We arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland after a very early flight and got our rental car which we proceeded to name the red titanic. She was a real boat of a car and I was worried she wouldn't fit on those narrow lanes roads! We headed west for Oban, stopping in Aberfoyle in the Trossachs area (the dividing line between the highlands and lowlands). We had a great conversation with an elderly Scottish woman who was hand weaving wool in a cottage (so Scottish) and she said the Scottish will be friendly, but a little more reserved than the "wild Irish." Haha good to know.
We continued on to Oban and realized our luck with the weather had run out - it rained most of the day but did clear up for an epic sunset in Oban. We stayed in the YHA hostel there which was located right on the water and had a fantastic view from our second story window. I'm telling you, these hostels are incredible - cheap, clean, and as long as you can pretend you're back in elementary school and sleep in a bunk bed, totally worth it.
Amanda had signed us up for a boat tour of the inner Hebrides islands. Way to go Amanda! This day was jam packed and totally incredible. We took a ferry to a bus to a boat to get to our first location, the island of Staffa. Staffa is the "other side" of the Giant's Causway, where the giant Benandonner was said to have lived. Like the Causeway it has thousands of basalt columns rising up out of the bright blue water. It is also home to Fingel's cave, a massive cave which we walked along the edge to peer in. Staffa is an uninhabited island which was pretty small in size but had some amazing topography. The basalt columns really look like life sized legos!
From Staffa we headed over to the island of Lunga. Although the weather was not good and it was raining quite hard, Lunga is a place I will never forget. Our boat guide told us to do a little hike that stretched around the hill and he said we would see some puffins there. Oh my gosh were there puffins. We first came over the hill to a whole colony of them. They spend most of the year out at sea but come to the land to breed. There were tons and tons of puffins at the edge of the cliff, within an arms length of us. They were sitting there looking at us, guarding their underground nests. The guide said the puffins like when humans are there because it scares away the other birds that try to attack them. So they were quite friendly and let us get right up close to them. We later leaned that apparently Lunga is the second best place to see puffins in the world. Whoa!
We continued on the path (after I took probably a hundred puffin glamour shots) and it felt like we were in a different world. There was bright green grass as far as the eye could see and it was covered in endless bright blue bells and other beautiful wildflowers in pinks and yellows. Our view past these beautiful hills and cliffs was the bright blue ocean.
Once we turned another corner on the path we happened upon bird island. Thousands upon thousands of birds all on one massive rock. My jaw dropped. While it was so cool to be up close and personal with the puffins earlier I had never seen anything like this. It felt like we were in the movie Happy Feet or something. And luckily I've never seen that Alfred Hitchcock movie Birds or I'm sure I would have been running the opposite way.
On our boat ride back we scored seats under cover on our small boat - luckily because it rained the entire 2 hour ride back and the people outside appeared to be miserably cold, had to wear massive yellow rain ponchos, and looked like they could be on the Deadliest Catch. We stopped for a quick bite to eat, hot cocoa and whisky (needed it to warm up, obviously) in the town of Tobermory and then continued on the bus to catch the ferry back to Oban.
What an amazing day and trip to the inner Hebrides!
Highlights:
- Lunga - if you ever have a chance to go to this island definitely do it! Just beware the birds like it a lot too.
- Oban - a very cute seaside town, and somewhere I would go back and spend some more time exploring.
- Puffins - these little guys were so cute!
- Staffa - the rock formations are incredible, and unlike the Giant's Causeway this is such a remote location, we had the island to ourselves!
Lessons Learned:
- They do make big cars here.
- The accents here are thick and sometimes I can't catch a word of what they are saying.
- It does rain here. A lot.
- Plaid is everywhere!
- If you do a boat tour in Scotland dibs a seat inside - it will be worth it!
Thanks for following along!
The cute little guys!
Beautiful Lunga.
The lego looking rocks on Staffa!