Trip to Highlands/ Town of Oban

Highland Cow

Oban

Kilchurn Castle

Loch Lomond

This Saturday Jess, Andrew and I went on a trip with the international club at Napier to the highlands of Scotland. We set out at 8:30 in morning from Edinburgh where it was snowing/raining. It seemed like a bad day to travel around Scotland but turned out to be very nice weather through out the rest of the day. We headed northwest from Edinburgh where the terrain started to get more hilly as we traveled closer to the highlands. We made a stop next to a farm near the highlands which had highland cattle. The highland cattle looked almost like a yak with their long horns and long matted hair all over their body. After this stop, we now drove into the highlands which were stunning. The hills were now covered in snow from the mornings flurries and made for a really nice drive. There are also many lochs that run through the highlands, and it seemed we were almost always driving next to one. It was pretty amazing driving through the rugged and remote country side of Scotland and made for gorgeous views. Our drive through the highlands was about an hour and half, where at the end of it we reached the small fishing town of Oban which is on the northwest coast of Scotland. We had two hours to travel around the town and eat. We decided to go to a hill near the back of the town which had a monument that was similar to the Colosseum. From here you could see the whole town, the bay with many little fishing boats going in and out, and the coast. While up there the sun came out (which seems to never happen anymore), which made a rainbow over half the town. We all sat up there for twenty minutes just enjoying the view and sun. The rest of our time in Oban we walked down the coast where we came to the ruins of a castle with a castle just 100 yards of the coast. It seemed like a typical picture of Scotland that you find on Wikipedia.  After this we hoped back on the bus and traveled back toward Edinburgh but going south towards Glasgow then east toward Edinburgh instead of directly southeast. We stopped in the highlands to look at Kilchurn Castle which is located on an island in a loch. This is castle that is on my Lonely Planet Scotland book and it was awesome to see it in real life. It was such a nice view, the castle with the snowy highlands in the background. After this stop we then drove to Loch Lomond where we stopped for about thirty minutes to take a look around. This is one of the two national parks in Scotland (the other being the Cairngorms). It was an enormous loch with the hills in the background. It was a great place to sit and reflect on the day. After this we drove back to Edinburgh and ended our trip. It was the first time I had experienced the highlands but I now want to go back a see more of them!