We logged off for work at 9 pm and started our journey to Scotland. We got to the National Express and realized we were to take a bus to Inverness and not a train, we were not sure when we booked it. No biggie, the price was definitely worth it. Our bus left London at 11:00 pm and we arrived in Inverness at 11:35 am, we grabbed a rental car and headed toward our B&B that we were staying in.
Friday, September 14, 2007
We arrived at Ivybank Guess House B&B, which was spectacular. We had paid extra to have an ensuite bathroom, it was worth it. Our room was very cute and was located above the lobby area. The B & B only has a total of 6 bedrooms but is very quaint. Our bathroom was the neatest thing about the room. You actually had to walk up some stairs to get to it, and it was located in the Tower of the building. Also, notice that our door is rounded.
It was after 1 pm now and we were getting hungry, we hadn't eaten a real meal since 8 pm the night before. We walked into town and finally decided upon this place called Girvan's. At first it looked more like a cafeteria but it was not, they had a wide variety of food and I ended up eating nachos while Greg got a BLT, we split the two meals.
We walked to the tourist information and picked up some brochures to decide what we were going to be doing over the next few days. We had originally planned on going on a 6 pm dolphin watching cruise, but when I went to book it we found out that the season ended in August and they now only run 10 am and 1:30 pm cruises, so we were too late for those. Oh well.
We headed back to the B&B so Greg could work for a few hours. Once he was logged off we then got in the car and decided to drive up the coast to the Moray Firth area to try to view some dolphins. At this point it was around 4 pm. The roads in Scotland are few and far between, and not very well marked. This meant we ended up over an hour and a half of this free time we were lost. Again, oh well. We finally found the right road and headed north. We stopped off at the first place that was marked in our book to view dolphins, there is a lighthouse here as well.
While they were a little bit off the coast we could see 2 or 3 dolphins playing, a couple of seals, and I even spotted a penguin. I was just as happy doing this as th dolphin cruise. I didn't really plan on Scotland being a place to view dolphins, we were there for the castles and the distilleries and Nessie, mainly.
Here is one of the dolphins that we saw:
Look closely, you will see the lone penguin:
It was starting to get dark and getting close to 7 pm, we headed back to Inverness and ate dinner at Rocpool. This was a great restaurant. I had orrechiette pasta with broccoli and pine nuts. Greg had pan fried chicken with lemon sauce, fried sweet potatoes, and mushrooms. The chicken was excellent. We then headed back to the B&B to get ready for Saturday, and to get a good nights sleep in a real bed. We watched some of Notting Hill before heading to sleep.
Here is just a beautiful shot of the area where we were dolphin watching, it is actually an old fort:
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