Chris and Lindsay's European Adventure - Oban

4Late Sunday night we boarded a night train to Scotland. We had our own private sleeping birth complete with two beds that fold out of the wall, and sink with a counter that folded down over it a place to put our two duffel bags and about 2'x4' of floor space. I'd been on one before and knew what to expect, so we didn't pack in large suitcases. It was a fun experience! In the morning we changed trains in Glasgow and continued on to Oban in the Highlands.

I find the Scottish Highlands to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Well, at least of the places I've been. So I knew I wanted to get Chris up there for a few days. We had help in selecting the small coastal town and then did a little research on our own of how to spend our time there.

We started at the Oban Whisky Distillery on Monday afternoon. Did you know that if Whisky is made in Scotland (Scotch Whisky) it is spelled with no "e," but if made anywhere else it is spelled Whiskey? We learned all kinds of fun facts about the process, how they achieve different flavors and strengths to the whisky, and even got to sample some.

Next we headed up to McCaig's Tower. Some guy wanted to build it to look like the coliseum, but it was never finished because they ran out of money when he died. Its very pretty the way it is and offers some really wonderful views of the bay, the town and everything around. I decided it would be a wonderful place for a wedding ceremony.
Tuesday morning saw the beginning of our outdoor adventures. Ever been gorge scrambling? This is how the website describes it:
An exhilarating adventure through an awesome natural gorge. Weave along deep narrow passages and splash your way through water pools. A truly captivating and awe-inspiring experience, one you will never forget.
You can see a few of their professional pictures on the website too, but I don't want to steal them. The third and fifth pictures look like what we did. We had so much fun! We looked ridiculous and the water was freezing (and I'm literally only off my a few degrees), but it was great. It was just the two of us and our guide. We climbed and swam and slid down waterfalls. At one difficult point our guide tried to get a rope out to help us. He got it stuck and spent 10 minutes trying to un-stuck it. In the meantime Chris and I climbed up the obstacle ourselves and were quite proud of ourselves! By the end of our adventure my feet had gone from "a little numb so the cold isn't as intense anymore" to "so numb that I can't control them and should probably get out." So the timing worked out well. Interesting - way easier to climb up the gorge than back down.

We were exhausted after that, so we had a laid back afternoon boat ride over to one of the nearby islands. Once there we walked to a castle that was randomly shut down because its up for sale, so we only saw the outside. We decided this was the one thing on the trip that we would skip if we could do it again, but we did enjoy riding on the boat and got some nice views, and a warm cup of coffee, on the ride.


I need to tell you that at dinner on Tuesday night at a lovely pub down the street I was hit on by an 80 year old man while Chris was in the bathroom.

Wednesday morning we rented bikes! We had them for a few hours and enjoyed lovely and hilly ride to a few more castles. Along the ride we saw some little neighborhoods as well as pastureland. Nothing like those hairy highland cows to make you smile :-) The castles were both in the state of "ruin," but its pretty neat to imagine what would have gone on there so many years ago. These things are kind of all over the place in the Highlands, and if you understand the old Scottish clan system then you understand why.

That afternoon we caught a train to Edinburgh. The first two portions of our trip could not have been more different. We never stopped moving in London, and to be honest I don't see how you ever could. There's just so much going on all the time, you feel like you're missing something if you sit down! Oban, on the other hand, is much sleepier. We were among the youngest there, which was funny. We certainly took a different, more active approach to our time there than the old people did! But it was nice to slow down a bit and just enjoy the beauty around us.