Isle of Skye - Haggis Tour

This shirt is the best way to start my stories on Scotland - it is a good description.

Our first stop was the William Wallace Monument in Sterling - a really steep walk. I took quite a few pics of the monument including the part that is supposed to be a replica of William Wallace himself but decided to include the overall pic and then underneath is a very special sculpture of none other than Mel Gibson - this statue is below the monument by the shop. Kinda funny that he managed to get himself included in the William Wallace Monument.

Eilean Donan Castle. Unfortunately we couldn't go into the castle - wrong season but we still got to wonder around. This castle was damaged during wars and battles and remained that way for a long time. Then a gentleman of the Mac Rae family (the owners of the land) had a dream of walking around the castle in its complete state. He woke up, drew up plans and organised to rebuild the Castle. Later the original plans were found and his reconstruction was proven to almost 100% accurate. All from a dream.

We then made a trip to the Clansmen Centre close to where we were to bunk for the night in Fort Augustus. Two of the people on tour got dressed up in the original style of dress and we were shown all the various weapons that were used. The interesting thing is that the whole idea of different knit kilts for different clans was never in existence. They only had natural dyes and used whatever they had at the time. The idea of a different knit for each clan is a modern concept.

This is Sligachan the magical river between the red and black mountains. Let me take you back through the misty curtains of time. There were two clans living on either side of Sligachan - the Mac Donalds and the Mac Cleods. The problem with these two strong powerful clans living so close to each other was that there was constant battles between the two. The chiefs from each clan decided to meet in order to devise a plan to bring peace. Luckily they each had children a beautiful daughter (possibly the most beautiful girl in the world) from the Mac Donald clan and then a eligible bachelor from the Mac Cleod clan - the plan was for them to marry and bring peace.

The day arrived and the beautiful girl packed up and headed down to Sligachan to meet her future husband. With her she had her little dog, her donkey which she rode on and a little farmer boy who lead the donkey. They arrived and started to cross the river - the donkey got a scare and the beautiful girl fell off damaging the side of her face and losing her eye. Upon arrival on the other side she was confronted by anger since the man she was to marry did not want an ugly wife he then beat the dog, donkey and farmer boy and sent them all back.

On her arrival home her father was so angry with the situation that he too banished her, her donkey, her dog and the farmer boy. Having nowhere to go she went down to Sligachan and cried trying to find a solution to her dilemma.

Elfin, King of the wee people, heard her cry and asked what had happened. She explained the story and he said not to worry and whispered in her ear. She then went to the edge o the river and dunked her face - when she resurfaced she noticed that her reflection was once again beautiful. She then dunked her dog, donkey and the farmer boy and it had the same affect for all and they all lived happily ever after.

I decided to make myself more beautiful aswell and dunked my head in the water - nothing happened I must be too beautiful already. ;)

Here I am on the banks of Loch Ness, over my shoulder you will see the Loch Ness Monster. ;) Just kidding it is Steve, he is an Australian who was also on the tour. Although in the next pic you will see that the Loch Ness Monster did come out and say hi.

This is our whole tour group - quite a few of us. In the end I had a blast and I would recommend Haggis tours to everyone. They really managed to show me the sexiness of Scotland.