Today instead of heading to yet another castle we decide to give the kids a day of fun by going to the Edinburgh Zoo.
The new Budongo Exhibit was the highlight with a whole centre set up for all of these chimpanzees.
They were pretty slow going at 9:30 in the morning. Guess they had a long night or something, but they were still interesting to watch as they just gazed back at you.
The Edinburgh Zoo is supposedly the only one in the UK that had koalas to see and again a bit early in the AM for them to be up and at them, but from what I remember koalas sleep a lot anyway.
The kids really enjoyed the little monkeys that just seem to have more energy than they know what to do. It was soooo cute to see the tiny little baby monkeys on the backs of their mumma monkeys and swinging from tree to tree. Kind of reminded us of our little monkeys.
The zoo is built on the side of a huge hill (felt like a mountain) so about half way up we stopped to check out the tiger and have a little snack. I do have to say that walking around this zoo is much more exhausting than the flat London Zoo but you can get a lot more up and personal with some of the animals. The tiger was right there in front of us and it was super cool.
The penguin pool was huge and the King penguins really stood out with their bright yellow bits and they were several inches taller than the other ones in the pools. They also seemed to congregate together far away from the others. Guess we aren't the only society that segregates themselves from others. The weird thing was that the whole floor of the exhibit was covered in the stinkiest penguin poo. The zoo helpers were out with hoses trying to spray it off the cement down into the pool, but not accomplishing much. It was super gross though.
There were loads of different monkey and baboon houses and we really like this guy who just hung out, but if he didn't like how you were looking at him he would swat at you. He caught Addie once and it freaked her out a bit but she was still intrigued.
Before we headed out we checked out the seal lions as they were pretty sleepy when we first came in. They were out and about and singin' everyone a song by the time we were leaving. We did get to see lots of amazing animals and the kids enjoyed their break from being stuck in castles with mom and dad. The only issue we had was the Harrison wanted to be carried everywhere. The poor kid was exposed to chicken pox about 1 1/2 weeks ago and we know he's probably not feeling good, but it was getting ridiculous at times. Poor Kevin was getting a pretty sore back from carrying the little guy.
The kids fell asleep shortly after we got out of Edinburgh which was great to have a little peace and quiet. Our original plans were to go to Stirling Castle and drive by the Wallace Monument until we treated the kids to the zoo, so as we drove by them we took a picture. Surprisingly they were actually much closer to each other than I thought. You can just barely see the Wallace Monument (erected in honor of William Wallace) in the far distance on the left side of the picture.
After an hour we approached the Highlands and they were unlike anything that we had seen before. We had seen mountains and hills but this was still a bit different. The mountain and hillsides were all covered with dormant heather which gave it a burnt brush look but we've heard that in August the whole lot looks of an amazing purple and green blanket. It was fun to see the snow caps on the mountains through the foggy weather. We didn't see any blue skies as the weather wasn't the best but it made everything look quite mysterious.
We made a stop at the Glencoe Visitor Centre as it was a good stopping point to give us a break and it claimed to have a nice view of the famous valley where the horrible Glencoe Massacre occurred.
A nice family pic in front of one of the mountains. We decided to walk the "short" walking path outlined on the maps, but somehow we forgot the color markers we were supposed to follow and did the long path which wasn't really that long and was actually quite pretty.
The forest bit was quite magical. We found this tree that had fallen over and up rooted a huge chunk of dirt with it's roots.
We found a little stream running through the trees and had really nice stretch, but we kept on heading further north to just north of Fort William. We reached our hotel to find out that I messed up the booking and didn't select the double room with bunkbeds, but just a regular double room. They didn't want to work with us very much in making the room suitable for the four of us and wanted to charge us an exorbitant amount of money for two rooms to suit us so we got them to get us out of our booking. We headed down the road without a place to stay when Kevin saw a vacancy at the first B&B we passed. He drove down the lane and asked about the accommodations and it was perfect. They had a triple room so I ended up sleeping with Addison in a twin bed (which was a tight little squeeze but we managed). The hosts were absolutely amazing and so wonderful to us.
They had an amazing property just on Loch Lochy with little lodges that they rented out by the week to people and one room in their house for a B&B. After we got settle we went for a walk down by the loch which was beautiful. They gentleman said that it was only about a mile in width but over 500 ft deep in parts. The bonus was that you didn't have to have a fishing permit to fish on it which made us think it would be the greatest place to bring my dad to some day (the avid outdoorsman he is).
There was an amazing gorge that ran through the property as well that we checked out and were just in awe on how we wish we could have a place like this.
Addie thought the water falls were pretty cool.
Harrison just liked walking with dad.
Another amazing thing we found is that Winnie the Pooh must live in one of the trees at this place because we found his picture on a door on a tree. The kids were totally amazed!!!
Again our hosts were amazing and funny thing is that they are both English. We think he was in the navy and is now retired. The lady's sister actually has lived in the States for over 30 years and at one time lived in Kewanee, IL and the two of them have been to the Christmas lights show in East Peoria!!! What a small world!
We had the most amazing Scottish breakfast with all the special trimmings and place settings. Too bad the kids were as interested as Kevin and I, so we had to rush through breakfast but it was just perfect.
A full Scottish breakfast is very similar to a full English breakfast but it includes black pudding...you don't want to know what's in it but I did give it a try. But I did quite enjoy the grilled tomato, mushrooms, baked beans, hashbrown, back bacon, fried egg, sausages, and toast. You can't eat like that everyday but it's a real treat to have once in a while.
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