Visitors from the colonies

The recent weekend saw a visit from some colonial Australians. Despite some difficulties understanding their accents it was good to catch up with Jeremy and Sarah again. First stop Wallace Monument and Stirling Bridge. After climbing the 250 odd steps to the top of the monument we had a nifty view of the area directly beneath the monument and the Ochils! Arrch, Ochils so close. They are coming to get us soon. We also got a good view of the local pubs in the area and planned out a route taking in some of the finest local drinking establishments.

This included cat-pub not to be confused with cat face who has a big cat face. He also floats around the town. Well after some beverages we went for some pubbish food and Jeremy tried his first haggis, which proved a reasonably large hit although he was disappointed that he couldn't have the bad boy burger.

The next day dawned at around 1am, well it feels like that at the moment up here, sun goes down around 11pm and it seems to be permanently light. Of course, that doesn't bode well for winter but at least we'll have whisky and haggis to keep us company. We headed back to Stirling castle for a 21 gun salute for the queen's birthday. Now the territorial army could only manage 18 shots because the gun jammed or something. They had two more guns still in perfect working order but called it off right then. Cheapskates.

Afterwards it was the Falkirk wheel, which is a giant ship moving thing that basically raises barges about 70 metres from one canal to another in only a few minutes. Sure, its an impressive engineering feat but really not that exciting as a tourist destination. Oh well, live and learn about the wonders of Scotland, the natural world appears far more interesting than recent engineering feats.