UPDATE

I have only managed to complete blogs for the first 4 days of our Scotland tour so far... but getting there :)

In other news; Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland, was at Kinloch Lodge for dinner on Monday night! Scotland now has its own Parliament, and Alex Salmond is the head of the Scottish Cabinet. I guess he would be Prime Minister, if they had one. I’m still figuring out how their system works, because all the Scots I’ve asked so far aren’t sure themselves how it all works! When we were in Kyle of Lochalsh on tuesday (the town where the Skye bridge comes into mainland Scotland) the police were guarding the new medical centre as apparently he was going to be there to open it!

How are you all doing? Miss you lots!!
xxx R

First days at Kinloch Lodge

Well, we’ve now started our work here at Kinloch Lodge. Here's Hamish in his work gear, and this is our room in the staff quarters called the kennels (Kinloch was built as a shooting lodge so our rooms used to be part of the kennels). Hamish has started training at the bar for seating guests, pre-dinner drinks, canapés and the like, and also serving wine and drinks during and after dinner. They have these ‘wine flight’ things which are like wine tasters they do to compliment the particular meal a guest is having. So Hamish is learning all about wines and what compliments what, and also carrying around these fangled frames which fit all the glasses in them! There’s a lot to remember for sure. I have started training as ‘food runner’ which involves service of food, clearing plates etc. But it’s a lot harder than it sounds, as the meals here are 5 course fine dining experiences, and I need to be able to present the food to the guest with its full name and list the ingredients. Also the hotel has a policy of not asking a guest what meal they ordered, so we need to remember which plate goes to which guest. There’s also a lot of cutlery and things that I had no idea even existed :S

The first night was a bit of a disaster for the both of us because there was just so much information to take in and it was all new. The second night we coped a bit better and hopefully from now on we will be able to keep up with the busy-ness of dinner service. Lunch and brekky are a little less crazy paced so we have been ok with that so far.

The dining room dinner service seems to bring in between 20 and 40 guests per night. It’s very formal, with classical music playing in the background, silverware on display and paintings of the MacDonald family ancestors on the walls.

All the staff here are amazing. The chefs are wonderful and they also cook meals for us too (lunch is made for us and put in the ‘larder’ or pantry) and then they make a lovely meal for us at 5pm before we start work for the dinner service at 6pm. Also, the service team have been really good to us, especially because we are starting from scratch and so we’re a bit slow.

The only things that aren’t so pleasant here are the midgies. Scottish midgies. They’re like a tiny version of our NZ mozzie, and they leave terrible itchybites. Apparently they will die off soon, but until then we will both be devising ways to shelter from the dreaded midge.

I guess I won’t be posting that many blogs from now on, unless we do a bit of sightseeing on our days off. There are lots of great walks on Skye which we will try and do as soon as possible while the weather is still relatively nice. The last few days have been a bit overcast and rainy, but apparently in the winter it is really stormy, windy and rainy! So we’ll have to do the walks before that kind of thing sets in

Hope you are all well

xxx Renelle

Kinloch Lodge

Hello everyone, I’m writing this to you from the Isle of Skye!! We arrived here this afternoon on the train from Inverness, which was a really lovely journey through the highlands. We have installed ourselves in our room, which is in a kind of staff wing thing, about a 7 second walk from the kitchen and our place of work. That’s already an excellent saving on transport to work, is it not?

Tomorrow we both start work, I start at breakfast and Hamish starts at lunch time. They operate on a roster system and the shifts are either covering lunch and dinner, or a split shift covering breakfast, lunch or afternoon tea and dinner. The nice thing is that we will get our days off together so we can explore the island a bit.

We met most of the team here tonight and everyone is really lovely. We had an afternoon tea here when we arrived, to have a wee taste of the hotel’s food (it’s really well known for its food), and I have to say the brownies here are wayyy better than mine. SO good. It even had crumbled pistachio on the top.

A bit nervous about starting tomorrow because I have NO experience in the hotel industry, but I will just do my best and go from there.

Kinloch Lodge is the white building in the background, across the sea loch Na Dal. So kool!

Now some administrative information;

- We crossed time zones from Belgium back to the UK, so we are now 11 hours behind NZ.

-The address of the lodge is; (so you can send us lots of letters!!)

Kinloch Lodge
Sleat
Isle of Skye
Scotland
United Kingdom IV43 8QY

-We don’t have cell phone reception here (or at least not in our room). There may be reception up on the hills around the hotel but we haven’t checked that yet. So I guess the best way to contact us is by email (we can access wireless in the laundry room hehehe) or calling the hotel. If you want to skype us, email and set up a skype-date J

-There is a phone right outside our room which you can call, but we will only be there to answer it at night or very early in the morning. That phone number is 0044 1471 833381. If you need to reach us during working hours, the hotel phone number is; 0044 1471 833277.

-Don’t forget to keep checking the blog because I will update it as soon as I can with all the goss and happenings of our tour of Scotland.

Okie dokie?

Lots of love,
Renelle xxx

Inverness

We had 2 nights in Inverness to rest up before heading to Skye to start work, so we decided not to do too much sightseeing and just take it easy. We stayed in a hostel that turned out to be right on a main street of the place, which luckily wasn’t too noisy. We spent most of our time perusing stores selling woven products like kilts and scarves and stuff, looking for beanies. But they only seem to sell those Scottish-type hats you see around the place with red fake hair attached to the bottom, haha. We did have a walk along the river Ness (Inver = river mouth, Ness = the river Ness, so Inverness means ‘mouth of the river Ness. Incidentally, Invercargill does not mean mouth of the river Cargill, because there isn’t a river Cargill, but Cargill means something else in gaelic which completely escapes me now but I will probably remember later…) We also visited the Inverness Castle which has a good view of the city.

Hamish at the castle looking over Inverness. I really like the way the Scots pronounce 'Inverness', but I can't think of a way to describe it. Anyways they tend to put a different intonation on their words which I think is what makes it hard to understand them sometimes.

Inverness Castle with statue of Flora MacDonald. The story goes that she sheltered Bonnie Prince Charlie and helped him escape from the Isle of Skye disguised as a woman.

Mish on the walls of the Inverness Castle

Then, once we were packed and ready to go, we decided to go out for dinner and celebrate our last night of travels with some proper food, rather than our usual scrape together tuna and tomato buns that we’ve had ‘on the road’. Of course we went to a place that serves haggis. Hamish had a haggis meal with ‘neeps n tatties’ aka mashed potato and mashed yellow turnips, also with black pudding and oatcakes. Good old oatcakes. The haggis was really yum – again tasting like a spicy sausage stuffing (see post on day 4 of our tour for the first haggis experience). I had a ‘steak pie’ which turned out to be a delicious stew on a plate, with a piece of pastry on top. Lol. Dessert was the best though, the best sticky toffee pudding I had ever imagined. Yum!!! It all worked out really cheap too so that was a bonus!

Hamish and his Haggis

??????

We're still alive :)

Hello everyone!

We just finished our 7 day tour of the Scottish highlands and islands (it was sooo awesome!). Currently on the train from Edinburgh to Inverness, so I'm catching up on the blogging. I'm gonna eventually update it with all the stuff that we've been up to since I last posted, so check back for updates (I might not get it all done at once).

Hope you are all doing great. We're really sorry about the lack of contact but there has been little cell phone reception and even less internet available, so we will get back in touch once we get to Skye in a couple of days.

xxx R

Haggis Day Seven - Loch Ness back to Edinburgh

Noone on the tour could believe we had finally got to the last day of our tour; but it rolled around anyway. In typical Kenny style, first order of the day was a dip in freezing cold water. But you can't go to Loch Ness and not test out the water!

So here’s the proof;





We went for a cruise on the loch, and found out all the details of the monster hunts. First of all, I don’t think any of us realised how dangerous the loch is. A few of us were keen to have a swim, but after listening to the guides, I’m really glad we didn’t. Apparently there are an awful lot of drownings there, because of the temperature, depth and composition of the water. Because the loch is so deep (eg 200m on average), the temperature never gets above about 4 degrees on the very bottom, the mid layers at around 11 degrees and the top layers hover at about 13 degrees in summer. So it was icy cold to dip our feet in! The cold water makes it hard to breathe because it stops your diaphragm from contracting, meaning less oxygen is breathed into the lungs for buoyancy, meaning that people sink like stones in the fresh peaty water which already has pretty much zero buoyancy. Also, the shape of bottom of the loch (with its steep cliffs and shelves) creates a current at the edge which has been known to sweep people off their feet and out into the loch. Apparently the steep shape of the loch bottom comes from an ancient glacier which carved out the rock.






Sonar imaging of the bottom of the loch

The water is a very dark brown colour due to all the peat in it. Apparently visibility is so poor for diving that once you’re down a couple of metres you can’t even tell what’s up or down because you can’t see far enough to tell which way your bubbles are going.



It’s now 100% fresh water, but was originally linked to the sea, so there are actually species of Arctic fish still in there that have adapted to fresh water. There’s also a species of massive cannibalistic trout that live in the depths of the loch, feeding on themselves until their population diminishes somewhat, and then they go and feed on another species for a while until their population replenishes. Weird. Apparently there are eels as wide as a human arm-hold too.

So… Anyone still keen to go swimming in Loch Ness?? Our guide told us he had a lot of respect for the Sea because of its power and unpredictability, but he was just sh*t scared of Loch Ness. I can understand why!

From Loch Ness it was a scenic ride back through the heart of Scotland to Edinburgh, past a lot of lochs on the way. We went past Ben Nevis (in gaelic, ‘the venomous one’), the highest mountain in Scotland, also known to be dangerous.



Today it was covered in cloud, so we didn’t see it, but just trust me, its through that cloud somewhere. The North Face is through that valley there too. (Apparently its Scottish!!) We also stopped off at Fort William, said to be Scotland’s answer to Queenstown with the sport and adventure activities offered.



This is Glen Coe, site of the massacre of the MacDonalds in the 1400’s. Most of the MacDonald clan were murdered by the MacLeods, which was the breaking point of their rivalry. When I arrived at Kinloch Lodge, I spotted a painting on the wall depicting the ancestor of the Kinloch MacDonalds fleeing from Glencoe with his wife and child during the massacre. I guess if he hadn’t managed to escape the massacre, then I wouldn’t be sitting here at Kinloch Lodge today because none of it would exist!!

We also drove past Sean Connery’s mansion/estate/jolly big castle. Scots do such funny impressions of Sean Connery, it has me in fits of laughter for hours. Yeeeesshh. We also drove through the town of Lix. Doesn’t sound like a Scottish name, does it? That’s because its actually the roman numerals for 59 (LIX). The Romans named it LIX as it was 59 miles from the then Roman capital of Glasgow. Apparently it stuck with the locals, who just called it Lix. Awesome.



This is Doune Castle (remember, the town where the first pistol was made?). There was a wedding on so they weren’t very impressed with a bright yellow busload of tourists pulling up, but it’s a free world and we were quick. I swear the guy standing next to the car was trying to perfect his laser-eye weaponry so he could kill us all. But he only managed an evil squint.
This is the Wallace monument. Remember William Wallace from Braveheart? Yep, well he was a real guy. His actual claymore (5”10 broadsword swung around the head like a helicopter) is housed up at the monument. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to climb up to it, so we’re gonna have to go back there. They wanted Mel Gibson to use Wallace’s actual claymore for the scenes in Braveheart, but Mel was too short to wield it (because Wallace was 6”10 or something, his claymore was massive), so they had to make a little light one for ol’ Mel to use in the movie.



Wallace is most famous for his defeat of the English at the battle of Stirling Bridge. He and his fellow Scots were outnumbered 14-1 by the English, but they cut down the bridge across the river while the entire English cavalry were on it, and then executed the highland charge on the infantry. The highland charge was all about building up momentum (ie running down from a hill) and then striking the opposition 1) with their shields, which had spikes on them, 2) with their knives 3) with their broadswords (which were Spanish btw).

The story of Wallace’s torture at the end of Braveheart is apparently true. He was hung, drawn and quartered. And tortured in terrible terrible ways (like disembowelling him while he was still conscious, and then setting his intestines on fire and feeding them to him)….. but apparently he did have a piece of cloth from his wife’s dress with him at all times, and apparently Robert the Bruce did have this cloth with him when he lead the Scots on to victory at Bannockburn after Wallace’s death.

All the Scots we have met so far are really appreciative of Braveheart as a movie, because even though it is a movie and as such is geared for audiences and effects, it does tell a part of Scottish history that wasn’t really communicated before that. Apparently Scottish history has been squashed out of their education system, so that none of the younger generations have any idea of their history. Both our Haggis guides told us that they both studied Scottish history at Uni, and both now have their own personal files with MI5. Now I don’t know how much is fact and how much is fiction, but there’s still massive conspiracy and ill-feeling against the English. Especially regarding Scotland’s economy; all of Scotland’s industries (whisky, tourism, forestry, peat/coal etc) are being heavily taxed and the revenue going to the UK Government, which is swayed by the English. For example 80% of the price of a bottle of whisky is actually tax, which goes back to Westminster. The Scots are still hoping for independence from England, so we will see in the next decades (or centuries?) how that goes.

Back in Edinburgh, we had some farewell drinks at a pub off the Royal Mile, and then carried on to the Three Sisters (a famous club in Edinburgh) and then an underground club with live local bands, which was pretty neat.

And that was our Haggis Adventure!! Great stuff, we can't wait for the next adventure!

Haggis Day Six - Lewis to Harris to Skye to Loch Ness!!

This morning we had a few issues with the bus (ie we were on fire), so ended up on the side of the road with a fire extinguisher. After a bit of a fix-it session, Kenny and some of the guys managed to get the bus going safely again. Turned out that the handbrakes had got stuck and we’d been driving about the place with them on, but also, an inner tyre had popped when Kenny was hoofing it around the coast the day before (we were all hanging on for dear life!).

Kenny, under the bus, with a fire extinguisher...

Once the bus was going again we stopped off at the stones of Callanish, another circle of stones. This time, the stone arrangement has a lunar emphasis rather than solar like the others. Other than that, the purpose is still unknown.

From the stones, we drove through Harris and to the ferry for the Isle of Skye. This time it was a massive ferry, and we sat in on some Gaelic lessons during the trip, which was really neat. It’s pronounced totally different from the way its written!!

Once we arrived on the Isle of Skye, Kenny had lots of great info to share with us as he was born and raised on Skye. We saw ‘black houses’ which were the traditional style of house before the highland clearances, they went black inside from the smoke of peat used for fuel. We also saw plenty of strange mounds or bumps in the landscape – which Kenny tells us are the homes of faeries. We’re not supposed to doubt the existence of the faeries. There are also some strangely placed cabbage trees and other southern hemisphere plant species littered about the landscape, which are apparently washed up to Scotland through the gulf stream. That’s why they also get tropical species of fish there too. Crazy huh?!

Random cabbage tree-like species brought up from the sourthern hemisphere by the gulf stream

A 'black house' on Skye - they were actually painted white. The rocks on the edge of the thatched roof are to hold it down in the wind :S

Claiming the telephone as a Scottish invention, these phone booths are randomly placed around the countryside.

Kenny then drove us up a very narrow and scary road to the Quairang, where this is the view;

The Cuillin mountains on Skye are also famous landmarks. The red and black cuillins are both the oldest and youngest mountains around, completely different rock composition. They also create the border between the MacLeod and MacDonald clans (the 2 competing clans from Skye).

Kenny (a MacLeod) decided we could all use a freshening up in the 'detoxifying' waters of Skye, so he led by example and we all had a facial dip, at the site of a battle/wedding between the 2 clans. Apparently we all look years younger already.

Here's Mish, rejuvenating....

This is the Old Man of Storr. The storr is said to be the teardrop of a giant who lived there with his wife. When she died, he was so sad he cried a mountain of tears, and filled the loch below.

Storr Loch, the teardrops of a giant

Once we left Skye (there's a bridge from Skye to the mainland), we drove on to castle Eileen Donan, which has been in countless movies and is really lovely.

That night we stayed in a hostel at Loch Ness!!!

Haggis Day Five - Ullapool to Lewis

We had an amazing brekky at our hostel, including fresh lemon cake which the hostel owners had baked especially for us. We headed down to the ferry terminal in our typical morning rush, but had some time to wander the pier after the bus had been checked in. We had a good old time watching a couple of seals playing around by the pier.

The ferry trip to the isle of Lewis was amazing. The weather was fantastic and we were all counting our lucky stars for the sunshine. Lewis and Harris are two separate ‘isles’, but are actually parts of the same island.

Hamish in his kiddy pen on the ferry

We stopped off at the town of Stornoway to stock up on groceries, and then made our way to a nice duney beach for a bbq. The guys cooked us an amazing feed of burgers, sausages, bacon, eggs and salad buns for only 1.50 pound each. One of those really great feeds!

Kenny, Derek + 2 swiss army knives = BBQ lunch

Dune jumping

Hello Atlantic Ocean!!

The water was amazingly clear and beautifully coloured - but freezing!

After a really great walk along the beach we headed to our hostel back in Stornoway, where we had a few drinks in a local pub. It was a great relaxing day, really enjoyed chilling out on the beach for a bit.

Haggis Day Four - Orkney to Ullapool

First order of the day was to check out a few things in the south of Orkney that we had missed the day before. This included the Italian chapel, and the Tomb of the Eagles. And a stop for a photo at the Highland Park whisky distillery; what Kenny says is the best single malt Scotch.

The Italian chapel was built out of a tin shed by Italian prisoners of war who were being held nearby. They did an amazing job with the materials they had, and it became a symbol of peace.

The Italian chapel

Inside the Italian chapel; the bricks are just painted on but you wouldn't know from this photo!

We then had a rrreally quick visit to the Tomb of the Eagles, which is a Neolithic and stone age tomb site. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see the tombs as we had to run for the ferry (the tombs looked really neat though, and you had to slide in on a skateboard to get into them!), but we did get an intro from the tour guide about some skeletons and tools found in the area.

Neolithic skulls

We were lucky again with a still ferry crossing, and arrived back on mainland Scotland having seen whales and dolphins.

One of the best parts of the whole tour was the drive along the north coast of Scotland, its really lovely.

We stopped off at Dunnet Bay beach where some of the more crazy folk had a swim (it was nice weather but freeeeezing cold, we just settled for a paddle and a game of frisbee on the beach).

Further along we stopped off at the town of Tongue, for stickers and t-shirts that say “I love Tongue” haha.

Being cheap backpackers, we decided to spell out “I heart Tongue” with ourselves and capture the moment.

We then drove through the mountains and lochs of the highlands, to our hostel in Ullapool on the west coast. The scenery was stunning.

Ullapool is well-known for its fresh seafood so we went out for a meal. Hamish had some lovely scallops and I had fresh haddock – delish!

Also, we met real haggis for the first time. It’s traditionally heart, liver, kidney and lung offal encased in a stomach, but is rarely actually served in a stomach these days. Lots of haggis doesn’t even have a fake skin on it these days apparently. Haggis in a can still makes me laugh. It tastes actually really good – like a spongy sausage with lots of stuffing in it.

Haggis Day Three - Exploring Orkney

Orkney views


We had the day free to ourselves to explore what we could of the Orkneys (see the navy blue lines on the map above - that's where we got to). We had been given a bus pass for the day but we wanted to see a bit more than the bus routes would allow, so we got together with the other kiwis Scott and Hannah, and hired a car for the day.

We started out from the biggest mainland town, called Kirkwall, and after a good stop at the tourist information centre to collect as many brochures as we could, made our way along the southern coast to the next biggest town, Stromness. We drove the car through the narrow little streets there which felt really strange, like driving through the middle-ages or something, because the streets are so narrow.

First stop was Maes Howe – an ancient burial mound. The Orkneys are thought to have been attached to the mainland at one point, so there are a lot of Neolithic remnants about the landscape. Also, there is a strong Norwegian influence present, as the people tend to have both Celtic and Viking ancestors. Unfortunately we couldn’t enter Maes Howe as the tours were all booked, so we went to a smaller mound nearby instead, and this one was free! Unstan cairn was just down the road, so we went and checked it out. Hard to believe that people were walking these same footsteps some 3000 years ago!

Hamish, Scott, Hannah and I (all kiwis) at Unstan Cairn

Next stop was just up the road at the standing stones of Stenness. Everyone knows of Stonehenge, but these stones are way older – about 5000 years old. I can’t believe how old they are, its almost ridiculous to be standing next to these massive slabs of rock that some Neolithic person/people struggled to excavate, transport and then stand up, 5000 years ago. The interesting thing about these stones is the area they are in. They stand at the start of a narrow strip of land between 2 lochs – Stenness loch and Harray loch.

Mish at the stones of Stenness

Stenness Loch on the left, Harray Loch on the right.

The strip of land leads up to the Ring of Brodgar, another famous circle of standing stones. Further on from that is another circle of standing stones. The three circles positioned along the strip are then enclosed in the landscape by the hills which form a circle around the strip.

We were lucky enough to be there when a local ranger was taking a free tour of the stones, so we got to learn a lot about the stones and their discovery. They’re not sure exactly what the standing stones are for, but a couple of days before we arrived they had just found another part of the Neolithic landscape; a stone wall. They were excavating it just below where the stones of Stenness are on the little map above; to sort of block off the strip of circles from the rest of the landscape. As there were lots of burial sites found around the circles, the current theory is that these were some kind of processional entry from the world of the living into the world of the dead. Fascinating to be there when they had just discovered this new wall.

Hamish and the heather at the ring of Brodgar

From there we moved up to the western coast where the Neolithic village of Skara Brae is. Its 5000 years old and was discovered in the late 1800s when a storm moved some of the sand that was covering the village. This village is older than the pyramids! The houses there would have originally had roofs, but only the stone walls and passageways remain. Again, fairly crazy thought to be walking around someone’s house built 5000 years ago!

The houses have bed boxes, shelving, fireplaces and even cement-sealed boxes for preparing fish bait. The village is now right by the sea, but is thought to have originally been a bit further away from the coast.

After checking out Skara Brae and the bay its in (Skaill Bay), we had a look at Skaill house which is the family home of the discoverer of Skara Brae. Then we headed up to Marwick Head to see if we could find any puffins!! But alas, the puffins had packed up and moved on about a week before we arrived. We spoke to some French-Canadian bird-spotters on the cliffs who told us that there had been a film crew there last week filming them, but the birds had since moved on for the season. Oh well. Next time I see a documentary on puffins in the Orkneys, I’ll know just where they’re filming!

We decided to drive around the rest of the coastline on the way back to Kirkwall, and went past the town of Twatt on the way. The locals look terribly bored when they see tourists stopping and taking photos with the sign that says ‘Twatt’.

Scott the kiwi at the twatt sign

In Orkney, you also have to watch out for Otters.

And pick-pocketing grannies.

There was celtic dancing on at the local church centre that evening, which we had a quick look at but were too tired to participate in. All in all a fabulous day!