My First Trip to the Highlands - By Luther

This past weekend, Mum & Dad took me on a trip with them.  I LOVE trips!  It means that I get to do a lot of exploring and smell lots of new things.  And I'm a lucky pup because Mum & Dad rarely leave me behind.  I get a little anxious when I see Mum get out the suitcases but I always know that I get to go when Mum starts packing my things with hers.

On most of our trips we take a car, but we don't have one over here so we took a train.  Mum is always a bit anxious whenever we try something new because it's a bit of an unknown, but I wasn't worried.  We walked right onto the train, found Mum & Dad's seats and I crawled under the table to settle in.  (You can see pictures of what the inside of the train looks like here if you're interested.)  The people on the train loved me - but who doesn't.  I mean, really?

We took the train all the way to Dingwall - a small town just outside of Inverness in the highlands - and walked about a mile to our hotel.

And guess what - we stayed in a CASTLE!  Tulloch Castle to be exact.

I made myself right at home and got ready for bed, knowing that Mum had a big day planned for us on Saturday.

Saturday morning, Dad took the bus back to Inverness to pick up a car so that we could do some exploring around the area.  He came back with a pink Ford Fiesta - haha!

Then we headed to Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness.  Even though the castle is a ruin, I'm not allowed to go in because of the high volume of visitors.  So I had to stay in the car.  Which means Mum will have to tell you about the castle later.

From there we headed north up the shores of Loch Ness so that we could go for a hike.  Mum found a trail in a book called The Old Coffin Road.  We didn't see any coffins but we had a lot of fun anyway.  I got to run around, get my paws muddy and drink from the freshest streams on earth.  It was AWESOME!

We came across this really interesting structure on our walk.  Not sure what it was, why it was there or how long it had been there, but it was cool.  

And check out the nails holding this thing together.  OUCH!!!!

That night I got to experience another first.  My first PUB!  We went to a small place called Benleva.  It was totally a local hangout, including local dog hangout, but the food was good (I can attest - Mum shared her Aberdeen Angus burger with me) and the atmosphere was cool.

Then on Sunday we went on a BIG hike.  After checking out of the castle (I mean hotel), we drove down to a car park (translation: parking lot) in Dingwall to find the start of the Knockfarrel from Dingwall trail and headed out.  It was so much fun.  I got to meet cows, sheep and even saw a miniature pony.

In Scotland, there are "right of way" laws which means that much of the trail we took went through private land.  Because of that there are kissing gates and stiles to help you get through/over the fences without letting out the livestock.  The kissing gates are much easier for me to get through.  If the stiles are small Mum & Dad have to lift me over.  Good thing I'm not a fatty.

Kissing gate - you push the gate to one side, enter and swing it back behind you so that you can get through.

Stile - just steps over the gate.  

The hike overall was great.  We saw some beautiful views and trekked through lots of mud - my favorite.

Dingwall.  You can see the Tulloch Castle in the middle on the hill.

This is just a little bit of the mud.  The end of the path was AWESOME! 

Loch Ussie

Cromarty Firth in the distance

Overall it was an awesome weekend.  I'm so glad Mum & Dad took me with them.  But now I think it's time for my afternoon nap.  I'm still worn out.

Cheers!
Luther

P.S. I almost forgot.  Thanks Aunt B for giving Mum & Dad a GPS a couple of years ago.  It came in very handy to help Dad as he was driving us around.  And the British lady makes sense now!