Glasgow,Lesmahagow, Rhu & Fort William

Welcome to Scotland! Land of Rain, Sun, and Midgies. This place is a bit like Alberta in the fact that the wheather can't really decide what it wants. It's fluctuates between cold and rainy to hot and humid within minutes. Thats why we now have two umbrellas, apparently we can't share. No that's not true, we can, but the hight difference makes it difficult.
We got into Glasgow in the early evening and arrived at the worst hostle probably in Scotland. The Globetrotters Hostel should be burned and then rebuilt, or maybe just burned. Generally we are not picky regarding where we sleep, but I think we now know that a bed is simply not enough. I will spare everyone the gory details lets just say we could not wait to get out of there. Our entire time in Glasgow was spent away from the hostle because that's just how aweful it was.

Our rental car for our highland adventure!

After our two days in Glasgow we rented a car and were off for a road trip around Scotland. It was such a nice change to have your own car and to be able to go where you wanted when you wanted and not worry about how to get there. Our first stop was just outside of Glasgow, the small city of Lesmahagow, where Chads grandmother Catherine was born 1920. We drove around for a while and then visited the cemetary where her two siblings James and Margaret were burried. We were told that because they were so young they did not have tombstones but instead there was a purple bush where they were burried, we tried to find it and we think it is the one pictured. The house that had the billing address for the burrial was 31 Crescent and there is a house still there. We snapped a photo of it, with the people living there looking very puzzled why a car stopped in the middle of the road and started taking pictures. Whether or not this is the same house that Chad's great-grandparents once lived in is up for debate.

James and Margaret's graves in Lesmahagow

Having supper at Aros Cottage in Rhu

The next stop was Rhu, a small town on the coast of Scotland. Because of the 'wonderful' accomodations in Glasgow we decided to seriously splurge and sleep somewhere clean and beautiful. We tried to book at the Lynton house which was a 5 star B&B but they did not have a room available for us, instead they put us up in our own 5 star appartment suite for the night for the same price! Needless to say we had an amazing stay, everything was clean and amazing, amazing, amazing. There was no one staying in the Aros Guest house next door and we spent the rest of the day relaxing, cooking dinner and enjoying the peace and quiet. Here is where we first encountered this beautiful creature they call the Midgie. Mosquitoes are pretty bad in Alberta in the summer but these things...oh man! They are probably a third of the size of a mosquito and their bite is brutal. Some of the bites don't show up until 24 hours later when you feel like you have the chickenpox covered in red bumps that itch very very badly. But even the midgies couldn't ruin this place. Thank you Jackie & Travis for your wedding present - we used it to treat ourselves to this amazing little piece of heaven, like you said to us "Waste it, don't save it" ...done and done!

Aros Cottage!

From Rhu we travelled to Fort William driving along Loch Lommond, which is quite the big Loch. We are still not sure but we think a Loch in Scotish is a Lake, makes sense to us. We stopped for a short while in Oban and went to the Oban Whiskey distillery and bought a small bottle of scotch. We arrived in Fort William in the late evening where we stayed at Farr Cottage for the night, to again find ourselves the only guests. The next day we went on a hike of Ben Nevis. One of the highest mountains in Scotland, Ben Nevis was a great hike. The entire area is emerald green and really made us feel like we were somewhere in Canada, a little piece of home away from home. Just as we started our hike it started raining, but we just kept on going, most the beginning of our hike we were covered by a canopy of trees. We hiked up and up the mountain walking alongside waterfalls. We got to a clearing seeing a huge waterfall in the distance and decided to walk towards it. After walking for a bit you could feel the Midgies biting..or was it something else. After 5 min we were attacked! Attacked by black flies, midgies and God knows what else. So of course Ewa, is flailing her arms and trying to outrun insects that apparently have not eaten for a while, some huge some little; all awful! We lasted in the clearing for maybe 10 minutes before literally running back to the protective forest and the hike back to the car...scenery was worth it! Now, each of us covered in bites all over our legs, arms and torso were on to the Isle of Sky!

written by

ECRadventure on July 1, 2009 from Rhu, United Kingdom

from the travel blog: ECRadventure's Travel Blog

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