Our Final Scottish Frontier – Fort William, Loch Lomond & Glasgow

Our final leg of Scotland was one of our most relaxed, mostly due to the rain preventing us from fully exploring. Here we are blogging and enjoying some wine in what has become a pretty foreign environment - the kitchen.

Fort William

Arriving in at Fort William we were thrilled to find we had booked an apartment – which meant we had a kitchen and could cook a homemade meal. We decided to keep things simple and cheap and opted to make Spaghetti and Meatballs. We headed to Morrisons and bought the supplies we needed, pasta, pasta sauce, meatballs and red wine (not for the meatballs for us). Not quite the make from scratch cooking we usually do. 

We started to boil our water, but after 20 minutes of waiting we realised that the stove did not have the potential to boil water in a pot, so no pasta will cook this way. It didn’t help that there was no lid and the only way we could cover it was with a cake tin… We then got creative and decided to cook the pasta in the microwave. After spending 10 minutes figuring out how to use the microwave we started cooking. The microwave short circuited every minute, and then Simon determined it a fire hazard so our pasta cooking wasn’t looking very good. Meanwhile we had been waiting 20 minutes for the frying pan to heat up for the meatballs so we aborted the mission and went with oven baking. What to do with the pasta? Last option is to put it in the oven, we had never tried it, but what did we have to lose, thankfully we had a microwave and oven proof container. Finally we had pasta and meatballs, but no microwave to cook the sauce so we stirred that through the meatballs and served it up. Dinner took us about 1.5 hours to cook, and the frustration was palpable but the bottle of wine was definitely the purchase of the day.  

Was it all worth the effort? Good question, honestly we are not sure, but we hope you enjoyed the story, because in the end it gave us a good laugh and reaffirmed our belief that together we can achieve anything!

After a late checkout we made our way into the National Park, where Ben Nevis the tallest mountain in Britain looms. For obvious reasons we didn’t climb it. We moved onto the village of Glencoe and went for a quick stroll around a nearby pond before deciding to tackle something harder.

Heading to the mountains and ski resorts we pulled over in one of the valley passes to look up at the many stunning hidden valleys and paths that we could take. We were decidedly underequipped as people around us were strapping on all of sorts of hiking kit we didn’t have. Thinking it through we determined we should not be the tourists that get lost and make the 6 o’clock news and moved on.

The next stop was Kilchurn castle. Believe it or not this one is completely FREE. Yes that’s right, you don’t have to pay to go and see it. The castle was abandoned in the late 1700s but survives remarkably well, although very secluded. This castle is not well known and is very much off the beaten track with no signage, and not the typical tourist haven. This meant the whole thing was ours for the hour that we were there.

 

Our second last stop of the day was Inveraray which is a beautiful whitewashed lochside town with old ships and cute stores.  We had a nice time just perusing the various little shops, laughing at all the touristy junk and deciding if Simon would look good in tweed. We did end up buying some rock candy, it might not be from Hartlepool but it’s exactly the same stuff. Close enough. This was the first time in a long time we had actually gone into a touristy shop, we avoid this stuff like the plague.

Loch Lomond

Hitting the road for the final leg we drove to Arrochar and checked into our seemingly innocuous guest house. From the outside this place looked like any other plain hotel but on the inside we found a beautiful place freshly remodelled and almost to a boutique hotel standard. It was fabulous.

We promptly crashed out on the bed, tuned in to the food network and completely veged out. It was raining cows and horses (the worse version of cats and dogs outside) all afternoon and evening so we didn’t feel bad having a solid chunk of downtime.

Given the inclement weather we decided to just get dinner at the attached pub next door. There was the usual standard pub fare but we both decided to get something different. We both ordered the chicken enchilada. Boy were we in for a treat. What arrived was an enchilada with a side of chips, salad and a warm coleslaw. It was befuddling. The enchilada was indeed filled with chicken but had been mixed with an Italian pasta mix for the filling. The end results was part Mexican, part Italian, part Scottish pub and part BBQ food. It was just bizarre.  Obviously we are becoming Scottish (tight walleted) by osmosis and as it was super cheap so we did not complain.

 

We slept in and had a glorious morning of lounging, a big breakfast, more lounging and finally checking out at 11. It was truly luxurious and we were sad to leave the great guest house.

Cruising around the national park was somewhat disjointed by roadworks, lorries and poor weather. We eventually made a stop at a town that has famous fall of Dochart in Killen. Given the rain over the previous 24 hours the river was running wild and rapids were immense. The water had the colour of bubbling coke from all the peat washed into it and the constant crashing, roaring noise of the water was almost immersing.

As the sun had come out as we arrived Simon made a bet with Amy that it would start raining within 15 minutes of us getting out of the car. Simon lost the bet but sure enough 30 minutes later it was raining again. That’s Scotland for ye!

We didn’t have enough time to do Loch Lomond justice due to the rain, so our blog really can’t reflect its renowned beauty. 

On the road again we drove around some more of the park and then headed to Glasgow. It was a bit of relief to finally hit the motorway after miles and miles of constant slow traffic thanks to lorries and road works. The drive in was easy and we found our Hotel without issue.

Glasgow

Our hotel was located in what is called the ‘digital entertainment’ section of town. Meaning there’s a cinema and some restaurants. Spotting an actual Mexican place and after the previous nights fiasco we resolved to get some decent Mexican. Given a cinema was next door we arranged our first ‘date night’ in I don’t know how long. 

After we had settled, Peter, who we had met up with in Edinburgh, picked us up for a drive around Glasgow. We started at the architecturally gorgeous Kelvingrove Museum and then moved around the city. Peter has a wealth of knowledge about both cities and happily filled us in. Thank you again Peter we really enjoyed the evening and appreciate your time and energy. Retiring to a pub for a quick pint after the tour we had a great chat for a while and enjoyed the atmosphere of a modern Glasgow pub.

We had our Mexican dinner which was miles better than the previous night but not up to Mexican Kitchen standard of back home and walked across the road to watch Escape Plan. It was enjoyable but the cinemas have ‘premium’ seats which they charge you an extra 2 pounds for and regular seats. The regular seats are at the front and are your standard sort of cinema seats albeit snug and the ‘premium’ are bigger, wider and have more leg room and are up the back. A bit cheeky if you ask me to do in every cinema.

Parting Thoughts

If Scotland is not on your bucket list then put it on, Isle of Skye especially. The Scots call it Gods country and we couldn’t agree more. The food may be average (although I’m sure this can be fixed by throwing more money at it), and the beer flat and warm, however at the end of the day none of this matters because all you remember is the magnificence of Scotland. It is an outdoor wonderland, with seemingly limitless things to do and enjoy. The scenery is constantly changing from one place to the next, all equally as beautiful. Scotland has truly inspired us to be more active outdoors and given us a hunger to get amongst nature. In the 2 weeks we spent in Scotland we have been able to get a good feel for the culture and history, cover most major areas and see some of the key highlights. We learnt Scotland is completely achievable in 2 weeks, but ideally you would want to spend 4. We have deemed Scotland the land of Amy’s peoples, everyone is fair and you can go out all day and not get sunburnt.

Just another reason we love our country

Australia is known for its coffee culture and never have we appreciated it more than being away for this long. What is interesting is that where we do find amazing coffee they have modelled themselves off Australian coffee culture. We think it’s great that Australia is having an international influence on coffee. 

Simon & Amy
xoxo