A Beautiful Country

We're back ! Spent 10 days in the Trossachs, it is beautiful and quiet, thats something you really notice. There is always some back ground noise here but in the highlands its quiet!

We hired a cottage in Brig 'O' Turk about 5 miles from Callendar, it was a really nice place and the garden runs down to the river which you can walk along. The local pub and restaurant was only a ten minute walk along the river so we used it quite a lot ;-) beats cooking. Te cottage was very close the Glen Finglass and the views from the window were great.

The first day we walked up Glen Finglass, well not all the way as its an 8 hour walk but we walked a long way and all of it was all up hill :-) . The dogs loved it all the smells and freedom, the views all around are stunning. It was gloriously sunny when we started our walk but half way it poured with rain for about 10 minutes then it cleared up and the sun shone!

Then on Monday we went to Stirling Castle and the Wallace Monument, the castle is nice but due to the fact that the military were allowed to use it until fairly modern times its not as well kept as I had expected. The Wallace Monument was cool....a lot of steps...I do mean a lot! But the view from the top was fantastic, well worth the walking.

Tuesday we went to Falkirk to take in the Falkirk Wheel.....it was very photogenic! It was interesting too....the boat gets on and is lifted in the air to the top so that it can sail on the other canal, it would have taken 12 locks to make it the 150 feet so its quite something.

Wednesday.....we went to St Andrews...totally loved the place, its so sweet and clean and has a great ruined castle and catherderal. The beach is gorgeous...we walked for a long way with the dogs.....the golf course in the middle is a really strange sight but really special...

Thursday was pony trekking in the hills of Inverary....3 of us went on the trek for 2 hours, I had Barrow, Jess had Casper and Ben had Ollie. We trekked way up into the hills saw buzzards, rabbits and salmon leaping in the lock, it was really good we all enjoyed it!

Friday we went to Balloch on Loch Lomond to do power kiting...I wasn't totally sure what to expect but I have to say we had a blast! The kites start at about 1m and go up to just over 3m...the big one is very powerful it can lift you off the ground ! The medium size one was great strong but not too strong......it really was fun.

On Saturday we were worn out had a day doing walks and local stuff like going into Callendar then out for dinner to the Byre Inn which was a 10 minute walk away.

Sunday was the BIG day Ben had organised white water rafting and canyoning up at Loch Tay. when we arrived the guide said that there had been too much rain fall in the canyons and it
wasn't safe to do that, boy was Nick relieved! Anyway the 3 of them did the white water rafting and I stayed and took the photo's (well some had to :-) )

Monday was our final day, we went walking then went to Loch Katrine, the kids hired cycles and we went on the steam ship round the loch, great views from the boat. Then we walked the dogs round some of the loch (its 12 miles long so no way we could go round it!)

Came home Tuesday and the kids went back to school on Wednesday, I have almost finished the huge pile of washing and ironing that our holiday caused :-)