Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Road Trip Day 4: Nevis Range, Glen Nevis, and Edinburgh

Our hope was that the weather would be nice on Saturday morning so that we could go hiking near Ben Nevis, which is the tallest mountain in the British Isles at 4,409 feet. It looked decent outside so one of the house owners suggested an easy hike for us.


Even though it was one of the easier ones, there was an intimidating sign at the beginning:




Certain parts of the hike were a little tricky. Especially when we were scrambling across wet rocks:



Midway through the trail, but our ending point, was Steall Falls:




The hike was amazing. I did have a small fall, but that was inevitable. We stopped at the Glen Nevis Visitor Center after the hike. We couldn't see Ben Nevis from where we were hiking in the Nevis Range, but we got a better sense of it from the visitor center. It rains about 355 days a year there. We heard that winds were over 85 mph at the top of the mountain that morning, but there were still people trying to summit it. 


In all honesty, I can't really say much about the drive back to Edinburgh. I was dead asleep up until we stopped to see the Antonine Wall. It was difficult to find the site, but Kathleen caught the worn out sign. The Wall was built by the Romans and was made of turf. Today, you can still see the road but the turf just looks like a hill running by the road:



The last road trip stop was the nearby Falkirk Wheel. While it sounded like it might be a civil engineering feat, Kathleen and my mom figured out it was designed mainly for tourists after reading the information plaques. 

We then arrived in Edinburgh, only a couple hours before the car needed to be returned. I gave a quick tour of my dorm and we headed to the Spoon Cafe. Spoon is on Nicolson Street and replaced the Nicolson Cafe, which J.K. Rowling's brother-in-law owned. It was one of her favorite spots when she was writing the first few books.

My mom, Kathleen, and Charlotte headed off to the hotel after dinner, leaving me to return to the dorm. The road trip was a great way to see the country and it was perfect timing to get a visit from family just as I was starting to get homesick!

1 comment:

  1. That's so cool that you saw the Antonine Wall! I learned about it in Roman Britain.

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