2 hours in Scotland and I’m already eating haggis

Today we said goodbye to England. The sheep outside our Bed & Breakfast will no longer share our company.

Goodbye sheep!

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

We really enjoyed our time at the B&B. There was this nice lady from England who was also staying there. She was currently working on hiking the length of Hadrian’s wall. In her words, “I’ve always told my parents that I wanted to walk the wall, and they finally said then why don’t you f**king do it already”.

After talking about Scotland for a bit, the subject got back onto scotch. I was given a recommendation. I was told to try a scotch from the Skye region because of its unusual ingredients. It’s what the locals gives as gifts. I tried a Talisker Scotch. Although it’s available in the states, I’ve never had it.. After tasting it here, I will continue not to have it in the states. Or in Scotland for that matter!

I told the owner of the B&B, Dave, about the Magnus beer that I had. He smiled and agreed it was good, but grinned and asked if I tried some of the others. He happened to have some on hand in bottles. I bought three different kinds and I will be enjoying them when I got back to the states. I also bought a set for a friend of mine that I recently brewed beer with. If I happen to see him before Christmas, I might not get to drink both sets!

After leaving the B&B, we drove to Vindolanda Fort. This is a Roman fort that predates Hadrian’s wall (around 90 AD). The fort is mostly in ruins and is currently under excavation. It was cool to see what was already dug up from the 1970s and see what they are currently digging out now.

After leaving the site, we went to Hadrian’s Wall. This is a wall that was built to keep the Scots out of England. Nowadays the stone from the wall was taken to build all the stone cottages, fences, and castles in the area. A smaller version of the wall still stands.

For about two hours we hiked the wall. The funny part about the hike is the guide book we bought pretty much has you climbing ladders to go over fences and walking through people’s farms.

Here is one of many stiles that we climbed over for the walk.

I keep going back and forth calling it a hike and walk. Most of the time it was a walk, but there were times where it was definitely a hike.  Sometimes we’d turn around and think, crap, we were down there 15 minutes ago.

It’s hard to see, but there is a town down there that we walked through. Here’s a hint..its center left third of the pic. Another thing you can see from the pic… raindrops.

When we were done here, we hopped in the car and drove to Newcastle to return the car to Hertz and catch the train to Edinburgh Scotland. I’m used to driving around in the UK now, and it’s sad for both of us to give up the car. But after a 1.5 hour train ride we got to Scotland.

We pretty much just dropped the bags off at the hotel and grabbed dinner. The chicken I had was stuffed with haggis, and was tasty. Heather took a bite and said it tasted like stuffing from Thanksgiving. We’re excited to take a look around. Just from the cab ride in, the city looks amazing! Quite a difference being in the middle of a farm in Northumberland and then going to the big city of Edinburgh!

Believe it or not, this is a quick summary edited for length. I skipped stuff like the hijinks on the train and the Roman Army Museum.