Location: Inverness, Scotland

Sav: Ahhhh relaxation. Today we decided to just do whatever and not really plan anything and see where we ended up. We started with breakfast and coffee in a little place in the old town, while watching the royal wedding. Even without writing this down it’s one of those moments you know you’ll remember forever (i.e. like where you were when you found out Obama was elected).

We hopped in the car and drove over to the Black Isle as we’d heard there was decent dolphin viewing on Chanonry point. We parked and almost immediately in the distance we saw bottlenose dolphins jumping in the ocean. Meag did this hand flappy waving thing and squeaked a bit before running off in that direction. We stood and watched wild dolphins feeding for what must have been 45 minutes with a group of people and a bunch of overexcited dogs.

Meag: I was on the same page as the overexcited dogs. The dolphins were right there!!! Maybe 30 or so meters out they were swimming around and doing their dolphin thing. I wasn’t expecting to see much so it was really something!

We spent a big chunk of the afternoon driving all the way around the Black Isle, passing through teeny tiny little towns. Being a Saturday it seemed like everyone and their dog was out – walking, biking, driving, boating. It was a happenin place. In one town, Cromarty, we stopped for a much needed ice cream break. So the Highland cows are also called Heilan Coo and are absolutely hilariously great looking. Sadly we don’t have a photo of one yet (but the trip isn’t done so stay tuned!)…I’m bringing them up now because they had this ice cream flavour called SuperCoo. It wasn’t a flavour I’d normally go for, quite sweet and almost like cotton candy, but hey maybe that’s what coo milk tastes like.

One thing we did want to do today was check out the Black Isle Brewery. We followed the GPS Man all the way across the isle and when he finally said “You’ve arrived at your destination” it was another one of those “Euuuuh, no we haven’t” moments. We searched high and low on our map and even recruited a handful of locals in a gas station for their kind assistance. Somehow no one knew anything about this place.

Sav: After we’d literally given up and decided to go home we saw the sign for the brewery! We swerved off onto the road and made our way into the middle of nowhere back alley brewery. It was 20•C at least, and they had cold beer to try so we bought a few bottles and sat outside in the sun. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon.

One thing I didn’t realize is that some of their beers are 8-9%, so I was definitely feeling it after two beers… at 3 PM. We hopped in the car (Meaghan having only had one beer don’t worry parents) and drove off towards town. I played loud dance music and likely thoroughly embarrassed myself dancing in the car all the way home.

We parked and walked over to an old bookshop that seemed like it came straight out of a movie. Just old books stacked everywhere in no particular order and on every possible surface. It was also filled with old prints of drawings and paintings, which Meag and I spent quite awhile perusing. We each finally picked out a drawing: one of a view of Perth for me, and one of some yellow flowers for Meag.

Meag: The bookshop was beautiful and we could have spent hours there. Instead, our tastebuds led us to pizza with goat cheese, sweet onions, spinach and Balsamic glaze. Have you tried pizza like this yet? I beg you to do so ASAP. Do it. Stop reading this. Go make pizza, eat it, thank me and come back to finish reading our blog.

We decided that we would celebrate Sav’s birthday on this trip as she turned the big 2-5 earlier this month so we went out to see live Scottish music at Hootenanny’s! There was a three-man band composed of a guitar player, a fiddler and a flautist/bagpiper. The music was so lively and the entire bar was tapping their toes to the beat. Sav kept saying, “I love this. I want to listen to this music forever.” We cheers-ed to her birthday and Scotland, it was a hoot and a half.

S&M

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