Could be a good children’s book title, hey?

The first thing we learned about Scotland is that it is cold! Ridiculously cold!

As I said, our first night was in a random place because we didn’t quite make it Edinburgh so that’s where we set out to in the morning. Because we made it there so early, we did a bit of exploring that afternoon and went to the movies that night. We were excited about the movies because they were in English! The next morning was Sunday so we went to church and then a bit more sightseeing in the afternoon, where we saw the Edinburgh Castle and the older side of town. Edinburgh is a beautiful city but I thought it did feel that it was a bit grey and not just because of the weather.

From Edinburgh we drove to Inverness stopping in Stirling to visit the National Wallace Monument (and have lunch). As Braveheart is Aaron’s favourite movie of all time we had to stop here! The monument consists of a tower with 4 levels and a total of 246 steps! Apart from all those stairs we enjoyed our visit here. The tower overlooks some of the important battle fields in the Scottish War of Independence and it houses Wallace’s original sword which was probably the highlight.

We arrived in Inverness and got a beautiful camping spot right on the river. It hadn’t been cold enough to buy a heater in Edinburgh but we were really regretting that decision now! We spent two nights freezing and one day exploring Loch Ness. We went to a very average exhibition on the Loch Ness and then had a look at a castle and the lake in general. We didn’t see the monster. According to the exhibition we went to there is no possible way we could have seen it either but we were still a little bit hopeful.

From Inverness we drove to Glasgow where we spent 3 nights in a hostel thawing out and getting sick. Aaron did some uni work too. We were meant to do some sightseeing but our room was too warm and cosy! From there back to England.

From Paris we drove to Calais, spent the night there and then got on the EuroShuttle in the morning to go to England. I was a bit nervous about going in a train under the sea but the whole thing went really smoothly and quickly.

We were very excited to be in England and have everything in English, the only thing we had to get used to was now driving on the left hand side of the road in a right hand drive car (massive blind spot). We spent our first night in Cambridge and enjoyed an evening of walking around the shops, finding a SIM card and eating out. Everything felt very typically English, exactly how we were expecting it.

The next day we drove to York and stopped on the way for a walk around Sherwood Forest which was fun. We enjoyed chatting to an older lady about our travels in the laundry room that night and then went into York the next morning. Aaron enjoyed visiting a music store and playing guitar for the first time since we’ve left. After lunch we set off again attempting to reach Edinburgh that night but we had to stop about an hour and a half before then as I was too tired to drive further. Our campsite that night came complete with its own castle which was a nice touch.

I better start a new Scotland blog before I go further or I’ll get an trouble for calling it the same country!