UK09: Day 2 - Edinburgh to the Highlands

I was hoping (but not optimistic) that with hardly any sleep the previous night on my trans-Atlantic flight I would at least be able to catch some shut-eye on the overnight bus ride from London to Edinburgh. Apparently I wasn't quite tired enough. The bus was full and kinda noisy, but hey... It was cheap and I paid much less than I would have for a room in London that night, and traveled 400 miles to boot. It wasn't helped by the fact that Scotland is pretty far north and the sun rises early. (I caught the bus at 11:15pm and the first pre-dawn glow was visible around 3:00am.) For reference, Scotland is roughly level with the panhandle of Alaska. The bus took us along the eastern coast, so I got to see some of the shoreline there as the sun rose. Not too exciting. Just rolling hills and fields dropping into the ocean.

Nonetheless, I emerged from the bus station in Edinburgh eager to see the city. After taking a few minutes to get oriented (There are not too many signs for visitors such as I) I was on track for the center of town. Edinburgh is kind of unique in that it has a chunk of the Scottish highlands stuck right in the middle of the city. At least that's how it felt. Arthur's Seat is an 800 foot hill right in the middle of Holyrood park, which is directly adjacent to the city center. It's kept relatively ungroomed, so it was easy to forget that I was in the middle of the largest city in Scotland... until I looked out, at least. The 360 degree view from the top was great, although hazy weather made good photos quite challenging.

The view of Edinburgh from Arthur's Seat, looking out toward the ocean. Palace is in the middle-left of the image.

I then descended to the Palace of Holyrood, which is the queen's official residence in Scotland. She apparently was staying there at the time, but was out and about so security at the palace was at normal levels. Like Buckingham palace, the exterior was rather understated, so there wasn't too much to see. Much more interestingly architecturally, the scottish parliament was across the street in an uber-modern organic building. I am not often a fan of trendy new architecture, but the whole complex was so whimsical with complex 3D shapes and exterior decorated with sticks (Yes, 2 inch diameter laquered sticks!). I couldn't shake the feeling that somehow it was inspired by the forts that kids make out in the woods.

A typical section of the "Royal Mile" of very old buildings

Starting from the palace, the "royal mile" heads up a gradual hill to its eventual terminus at the Edinburgh fortress. This stretch contains many of the oldest buildings in Edinburgh. This included not only grand buildings, but also many "ordinary" buildings lining narrow, winding streets. I walked up to the fortress (they have a huge parade ground with grandstands surrounding it right in front), but didn't pay to go in, mostly for lack of time to fully appreciate it. It is definitely an imposing fortress, and reminded me in many ways of Salzburg (see my post here), especially how it really dominates the city.

The main entrance to the Edinburgh Castle. It is quite imposing. I certainly wouldn't want to try and get in if it was being defended.

From there, I was beginning to drag a bit as the last 3 days with very little sleep started to catch up, but I manged to wander to the National Museum of Scotland. It's a super nice, modern museum with a lot of very interesting history of Scotland, and of course many interesting artifacts.

Random artifact in the Scottish National Museum. Yeah, kinda strange.

By now, it was late afternoon and time to cath my bus up into the highlands. I made my way back to the bus station through the narrow streets, satisfied with the amount I had been able to see of Edinburgh. I think the strongest impression that came across (almost immediately) is how much stone is visible in the city. Literally almost every building, in fact. Much of this visible stone was darkened by the forces of nature and presumably human pollution to some degree, which only helped enhance the feeling of age.

My eventual destination was out practically in the middle of nowhere of the Scottish Highlands, at a lone hotel at the "Bridge of Orchy"where the West Highland Way (overland hiking route) intersects the highway. Fortunately, the Scottish CityLink busses make frequent trips into the highlands, and stop wherever you need them too. I had to switch busses in Glasgow, and almost missed my connection due to traffic, presumably resulting from being Friday afternoon and the fact that the skies burst open and poured for a while. That didn't bode well for me, since I was headed out into the elements to backpack for 4 nights, but fortunately as we headed up into the highlands the rain tapered off. When I arrived at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel, the clouds had lifted a little, leaving a fresh, damp evening, although still threatening rain.

Looking at the hotel from the Bridge of Orchy itself. This was my point of departure backpacking the West Highland Way.

I set out on the trail right away around 7pm, just to get away from what little civilization was there. After about a mile I found a suitable dark grove of trees, set up my hammock, and crashed hard. As I was setting up, I had my first experience with midges. The highlands are famous for these little biting insects, and they had me hopping and rushing to get my hammock set up so I could get inside. They're not particularly nasty (their bites are not anywhere as bad as mosquitos), but there were so many of them it felt like my skin was crawling. I was relieved to find out their bites hardly affected me, but nonetheless I didn't particularly appreciate the feeling of having them all over any exposed skin. I dove into my hammock and sorted out my stuff behind the safety of the bug netting. It briefly crossed my mind as I got set up to sleep that I hadn't taken my shoes off in 3 days... then I was out like a rock.