Islands in the sun

So another fine scottish day greeted us with plenty of misty rain, but not to be outdone we decided to head to a lake. No, not a loch, a lake, the only one in Scotland, the Lake of Menteith. A short boat ride out to the island found us at Inchmahome Priory. Home to the Augustinian canons. Dammit the canons were really people and they didn't fire them into the lake at travelling band of minstrels. There was a castle on the next island too, but we weren't allowed to visit because the owners decreed it to be so. Still the island must've been a super boring for most of the year and they were only allowed a fire in one room and that's really not that good when the lake freezes over for a couple of months / year.

After some bucketing rain in Aberfoyle which we craftily managed to avoid by eating a giant lunch we went ape. Well, not really because there was a giant queue due to the lightning storm and the guy wasn't so sure whether he could get us on in that afternoon. Bastards, surely it rains every day here so they've gotta have some kind of contingency plan for when it rains. Anyway, that left us free to wander around Queen Elizabeth Forest park in the Trossachs without any kind of direction. Sure we had a map and every single trail through the whole forest was carefully marked, but we could've got lost and had to be rescued by some Scottish Terriers. Luckily the terriers weren't required and we found another castle ruined on the world's smallest island. Literally 5 metres long and about a metre wide, I mean seriously what a giant waste of time. Just look at it people, sure its amazing but there's only a tiny pile of rubble left. Obviously the castle didn't protect the owner from the ravages of time, mu ahhahhahhaha. We also spent a while trying to find Rob Roy's cave, where he hid out from the pirates that were besieging the loch from all sides.

We never found the cave, just a bunch of holes in the ground that didn't appear to lead anywhere. We did find some fake squirrels suspended from the trees in what appears to be a recreation of a battle from starwars where the ewoks take on the stormtroopers. Why its in the middle of a national park in Scotland remains a mystery but I guess that's the magic of the heilans. After such thrills we took a quick look at Loch Katrine, which proved as stunning as the other 15 lochs we'd already seen that day. Then it bucketed down, so it was home and out for a celebratory fine italian dinner followed by some Caol Ila (thanks Jeremy). This is the smokiest whisky I've found yet, intensely strong smoky flavours with a light golden colour. This is definitely one for a cold Scottish evening!