Scotland

Well, I survived the stag do, we had a great 4 nights away. We flew into Inverness & picked up a couple of hire cars. Then it was onwards to the bunkhouse in Neathy Bridge. The place we stayed was 'The Lazy Duck hostel' & I can't recommend them highly enough. If you ever need fantastic accommodation within striking distance of the Cairngorms, check them out at www.lazyduck.co.uk

We arrived early afternoon & spent the rest of the day wandering around one of the local towns, before a tour of the Cairngorm Brewery. They make fantastic real ales, & were very generous about letting us taste the finished product at the end of the tour. We of course obliged by taking a fair bit of it home with us as well. We had also picked up quite a variety of other local beers, so over the first 2 nights we partook in a bit of beer-tasting, with the 6 highest ranking beers making it through to the grand final on the 3rd night. 'Bitter & Twisted' ended up taking first place (can't remember who brews it I'm afraid...) then Cairngorm beers took 4 of the remaining 5 places.

The second day was our big walking day. The plan was to do Cairn Gorm (1245m) then carry on & knock off Ben Macdui (1309m) as well. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate & we only ended up getting to the top of Cairn Gorm. It was snowing for most of the time, then as we got a bit of altitude we were practically in white-out conditions. It's bit of a let-down when you slog your way to the top of a hill then can only see about 15m in front of you! We had loads of fun on the way down, including building a snowman, sledding on a plastic suvival bag, & also numerous snowball fights!


The third day involved a bit of low level walking (I saw my first red squirrel!), & also a tour of the Cardhu whiskey distillery. It wasn't bad, but not a patch on the Bushmills distillery in Northern Ireland which I visited a couple of years ago. We really had a great 3 nights in the bunkhouse, the evenings were filled with poker & games of 500 till the wee small hours... The first night we called it quits at 1am, the second was 2am, & in keeping with the sequence, we were up till 3am on the 3rd night.

On the Saturday it was off to Edinburgh for the stag do proper. We met up with the best man, & also 3 others who couldn't make the first bit. We had most of the afternoon wandering around the city (it was my first visit), then hit the first pub in the early evening. Several pubs, a restaurant & a casino later, & we finally made it back to our accommodation around 3am. The next morning consisted of a lie-in, breakfast at a cafe (at around midday!), & then a couple of very pleasant hours in a pub reading the Sunday papers, & in the guys' case, watching the football. Then it was off to the airport & home, for some well-deserved sleep & a serious de-tox!!!

So there you go, I survived my first (& probably my last!) stag do. The photo on the right shows a few of the guys. Steve, the one getting married is at the front. The wedding is on Saturday & promises to be a great day & night affair. Unfortunately I've got a rugby match on the Sunday which might be interesting, but I think it's in the afternoon so things should be fine. No other news really, I'm just enjoying being on holiday & enjoying spending time with my parents.