These two days weren't the most interesting as far as Scotland Adventures go, since they involved mainly driving and picking up our best buddy Kevin (aka Kevlar) from the airport. But I shall briefly mention the things we did so that our travel journal doesn't get out of order.
Day 17: Castles and Driving
The first castle we went to see was Stirling Castle. This was on our 'maybe' list, because, while it's super cool and very important to Scottish history, it's also very touristy and in the heart of town. But we saw it towering over the town on our way to our airbnb last night, and it looked so cool that we added it to our list for the morning.
We did a tour and it was an awesome history lesson of the castle and her importance for Scotland throughout history. The castle was gorgeous (and the gardens were incredible, too!), so I'm glad we stopped by.
I wasn't a big fan of having to do the tour with a group of tourists and I'm glad we have limited our time around crowds so far in Scotland. The Universal Must-Have Rules for tourist-crowds appear to include: (1) must have at least one old person with a phone camera that makes loud camera noises; (2) at least one person with a phone constantly making loud obnoxious ringtone noises; (3) a loud sneezer who sneezes constantly; (4) at least 3 people who loudly say 'bless you!' to the loud sneezer, even though it is interrupting our tour guide; (5) a person who sidles up to you and then coughs in your direction, while not bothering to cough in their elbow; (6) at least 2 people who talk loudly and introduce themselves to everyone around them, and, even though the tour guide is telling us fascinating information, they must go up to everyone and loudly say "I'm from New Jersey. Where are you from?" Etc.
Sigh...I can't stand people/tourists/crowds. So while it was a lovely castle and the tour guide was full of awesome info, I'm glad that it was our only crowd-filled activity.
After that, we started our drive towards Aberdeen, which somehow is big enough for an international airport, so that we could pick up our friend Kevlar. We stopped just outside the city to check out the ruins of Dunnotar Castle. However, when we got there, we learned that it was going to cost us $9.50 (in their money) to see them up close. That's kinda steep to see some castle ruins, so we just enjoyed looking at them from afar and then left.
As is always the case, picking up people from the airport involves a lot of "where are you?" and "I can't find that. Can you find this___?" and doing a texting scavenger hunt to find the right place to meet. Fortunately, Aberdeen airport is pretty small, so our hunt for Kevlar was shorter than normal.
We had to help jet-lagged Kevlar stay up until a normal time, so we headed straight to Newburgh Seal Beach to find seals. It was cool to see seals in the wild. They were bigger than I thought they would be.
Then it was off for food and groceries and then to our hotel to pass out for the night.
Day 18: Driving and Ferry Ride to Isle of Islay!
This was another day of driving (yay). We had to drive all the way across Scotland to get on our ferry at Kennacraig to get to our Dream Location: the Isle of Islay.
We stopped at a good halfway point to check out Balloch Castle, with plenty of jokes made at the expense of the castle's name. 😉 The castle itself was closed so we couldn't check it out. Boo! It was also pouring rain, but we were determined to find their walled gardens. When we finally found the walled gardens, they were...nice. Maybe not worth soaking our clothes, but it was good to stretch our legs before driving some more.
It was pretty rainy and windy when we got to the port, and they delayed our ferry ride, so we were pretty nervous that it might be cancelled. That would have ruined all our plans and reservations.
Fortunately, the ferry still crossed to Islay. It was a less comfortable ferry ride than both the ones going to and from the Isle of Lewis, but I managed just fine (maybe I'm getting to be a pro at this whole ocean thing...laugh).
After some good dinner and whisky, we headed to our cozy airbnb pod with wonderful views (picture below) to pass out. We needed lots of energy for the next few days of amazingness!
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