Back home

Here we are, again on the road and again towards a two days of orienteering.
But we have to go back to Scotland to tell something about our last days abroad. Ok, we are actually abroad also at the moment, but this is our blog's next stop.
So, back to Skye!
The last day on Skye brought us to a boat trip to a nice lake in the middle of nowhere.
Unfortunately the weather hasn't been friendly to us. Typical scottish, winter, autumn, spring, but no summer that day.
The mission was to enjoy the landscape and to see a seal colony living in the bay we were sailing to. Mission accomplished.
A lot of bored and static seals sleeping on rocks were lazily looking at us, wondering who we were and what was our business over there…
During the short walk ashore we saw a couple running on the other side of the lake to confirm that we aren't the only crazy people running everywhere!
After this last trip on Skye, we drove to the famous and great town of Tarbert. Avoid it!!!!
We went there just because that was the only place where we found an available room.
And once there we understood why there were vacancies in Tarbert and why the room in that particular B&B was available.
The town is almost dead. Our B&B was…ehm…I want to be gentle…let me say just particular or eccentric.
A really old house, with an old gentleman running it.
If you need a place just to sleep, it's acceptable, but if you are looking for a B&B, go somewhere else.
What's wrong with Tarbert?
Almost nothing, but it is a town with a rich history of fishing and ferry traffic. And now no one is fishing any more and ferries went elsewhere. long time ago.
And what where  we doing in Tarbert?
Nothing, just sleeping the night before going to the whisky mecca, Islay!
Islay is the island where all the famous smoked whiskies are distilled. Unfortunately there weren't many ferries going there and all of them where fully booked.
The only chance to get there was without our car and having a lovely stroll.
The Ardbeg distillery is about 4 miles from Port Ellen and we hitchhiked over there quite easily.
The distillery tour was really nice. We have chosen the longer tour with the final tasting of all four Ardbeg whiskies.
A lot of history and a quite annoying german guy…
It was his fourth time in the distillery and he was acting like it was his house.
Insistently explaining things leaving the guide just politely smiling and touching everything.
But the most surprising fact occurred at the end of the tour.
During the tasting he took out a little bag full of empty miniature whisky bottles.
Yes…He'd filled four or five bottles with the whisky given for the tasting, labelled all of them and took them away.
My question is W H Y ???
Actually, I don't want to know.
After Ardbeg we went to see Lagavulin (it was completely empty, there was just a clearly bored girl sitting at the entrance desk) and Laphroig.
There we have tasted a couple of their whiskies and then walked on.

After we left Tarbert, we drove to Glasgow.
The last two days in Scotland were just 'watch and don't buy' days…
Our luggage was really really…really full!
We went to see the Scottish Owl Center and the Botanical Gardens of Glasgow.
The Scottish Owl Center is very interesting.
They have more than 200 owls belonging to 40 different species. A lot of them are trained and you can see them flying during a demonstration.
Altogether, we have seen two demonstrations and six different owls.
The funniest owl has been the last one.
A 45 days old owl. It started the show from a box. You could see just its small head peeping out of the box. It was watching around and thinking what to do.
Finally the trainer took the owl out of the box and placed it on the top of a pole.
Once there, the little owl began to stretch his wings and to look around.
It was just beginning to learn to fly, so no flying around but just looking around.
If you happen to be in Glasgow or in Edinburgh, go to see them!
What about the Botanical Gardens?
They are huge and…FREE!
So many plants from all over the world. Finally I'd managed to show Metka the strange tree from New Zealand. I've learnt during my trip in Kiwi-land that captain Cook have brought a sample of that tree to London thinking that he had discovered a new plant species. But later they discovered, that that particular tree species changes the shape of its leaves after reaching a 6 or 7 feet hight. And they have already discovered the adult version.
The tree we've seen in Glasgow was still young: in his short and young version. Now I have to find an old and high version.
Going to New Zealand to look for it? Who knows…
Once we finished admiring the glasshouses of the Botanical Garden, we stopped in the park. Glasgow was hosting an international Pipe Band competition in that period. Bands from everywhere took over the city and some of them where practising in the park at the botanical gardens. The band we listened to was from Canterbury, New Zealand (again kiwis…).
After some good music, the best thing to do is to go in a pub for a beer (An Mor is a good choice if you are in West End). We've chosen Ashton Lane. A really busy and nice street full of public bars. Then a typical scottish dinner at Karen's place (pizza!) and the last sleep before returning home.

Our only worry at the airport was the weight of my backpack. A perfect 20.1 kg weight. 20 kg was the maximum weight for the check-in luggage.

And now…driving towards Delemont for two days of Swiss orienteering.