Borders and more whisky

So I went on a bus tour of the Scottish Borders on Saturday. I say I went cos someone claimed her and Russ and Harry had something else planned that had to be done on Saturday and was mega important. I personally think she just didn't wanna spend another day on a boring bus and she didn't wanna brave the wind and rain (that one I don't blame her for), so yeah it was just me that went. Photo wise it wasn't the most interesting tour cos two of the three stops we weren't allowed to take photos which kinda sucked. And story wise it wasn't really as interesting cos all the cool stories seem to have happened up north. Most the stories we got were of towns and when they were established and why etc. 

 

Our first stop was Rosslyn Chapel, no pics allowed inside and to be honest not the most interesting talk I've heard either. But we were allowed to take pics of the outside so I got a few of that. 

Next stop was the town of Melrose to see the Abbey and for lunch. I decided I didn't wanna pay the entrance fee for the Abbey so just took pics from the outside and found a river walk to do, there was a pretty cool bridge along it which was a nice lil surprise. Also visited the Melrose rugby grounds, home of the 7s, or so I've been told. Melrose is a lovely wee town that I'm glad I got to check out and was def the highlight of the tour. 

Then we stopped at Scott's View which had a view of the Eildon Hills which overlook Melrose. This was just a brief stop for photos then it was onto Glenkinchie Distillery for our tour there. No pics allowed here which was disappointing and they are more mainstreamed than Deanston Distillery and do more of it by machine than it looked like Deanston did. Got 2 whiskys to taste at the end tho, their single malt which I just wanna say was a lil ick then the tour guide said adding a couple drops of water to whisky makes it more smooth and brings out the taste, if he meant the taste of vomit he was right. It was disgusting. Then the next one we got a choice of two and I went for the smokey one from the Isle of Skye which smelled pretty bad but tasted pretty good :) Still think Johnnie Walker is best though, and when I was talking to our distillery guide after the tour he said Johnnie Walker black is his fav too. 

Then it was back on the bus and home. And I'm not sure what Missie, Russ and Harry did but it sure wasn't cleaning my room, slackers lol. 

Random things I learnt:

Bonny = beautiful in colloquial scot.

On the River Tweed salmon fishing is illegal on a Sunday as it is the king of fish. Also it costs around £1000 for a day licence.

Whisky cannot be called scotch unless an oak cask is used.

It also can't be called whisky unless sat in a cask for a minimum of 3 years. 

Overall I liked The Highlands tour better for the stops and the stories but I liked the scenery of the Borders one better so overall I'm glad I did both. 

Rosslyn Chapel

Melrose river walk

Bridge rules :) hehe

Melrose Rugby Grounds

Melrose Abbey

Me pretending I'm behind bars, 

when I got bored walking around the fenced off Abbey...

Found our family store hehe

View from Scotts View

Only pic from Glenkinchie Distillery 

Whisky and Nessie

Ystdy we (Missie and I) were tourists for a day and did a bus trip up to The Highlands with the NessBus.  We were the first picked up and as we were travelling as just one person, so helpful not having to pay for Missie as people don't count here as a person, we got to sit right up front next to the driver, best seat on the bus!! Woot woot hehe.  After collecting the rest of the peps who were coming with us we left Edinburgh and headed north. Dougie (our driver) kept us entertained with stories about Scotlands history pretty much the whole way and when he wasn't telling us stories he played Scottish music, aka music by Scottish artists so some pop some traditional some rock etc. I learnt all about Rob Roy, William Wallace, the Bruce brothers, a bit about Mary Queen of Scots, quite a few English kings (most of who seemed rather stupid trying to come up and take over Scotland and thinking they could do better than the ones before, though some sounded like they actually succeeded, for awhile atlas). We also learnt a bit about buildings and stuff like some of the castles, and the Firth of Forth Bridges.  Also learnt I still don't like seatbelts, at all.

We drove past the back of Stirling Castle on our way to Deanston Distillery which is just outside of Doune (where we saw the castle that is used in the Outlander series).  At Deanston Distillery we did a tour and learnt lots.  Like they use Jim Beam casks as in America you are only able to use a cask for one lot of bourbon so they are real cheap and can be used for 2-3 lots of whisky and makes the whisky taste good, or so they say.  Also learnt that its fun and a lil hypnotic watching the spinny thing go round in the Mash House mixing all the evil barley with water. Learnt what the different shaped stills do, short and fat ones are for heavy not sweet whisky (yup I forgot the technical word they used lol), the high skinny stills are for lighter more sweet whisky. Deanston has the high skinny stills. We learnt that the whisky needs to be locked away from the moment it is put in a barrel else they have to pay tax on it from then, also learnt that the storage hall was awesome and would make a fun party hehe.  Then we had a tasting, that in itself was highly entertaining as there were a few Americans on the tour and they were saying how it was only 10 in the morning how could they have an alcoholic drink lol they so haven't lived if they aint ever had a drink at or before 10am.  I had two tastings, one was their standard whisky from a Jim Beam cask which I did not really like, sweet whisky is weird and disappointing.  The other one I had was one that had sat in a Jim Beam cask for a while then stored in a brand new oak cask to give it a spicy flavour and this one was much nicer.

After the distillery we kept driving north (well obviously hehe) and passed some real nice lochs, took some pics of Loch Lubnaig from the bus so not the clearest (far too cold to even think about unwinding a window, same applies for all the bus pics I took).  We then stopped for a photo stop at the Glen Coe range, which so many people were saying were real nice and blah blah and all I thought was is that them, they aint very tall. For everyone who has ever said that The Highlands are like NZ and in particular the Sth Island, I just wanna say it is like NZ but like the Nth Island in my opinion, not dramatic or gorgeous enough to be like the Sth Island.  In fact most of the trip felt more like driving to bro's than anything.  After saying that though did get some nice pics of the Glen Coe range :)

Then back on the bus to head to Fort Augustus and Nessie :) along the way a hairy coo was spotted just off the road so we stopped and all got off the bus to take pics and say hi.  It was a friendly hairy coo and came over to the fence to say hi and chill with us for a bit, but there was a boat waiting for us so we had to get back on the bus and head off.  At Fort Augustus we had time for a lil bit of a wander before we were due on the boat to go find Nessie.  Seemed like a nice but tiny town, quite liked the canal and the whatchamacall them things that raise/lower the water in a canal - lol I'm so good with words aye :p Anyhow after a quick explore we got on the boat and just wanna say if you have ever been to Milford Sounds then this boat trip is a rip, was boring as and no great scenery but then I have probably just been spoiled growing up in NZ.  On the plus side Missie swears she saw Nessie and that Nessie is actually just lil like her and is purple like her and that people have just been so afraid of what they don't know that they have made up crazy stories and totally exaggerated her size and also made her into a monster when in reality she is just a lil shy and scared of loud noises, like boats, so she hides and just watches a lot. So there you go, Nessie is real so it was worth the boat trip :)

After Fort Augustus we headed back down to travel the long road home, we stopped just outside of Spean Bridge at the War Memorial as it has views of the Ben Nevis Range (Ben Nevis is the highest peak in Scotland at the grand old height of nowhere near as tall as my mountain, Mt Taranaki).  I did like seeing all the snow on the hills, there and Glen Coe, that was nice and I also liked the war memorial, and there was a memorial garden just off to the side which I had a quiet wander in. We then had a quick stop at Pattack Falls, a lil stream with some rocks that made a cute lil waterfall.  The next and final stop was at Pitlochry which was a small town we stopped at basically for food and toilets.  It was funny as pretty much everyone, including Dougie, commented on how all the shops were shut and it was only 5.30pm, lol welcome to a small town people.  I actually like it when shops are shut at a sensible time like that. The rest of the drive home was pretty quiet, couple of stories told, some music played, watched the sun set and chilled.

Pic time :)

Deanston Distillery 

Spare casks

Stills

Traditionally stored in the storage hall

Missie getting her alcohol on

Glen Coe Range

Our bus at Glen Coe stop

Hairy Coo

Missie has spotted Nessie

The nice flat hills surrounding Loch Ness

Cool trick on the boat windows... 

Fort Augustus canal thingy

Ben Nevis Range and War Memorial, a selection 

Pattack Falls

Scottish dude driving another tour that we just happened to run into throughout the day, he said hi to Missie :) we was happy hehe

Watch out its the lego plague...

Lol just kidding, the panic (or excitement) can stop now. 

On Tuesday Missie and I went to the National Museum to go see the lego exhibition and the National Library Museum to see the plague exhibition. Big thumbs up to both :)

The lego one had displays of already built stuff, and loose lego to play with (so much fun till some school kids came along :( but don't worry we went back when they left hehe), and also a treasure hunt of mini figurines throughout the library to look for. Below are some of our fav display stuff and treasure hunt figurines and also our creations :) 

The plague exhibition was no photos allowed and actually really informative. Was about all the deadly diseases and epidemics that have hit Scotland. The one that freaked me out the most was that the Black Plague bug is still out there, I thought it had died off but nope. They even had some letters written to loved ones and thanks to Gma sending me letters I could mostly read one of them :) was a bit sad though as the writer was writing to his brother and was saying that his street had been hit with the cholera bug and the people upstairs 3 of them had died from it but so far his family was ok. 

Lego display pics

The Royal Palace

Skytower and some other stuff

Transport stuff

Our fav hidden mini figurines

Our creations

Edinburgh Zoo

Jo, Missie and I went to Edinburgh Zoo today, mostly to see the penguin parade and the penguins but there were also other animals we obviously had to check out, such as the koalas, pandas, lions and tiger. We also saw the sun bear, zebras, kunekune pigs, rhino, snowy white owl, some other random pigs, spoke Aussie to some wallabies, pelicans and meerkats. Think that's about it. We obviously wandered past more animals but didn't really stop and chat to them. 

Missie very quickly decided that she isn't a big zoo fan, she said it was cold and windy and watching animals but not being able to sit on them and pose for photos was boring so she kept warm in my bag with my beanie (am beginning to think she is not a very Scottish bear). 

The penguins were awesome as and they have a daily parade where whichever penguins feel like it can leave the enclosure and waddle out with the public on the parade route then back to the enclosure, they are not forced to do it which is cool. Today only Mr Green felt inclined to go on the wander which was fine, and he totally rocked it :) 

The pandas were cool, the male was sleeping and the female came out to eat while we were there. The male was having a wicked good dream we decided cos he was twitching his ears and nose loads and looked happy as :) he rolled over while we were watching and then his paws started twitching to which was super cute :) 

The rhino was a dick, when we looked for him inside he was outside, we went outside and he decided to go inside, we went inside he went back outside, we went outside and he walked up around the corner to the part of enclosure we couldn't see, yup total dick lol. 

The koalas were all sleeping which was normal but still disappointing. The kunekune pigs were way down the bottom of their paddock so also a lil boring and disappointing. 

The lions were just chilling, knowing they were adorable (in a big cat way) and kept looking up to the viewing platform to make sure we all knew they were adorable. The tiger was just pacing at the top of his enclosure but he looked incredible so I forgave him for being antisocial. 

The wallabies ignored our awesome Aussie accents and just sat there being boring, silly wallabies. They did twitch their ears when I told them their rugby team sucked hehe. 

The sun bear was actually pretty cool, at the wrong end of the enclosure and kinda pacing as well but still cool. 

We then decided it was cuppa tea time and we decided to check on the penguins again to make sure they were all good before we headed home :) 

Overall a very good afternoon and the zoo was def worth the visit :)

If you are wondering why I had a Monday off to go to the zoo it's cos I've got this week off work :) so yup there is likely to be a few updates as have a few things planned :)

Pics - no particular order and in no way near all the ones I took (esp when it comes to the penguins hehe)

Mr Green on penguin parade 

View of city and Pentlands and zebras