimes over jagged rocks, we made it to our Loch Lomond campsite. Loch Lomond is a large picturesque freshwater lake north of Glasgow. This was our first view on the way in:

Loch Lomond

Setting up our sparkling new tent and checking out the facilities we soon realised (again) that this camping gig is harder without a car and a stove!  The camping park we were staying at had a temperamental microwave as its sole cooking accessory. Luckily the 4km walk back to Balmaha to buy more appropriate food supplies and visit the restaurant was gorgeous at any time of day. Well, except for the time I rolled my ankle and that time that it poured with rain!

Traditional tent photo - with over the top colour co-ordination

It was mostly great to be back camping. A highlight was when I forgot to take my towel to the shower. You would not usually put that in the highlight box but it became very funny for me thanks to some youngsters having showers at the same time:

          

Kid 1: “Oh no I forgot my towel!”

Kid 2: “What? How could you forget your towel? Are you an idiot? It is the ONE thing you need to remember to bring when you have a shower.”

Kid 1: “Oh well”

Me [thinking]: Chuckling to myself that I am the adult that forgot the ONE thing I needed to remember for a shower!

After some silence, minutes later:

Kid 2: “I STILL can’t believe you forgot your TOWEL!”

Me [thinking, again]: Wow, really rubbing it in now. (As I try to dry my back with my shirt…)

We did do other things other than eat and take showers! There were some beautiful walking trails in the area, aside from our ordinary commute to Balmaha. My favourite was up to Conic Hill where you could see the the results of the Highland Boundary Fault which crosses over the loch. The Highland Boundary Fault traverses Scotland from the west to the east and separates the Highlands from the Lowlands. 

Looking down from Conical Hill and the fault line

I like it because you can immediately draw a connection to where you are, and the map!

Highland boundary Fault - Source: www.iat-sia.org

Walking along singing a song

Taking a break in the sun

Stunning scenery (this is the part where we 
don't admit to being lost)

Views over Loch Lomond

Walking to Conic Hill

Detour, i.e. we briefly got lost (finally admitted it)

Back in Balmaha, we celebrated our day by trying a haggis burger (really not for me!) and some cookie dough (always, always for me!). I thought that the cookie dough could probably have a more alluring name but I guess it was just cookie dough! It reminded me of an idea for a cafe that my friend Hayley has. Sorry can't reveal that here!

Yummy cookie dough and ice-cream

During our stay we took the ferry across to the other side of the loch to the village of Luss. The ferry provided some information on the area around Loch Lomond. There are apparently wallabies on one of the islands of the Loch but we didn't spot any! Once in Luss we did a loop walk around town which took in Luss Parish Church and some lush Luss gardens (I couldn't help it.) The quaint church had and a small cemetery which contained an 11th century Viking grave (called a hogback). After a walk through town we found a nice cafe for coffee where wrote in our journals and watched tourists taking photos of the waiters dressed in kilts.

Waiting for the ferry to Luss

Pretty cottages of Luss

Everyone likes an honest sign

Rob got stuck in a loop!!

Packing up the tent we walked back to Balmaha, had a great coffee before taking the bus back to Balloch. In Balloch a kind lady at the information centre let us store our big backpacks in the boot of her car whilst we explored. We walked through Balloch Castle Country park and its various gardens and checked out a few shops around town. Then we settled down for a "Scottish Breakfast" for lunch, naturally. That was an adventure! The sausages were square and I was not at all sure what the brown, round thing on my plate was. I have since looked it up: Black pudding, apparently, is common in many European countries and is made of pork's blood and oatmeal. Definitely not a dessert pudding!

Balloch Castle

Scottish Breakfast Source: Wikipedia

Although there are so many beautiful places in Scotland, I am glad we chose Loch Lomond as a place to explore. It was a short trip from Glasgow which gave us time to relax and explore. Hopefully, next time we will make it further north - into the Highlands!!

Glasgow, Scotland

From Belfast to Glasgow
Farewelling Mum at the airport in Belfast, we then worked out how we were going to get to the ferry terminal to get to Glasgow. You see, we had chosen our accommodation excellently for Mum to hop across the train tracks to take her flight to London for further adventures with good friend Rhonda, but to get to the ferry terminal was another issue. In fact, it was what we like to call a DOLPHIN SANDS ROAD moment! (The most literal Dolphin Sands Moment we've had thus far!)

If you look at the map below you will see the marker on George Best Belfast City Airport where we said goodbye to Mum. Our accommodation was over the other side of the train tracks from the airport. The ferry terminal we needed to leave from is located at the very top of the map, labelled: "Stena Line Belfast." Short of swimming with our backpacks, we had to go the long way around!

Mapping a Dolphin Sands Road moment! 

So, we got on our way to Glasgow via ferry and bus, continuing our theme of sticking to land and water over air where possible. I tell you what, it is amazing what they have on ferries these days. Balloons, theatres, ponies, numerous restaurants and all for a short trip across the North Channel!* The bus ride was amusing for another reason. There was this loud, obnoxious siren noise coming from somewhere near Rob's head, "WaaahhWhhheeer". It didn't stop for 30 minutes.  The lady next to him asked, "Did I do that?" For quite awhile she, Rob and I could not stop laughing. Everyone else on the bus acted like it was normal for buses to make kind of noise. She was Irish and going to visit her daughter, who had moved to Glasgow a few years ago to find work.

* Ponies may be a slight exaggeration. 

After a short bus trip we found ourselves with Ben and Jenny, our Airbnb hosts for a few nights. They were very friendly and welcoming. Currently they are on their own 4 month trip which includes Australia. It was interesting hearing about their plans and hopefully we gave the some good pointers for when they get to Melbourne, as they did for Glasgow!

Glasgow
We had only booked Ben and Jenny's place two nights before we left Belfast. At this point in our trip we had next to nothing on our itinerary, just vague plans. The only future date and time where we actually knew where we would be was vague plans to be back in Melbourne in January 2016! It was both exciting and frightening and it meant our plan for Glasgow was...well...to spend time planning! We wanted to organise our time in Scotland, then potentially the Netherlands and France. I also had some research work that really needed doing. 

Our planning plans meant we did not see as much of Glasgow as you would expect in four days, but we did enjoy what we chose to see...

The People's Palace and Doulton Fountain
The People's Palace is a beautiful building that houses a museum of social history. It is set on the Glasgow green next to a big glasshouse and a beautiful fountain. The collections in the museum gave us some insight into the lives of Glaswegians over different periods. For example, we found out about tenement homes, the "steamie" or communal laundry and stories surrounding volunteers of the recent Commonwealth Games. Something that really struck me was the experiences Glaswegians had during war-time. I cannot imagine having to send your children to the country-side to keep them safe. 

Outside the grand Palace building is Doulton Fountain, the largest terracotta fountain in the world. In incredible detail, the fountain that was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's reign and features a statue of Queen Victoria over a wide basin and four statues of water-carriers representing Canada, India, South Africa and Australia (represented, as the Scottish viewed us, in the 1800's). 

Doulton Fountain

Australia

Hashing
Something I had managed to organise before arriving in Scotland was for Rob and I to go hashing. It was a gloomy, wet day in Glasgow and we nearly bailed on the whole idea but decided to brave the weather. (It was unlikely to get better...it was Summer in Glasgow after all!) We are very glad we went. As with our experience of doing a hashing in Phnom Penh, everyone was extremely welcoming. The location of the hash was at Mugdock Country Park, north of Glasgow and not easily accessible by public transport. We took the train part of the way and then one of the regular hashers had kindly offered to pick us up.

What made our time on the Glasgow hash fun was that included a castle, a loch and, naturally, a zombie dance:

When Zombies attack

Mugdock Castle

Braving the rain...sort of

Dinner and music at Maggie May's
Whilst in Glasgow we went to Maggie May's to hear some music. I had actually hoped there would be some dancing but not this particular night. We weren't in Glasgow long before we realised that we could only understand every 5th word someone said and they had no clue what we we were saying. 

Also, in a sad story; Rob loves to try local beers wherever we go; upset that we had just missed the Glasgow Beer Festival 2015, he asked the woman at the bar "What local beers do you have? Anything you can recommend?"  

She said "I have no idea, do you want to try Murphy's?  It's Irish"

Rob responded "...umm no, I'd like to try something local, you pick"

And he will never make that mistake again.


Sister Act 
I think we perplexed our aribnb hosts quite a bit with our choices of outings in Glasgow and maybe our Sister Act outing topped the cake. Although Rob and I enjoy seeing the important historical and cultural sites of a place, it can get a bit much after almost 7 months on the road. I think that is what prompted me to look on the "What's on Glasgow" website. I hoped to find something a bit different, perhaps a bit interactive, and definitely non-touristy. That is how we found ourselves at C7 Church for their production of Sister Act! Given we both love the movie we thought "Why not!" It was a pretty great community production, with mostly good singing. Embarrassingly, we got directly mentioned by the pastor (who hailed from Sydney), not because we were Australian but because when asked earlier we had told someone we had found the production on the "What's on Glasgow" website! Oh happy days!

Sister Act!

The Lighthouse
Originally it was the name of the Scotland's Centre for Design and Architecture that caught my eye. Reading a bit more into it I found that you could get some good views over Glasgow from the top of the Mackintosh Tower. Jenny had also told us a bit about the architecture exhibitions available. Although some of the exhibitions were interesting, we were probably more about the staircase and the views to be honest.

Rob getting dizzy

Glasgow

Watch this video that explains how the Duke of Wellington keeps getting a
witches hat on his head!

Belfast and the Giants that live nearby - Ireland Roadtrip Part 6

Wow. Wow is the word I choose to describe Belfast and surrounds. The centre of an evolving history, haunted by spectres of the past with an optimistic eye on the future.

We have to start with the beginning of our experience, which was navigating the Union Jack clad streets. Flapping from windows and hanging across streets like a city-wide car sale they were intimidating and even oppressive. I suddenly felt as if I had been transported to suburban USA, with someone removing all the white picket fences and laying down cobblestones. Not only were there Union Jacks everywhere, but this rather confronting English looking flag with a hand in the centre of it. And English flag, what? Weren't we in Northern Ireland? Not having expected this nor done anywhere near enough homework before our arrival, we put it at the top of our list to understand what all the flags were about.

Flags galore

Poor King Robb...

We stayed at an incredible AirBNB, owned by a couple who have a sign over their mantlepiece about where they met; at the much famed Red Wedding of Westeros. You are probably sick of hearing about it now, but parts of the Game of Thrones HBO series is filmed in Northern Ireland, which provides beautiful locations for shoots and the show, in turn, provides many jobs when it is in town.

But back to the Union flags - that's what Eugene tells us the locals call it. Apparently it's only us foreigners that call it the Union Jack. We met Eugene, a black cab driver come-tour guide randomly on the street. The day before our arrival in Belfast, we had captured a loose nail...in our rear tyre. We were looking our for a spot to get it fixed at a reasonable price, rather than pay a nasty 1300 Euro excess. At a red light, we asked the driver of the cab next to us for some directions. Eugene was so friendly, he led us all the way there. We lost him at one point due to a one-way street but he started twisting and turning through the streets to find us minutes later! My friend Dan had said that one thing we absolutely must do while in Belfast was to have a black cab tour, so I asked Eugene for his card and we ended up booking him for the next day.

We had arrived in town only a day or two after the annual celebrations of the Battle of the Boyne of 1690, and if Eugene is to be believed, the "Troubles" of Northern Ireland's can be traced all the way back there. This is an incredibly complex part of world history, and I certainly cannot do it justice on my own. In a brutally short summary that does not really do it all justice; William III of Orange from Holland claimed the British crown, his faith as a protestant gained him the support of many who wanted to oust the catholic King James II of England. Further complicating matters (to my mind at least), William III of Orange became William III of England, William II of Scotland and plain old King Billy in Ireland. William's final victory over James was at the Battle of the Boyne in eastern Ireland. With so much of this war apparently caught up in Catholicism vs Protestantism, it might be over-simplifying it to draw a line from there to the "Troubles" of the 1960's, but well...a line was drawn. The memory of that battle is still celebrated, hence the flags everywhere, I'll let this article's summary of events this year, and its obvious lack of...objectivity.. on the matter, to speak for itself.

Kat spotted this when we were looking for a particular pub (we did not realise until we doubled back that the pub was just under the photographed quote!)

Eugene was a Catholic and did a fairly good job of teaching us just a small part of the country's complex history. All the same, I would love to do a similar tour with a Protestant guide, to get a more rounded understanding. In VERY general terms, it seems that Catholics support a reunification with the Republic of Ireland, and Protestants broadly support remaining a part of the United Kingdom. The English flag with an (amputated) red hand on it, is the Ulster flag, and representative of another complicated story that I can't possibly hope to get right, and I think is used widely to represent British loyalism.

For me, it's not a happy thought that kids grow up with this vestige of the past in their neighbourhood

A street with murals protesting ongoing injustice across not just in Northern Ireland but the world

After the tour with Eugene we visited the Ulster Museum to gain more of an insight to the Troubles and other parts of history. We were blown away by an exhibition (Silent Testimony) of Colin Davidson's portrait paintings that told the stories of eighteen people and their experiences of loss through the Troubles. It was very powerful representation of the multiple ways the conflict has (and continues to) impact upon individuals and their families.

But exploring the fascinating and sad history of Belfast and Northern Ireland through this tour and galleries, gardens and murals was not all we did.  

Chris found a lovely perch to engage in people-watching

First off we drove along the northern coast on a beautiful day.  We had great views from the mainland of the sea and across the cliffs, so Chris opted not to join us in crossing to the tiny Carrickarede island near Ballycastle.  The views from the island were great, but I don't blame her for not wanting to cross the rickety 20m bridge hovering 30m above the sea!  For a few hundred years is was home to salmon fisherman who used the natural environment to easily trap dopey salmon. Unfortunately, I believe they're now almost all fished out.  Hopefully the tourists (and there were MANY of us) are keeping the money coming in.  There were so many visitors in fact that they needed a bloke to police traffic on the tiny little bridge that could only hold 10 people at a time.

The northern coastline from the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge

Chris definitely made the right choice!

Looking back at the mainland coastline 

Kat enjoying the scenery

Beautiful coloured waters

Enjoying the view without getting too close to the edge!

No wonder Balon Greyjoy fell off!

We explored wider (to the west) to visit the amazing Giant's Causeway. It is said that two giants, one Scottish and one Irish, used the causeway to cross the channel to have it off with one another. Or it could just be an impressive 60 million year old tribute to volcanic power. The coastline itself was beautiful and it was quite peaceful to walk along the tracks taking in the views. We even nestled down for a snack at the base of the Giant's pipe organ, probably ruining hundreds of other people's photos, but at least it meant we could get this one of the normally VERY tall Chris, just to demonstrate how big this thing is!.

Chris having a go at the giant's old pipe organ

Chris got in a fight with a bus...

...but then crushed it under her giant foot!

Perhaps once used by a giant as a path to Scotland, I found it a nice spot to catch a break..

We don't know this photo-bomber

They look like they're man-made, but the scientists swear it was lava..

An interesting fact of the nearby Tourist Information Visitor Centre is that they include various stories about how the casueway was formed, with the controversial inclusion of the Creationist belief  of the Giant's Causeway some 6000 years ago (as part of the Creation of the earth by God).  Some argue, that it should not be there at all, with scientific evidence suggesting it was formed 60 million years ago by volcanic activity.  And some more say that the story is rightfully presented at the visitor centre, along with other mythical explanations, like Finn McCool the giant.


HOT TIP:
If you want to avoid the excruciatingly high per person price of parking at the Causeway Visitor Centre, then pop down the road to the miniature railway where you can park for 2 or 3 euros.  Of course, if you actually want to go into the visitor centre, then you'll pay the 9euro/pp anyway, so you may as well park there.