Day 2 - Glasgow to the Highlands

20th October 2019

After a nice long sleep, we got up and treated ourselves to the hotel buffet breakfast, where Andrew tries to make the hotel bankrupt by eating every possible course. Many a holiday has been spent with Andrew going to breakfast on his own, Oli and I staying in bed and then joining him an hour in, where he is still only on the cold meats and cheese course.

We packed up the room and left Oli taking a shower, and went to collect our hire car from the station. An hour later we were back and packing up the car. We had two things on the list for Glasgow today - an exhibition of Linda McCartney photos at the Kelvingrove Museum or the Glasgow Necropolis. No time for both. So, the Necropolis won. Not a surprise. It was a beautiful day, brilliant blue skies and a crisp autumn feel, so a walk in this amazing place for the dead was most welcome. The Victorian cemetery is behind the Glasgow cathedral and is on a large hill, so can be seen at street level. The dead clearly have the best views.

The Necropolis is interdenominational and the first burial in 1832 was that of a Jew, Joseph Levi, a jeweller. Since then, there have been over 50,000 burials. Many of the tombs we saw were large and grand and had lists of whole families. One in particular was interesting - John Ronald Ker who was killed when shooting wild fowl from his fishing boat and drowned. His friends had paid for the memorial in 1867, in memory of “his amiable and generous disposition that made him an excellent friend”. The list of his qualities was very heart warming and made me think he was very much missed. It was a huge monument.

Another fascinating monument is the Monteath Mausoleum, the resting place for two brothers. It has a circle of carved faces which guard the Mausoleum, and which are common in Indian and Hindu temples, palaces and forts. The connection with India was that Major Monteath was an Officer with the East India Company. It was beautiful.

After an hour of walking around, we made our way back to the car and off to the Highlands.

Within a short time we were out of the city and following the banks of the breathtakingly beautiful Loch Lomond. I had read of the beauty of this part of the UK, but I don’t think I was fully prepared for it. We have travelled far and wide to see nature at its finest, but here it is - almost on our doorstep.

We stopped at a lochside village called Luss. A small conservation village with sweet cobbled houses built in the 19th century for workers from the nearby slate quarries. With Loch Lomond looking particularly splendid with the autumn sun beating down on its waters.

A bride and groom arrived to the sound of bagpipes and promptly got onto a boat and sped off across the loch. It was a real feast of autumn colours and we could not believe our luck with the weather.

By now it was late afternoon and we really needed to get moving as we didn’t want to be arriving at our final stop in the dark. But so many parts of this area warranted a stop of the car to take it all in.

We saw a sign for the ‘Falls of Falloch’ which sounded interesting. A small car park with 5 cars in, and we jumped out in search of the falls. We could soon hear them! We walked up into the woods, just as the owners of those cars were walking back and we found ourselves completely alone with the falls. The trees were golden and the falls were simply stunning. Natural beauty,

WIth Andrew saying ‘that has to be the last time we stop’, we were off again. The temperature was dropping as quickly as the sun. Now the sun was setting and the highlands looked even more golden. I was almost hanging out of the car window in an attempt to capture it with the camera, but I don’t think I have one picture that truly does it justice. I often use the word breathtaking, and I am always open to loving the countryside, but it was really stunning.

We stopped at a small village store to get some provisions for our home for the next two nights. It’s in a small village called Ballachulish. We arrived and found it quite easily, but in the dark it would have been another matter. We are in a small opening in the woods with 4 other cabins. It’s a cute cabin with a kitchen and living area, two bedrooms and a bathroom. A nice log fire too. We unpacked the car and then headed off to the local hotel for dinner. We waited ages for our food, but it was nice enough and then went back to our cabin, lit the fire and relaxed before heading off to bed.

The night is so clear that we could see the sky so well. There is very little light pollution around, so the stars are filling the sky, I can never quite take in the amount of stars there are, And the more you look, the more that seem to appear. We hardly ever get to see the sky this way.

It’s been another wonderful day. Starting with the dead and ending with the stars. We are full of fresh air and will sleep like logs for sure.