Nature Travelling: Scotland

I had cold war with my wife when we travelled to England. I wanted to go major cities like Manchester or Liverpool besides London but my wife wanted to go further north to a remote place called Island of Sky in Scotland.

End of the day, I agreed with her selection of choice. Island of Sky is a good place to go when you visit Scotland. A place when you can experience abrupt change of weather. The sky can be clear and sunny in the morning but turn dark and rain in few hours!

Our travel to England started when I accidentally saw the Malaysia airlines promotion which cost only RM1700 per person to London. Without hesitation, I made the booking immediately with my credit card. I wanted to go England for a long time after a visit to Germany. My wife too needed a holiday break after gave birth to our little boy for almost a year.

Thanks to my mother in law for taking care our little boy when we packed our things and off to Heathrow airport England. Upon arrival, we took a bus to Victoria bus station and met my wife’s friend who worked for a big multinational company in London.

We stayed for two nights in her apartment before departing to Glasglow Scotland by train. I couldn’t remember how many hours it took us to reach Glasglow but the scenery along the travel was good. I always like to take train whenever I travel to Europe for the reasons of cost, good scenery and different people to talk with.

Upon reaching Glasglow, we were too tired and need to pull a night in the city. Next day, we took the bus to our destination. Although spring, the weather is still very cold and we need to put on heavy clothing.

Along the journey, we passed by the famous lake where the Lochness monster believed to exist, tall forest trees and barren mountain with snow as we went further to North. Finally, we reached Portree the main town of Island of Sky, beautiful small town.

The first thing to do when we arrived was to find accomodation. The first few hostels that we knocked on were all fully booked! That is the problem when you never make reservation early before the trip. At the end of the day, we got into a "B&B" (Stand for Bed and Breakfast) operated by an old couple. The rate was 30 pound per night! It was expensive but I thought it was a different experience anyway to stay in B&B.

Potree is a small town where you can walk around the whole town in an hour. There is a small port for the boats to dock and mainly for the fishing boats. Next to it is a row of souvenir shops and restaurants. We were unlucky because all the restaurants there were fully reserved on that day. So we had to settle with fish and chips at a restaurant in the main street (Not very good meal actually).

We did light shopping at a Supermarket and then hopping from shop to another shop to see the souvenirs. There were a lot of small B&B and private resort. I thought this was a gate away place for the city people. They probably would take a boat to the sea and came back at the evening for dinner.

Next day morning, the B&B owner prepared a typical Scottish breakfast for us. It was good and my wife like it. We did not plan to stay along so the left at about 11am in the morning to another place.