Wanderlust: The Ness Bus Whisky, Highlands & Loch Ness Tour

Ness Bus Tours - Whisky, Highlands and Loch Ness -

LOTS OF PICS!! - if you would like to use any on your site, please contact me first. thank you.

The highlight of our trip has to be on the Saturday when we went to Loch Ness. We booked the "Loch Ness, Highlands & Whisky Tour" through "The Hairy Coo" website as part of our first visit to Scotland. Admittedly,  I was worried as had never booked a tour before and my parent had traveled with another tour company and had an awful time a few years back. So I was really picky when I came to finding a tour to book with . 

I found the Hairy Coo site and liked that it was easy to book, reviews were good and it was designed for those who are young or young at heart. Booking process was easy and you pay on the day so you just tun up to one of the many meeting points that is sent to you on our confirmation of place booking email and off you go! 

Deanston distillery - Our first stop on our adventure to Loch Ness

Our guide Alistair was brilliant - funny and really knowledgeable and kept us entertained on the journey with scottish music, story telling and teaching us about historical things about Scotland. We started of with a visit to Deanston distillery, whilst some of the group chose to do this tour, me and the boy decided to take this opportunity to have a bacon roll as it was still pretty early in the day (started at about 8am and was at the distillery by 9am) 

From there we went through the mountains and highlands and saw some absolutely spectacular scenery, we were very blessed with the weather as the cloud cleared and we had blue skies for the whole day. We took some amazing pictures of Glen Coe which was the area that the James Bond film Skyfall was shot. 

We got to Loch Ness by midday where you could choose to have a boat tour or walk around the loch. we chose the latter as there wasn't the time to do both and we needed to stretch our legs. We took some great shots of the Loch, had a lovely salmon sandwich and I found what I thought anyway - looked like Nessie! :) 

We will def book another tour with these guys again! We had such fun and it was the highlight of our trip to Scotland! Thank you Alistair for being such a great guide! 

x 

Wanderlust: 4 Days in Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle in the rain!

 So, I'm back from my trip to Edinburgh! Is such a nice place to visit, We've already got stuff planned to do for when we next go back. Would also recommend going in March, we had one rainy day when we arrived and then for the rest of the week was clear skies or just abit cloudy! Sadly didn't get around to any OOTD pics :( will post up these another time. 

Here's what we did: 

Thursday

We got a super early flight from Gatwick and arrived in Edinburgh at about half 9 in the morning. We checked in to our b&b (which was lovely btw!) the Haymarket Hotel. As the name suggests its not as central as many of the other larger hotels or chain but was only a 20 min walk from everything central. That and it was also quieter there at night so I wasn't woken by the traffic or clubs as we have been in the past when booking city breaks which was a great bonus! :) 

We were upgraded to a family room for free which had a four poster bed <3 Everyone was really friendly and welcoming and it was the perfect place to stay! 

The Haymarket Hotel, Edinburgh

In the afternoon it started raining really bad but we still wanted to get out and explore. We climbed up to the castle and had a little look around. didn't go in though, in hindsight we pro should of done to escape the rain! 

Edinburgh Castle - sorry about the yellow fuzz in this pic and some others. turns out fluffy phone cases have their downsides!

Highland Cattle Cow in one of the Shops!

From there we were around the main city centre and a few of the shops and then went down to TigerLilly which is a cocktail bar/ restaurant one of my colleague had recommended. Everything in there is really pretty and pink- must get a lot of hen dos and girls night outs! Food was excellent, I had a starter of the Gnocchi which was lovely - could easily eaten a whole bowl of this before mains but it is very filling! 

For main I had the Three Little Pigs which is braised pigs cheek & crispy pork belly, ham hock & smoked cheddar croquette with pickled cabbage & quince. All delicious! Desert was the warm chocolate fondant with Ice cream. Again I apologise for my lack of pics of this but I was too hungry and didn't realise I had no pics till I 'd eaten it all! .  

Tiger lilly Edinburgh

Tiger lilly Edinburgh - before dinner arrived!

Edinburgh Castle lit up at night

Friday

On Friday the rain finally stopped and we went out to Edinburgh Zoo. This again is really easy to get to, only about 5 mins on a bus from Haymarket station just outside the B&B. 

The main attraction for Edinburgh Zoo is the pandas Tian Tian & Yang Guang. They happened to have just had lunch and were snoozing when we saw them but they were cute none the less! :) Yep, The pandas are apparently comfortable sleeping like this!

My fave animals in Edinburgh Zoo were the Koalas. They've always been a fave of mine. 

In the evening we headed back to the city centre in search of some Haggis! I've had haggis a couple o times at home before and really like it so we went looking for a nice cosy scottish historic pub to have dinner in and came across The Last Drop in the Grassmarket area, behind the castle. which is a street lined with old pubs and cool things to look at. 

Haggis, Neeps &Tatties! 

On Saturday and Sunday we did a couple of the bigger activities which I will blog about later this week as they def deserve there own blog posts! We went to Loch Ness on Saturday and on Sunday we had a experience day with Fudge Kitchen! :) Will leave you with the rest of my pics from around Edinburgh though, enjoy! :) 

Love Sarah x 

The Scott Monument

View from the top of Castle mount

Bagpipe man on the Royal Mile

The Royal Mile

funny pub signs in Grassmarket

The Royal Mile

x