Scotland, here we come Glasgow - Ballachulish

Scotland 2015

We are off to Scotland!  Westjet has started a direct flight from Halifax to Scotland, as soon as it was announced we booked, too bad that we have to drive to Halifax, but a 5 hour flight direct with no stops in Montreal or Toronto is fantastic!  Marc and Mary-Sue are going with us, they pick us up after work Friday afternoon and we are off to catch our 10:45 PM flight to Glasgow.

4 of us in 1 car, pack light

Uneventful flight, 5 hours is a short time to try to fit in a full night’s sleep.  Andre and I splurged and paid the extra $30 to get emergency exit flights, so worth it when trying to sleep, I was going to be driving the next day and Andre is just too tall to be very comfortable in a regular seat.

Arrival at Glasgow was great, I so wish the US was this easy to enter into.  Agents were extremely friendly, not so when you cross the Canadian or US border.  Next stop was rental car pick up, no to the upsell for bigger car, more insurance, more insurance and everything else they tried to get us with.  Oh I did buy the full fuel fill up, I hate trying to find a gas station at the end of a holiday, hope I didn’t get ripped off too much.  We have a Volkswagen Passat, which is more than enough room for all of our luggage, contrary to what our agent at check in told us when she said she didn’t think all our luggage would fit.  So we are off, first roundabout in about 30 seconds but no traffic so that is easy.  We had booked an automatic car which for me is much easier with already the stress of driving on the left side of the road.  The agent asked me if I had driven automatic before, she said it is so much harder, ummmm????

Rental car for the week, nice drive

First stop it is an information center in Balloch about 30 minutes outside of Glasgow at the start of Loch Lomond.  They have many cruises that start from here on the lake, but todays weather would not be good for a cruise.  We pick up tons of information packets and she points us in the direction of a restaurant for breakfast, and a walking path for a walk after breakfast. 

A great breakfast and our walk turned into a walk to where a festival was being held.  Dragon boat races were cancelled because of the weather, and everything else seemed to be rained out as well.  There was a mountain bike finishing in the park later but we decided to move on.  There is a nice castle in the park and beautiful walled formal garden as well.

Sign in the ladies washroom, really they need a sign to not throw tea bags in the toilet, and it is #1?  We really must be in the UK

Bluebells

Very wet festival

Beautiful walled gardens

Where we had breakfast

From Balloch we drove to Loss, a very pretty little town.  We chose to just drive through the town, lots of rain at this time, it would have been great to stop as there was a wedding with all  the men in kilts and someone starting the bagpipes to welcome the attendants.  

Off to the wedding, very wet

Narrow road along Loch Lomond

 

From Loss we drove to Drovers Inn to look at the water falls.  This is a very old Inn, lots of character, lots of stuffed animals which were a little creepy.

Wendy would definitely be using this if we were walking

Lots of falls today, the wet weather has made for flooded roads in places and lots of heavy falls

Inside Drovers Inn

I now needed a little snooze so we pulled off and I had a 5 minute cat nap while the others went out and looked around.  We are pleasantly surprised to see there are still bluebells around, so pretty.  We saw walkers on different sections of the Highland Way today as well, thought of Ron and Nancy and their walk through Spain, would have really sucked in this rain.

Ski hill in the distance

Rain starting again...

Headed out to Glencoe, and absolutely beautiful drive.  Still lots of mist in the air, and at times heavy rain but still very impressive.

Next checked into our hotel in Ballachulish where we will spend 1 night.  We were actually bumped to this hotel but are very happy.  We both received a free bottle of wine, and another course added to dinner tonight, plus it is a decent hotel, so worth accepting the bump.  Decided that a 45 minute nap was in order then we all met up to head out for more exploring before supper.  

View from our hotel room

This afternoon we drove the entire circumference of the lake the hotel is on, very pretty.  We stopped to see the hotel we were bumped from and lots of spots for pictures around the way.  

Hotel where we were originally booked

Andres new girlfriends

Back at the hotel, broke into the duty free Scotch before supper, then a very nice meal at the hotel.

Tomorrow we are headed to Isle of Skye for 2 days, so looking forward to it.  Here’s hoping for some sunshine tomorrow.  9:15 PM and I am done for the night, hope tonight gets us all on UK time.