I took the bus from Drumnadrochit back to Inverness at 9.30am, and got on the train to Edinburgh. However, five minutes into our journey, the train stopped and turned back. Apparently there was a problem with the engine and all the passengers were moved to a second train, originally intended for Aberdeen. I thanked fate that I didn’t have a changeover to make.

On the train I finally finished Into the Wild. Beautiful, powerful, moving, frustrating. Frustrating that Chris McCandless isn’t still here; frustrating that people criticised him for ‘not knowing more’ about the Alaskan wild; frustrating that people don’t understand youthful exuberance and idealism.

Why does all that passion and willingness to leap into better things fade away when we get older?

With an hour to go before we hit Edinburgh I found myself quite nervous about arriving at Chester tomorrow and going home on Saturday. A feeling of nostalgia for the greenery and otherworldliness Scotland had to offer washed over me.

After another 20 minute delay in the train journey, we finally made it to Edinburgh. As I stepped out into the city, I felt a little spun out. I was overwhelmed by the traffic and ordinary, busy, loud people. This wasn’t the Edinburgh I remembered. Or perhaps I’d grown accustomed to the isolation the Highlands offered. I figured it was also a lot to do with the fact that last time I was here it was a Sunday. And when I’d arrived it was the evening and everything had died down. Or maybe it was because I was tired.

I headed to the hostel and was greeted by a group of smiling faces all with laptops on their knees. This time I was given the Fridge room and allocated to bunk VB (typically Scottish that all the bunks were named after booze).

The sign above my bunk

I headed straight out after dumping my stuff and decided to do a real touristy thing and jumped on an Edinburgh city tour bus. It actually made me feel better. I saw everything I wanted to see and it made me smile a lot.

Edinburgh Castle (Don't you love the Ice Cream Van outside? Gives it that real genuine historic feeling )

Scottish Parliament

Scottish Parliament Building #2

The oldest standing building in Edinburgh dating back to the 17th century

We passed my hostel on the tour and, to my surprise, the tour guide pointed it out and said, “That building’s famous for having spontaneously collapsed a few years back.” My eyes probably couldn’t have opened any wider. Great. I’ll remember that when I try to sleep tonight. Eek!

After the tour finished, I decided it best that I not go on any more touristy excursions as it was draining me dry of money.In spite of being asked during this whole trip whether I was a student – which I responded with a firm “Sure. Yes. Yes I am” – and getting a few things cheaper, that doesn’t mean they still don’t cost an arm and a leg.

Instead, I walked around the city for a while and found a little restaurant to eat at which cost me only £10 for 2 courses. While I was eating I discovered there was a Vue cinema right above and the film geek in me seemed to spasm out of control. As I’ve mentioned before, I watch a film once a day. I hadn’t seen one for nearly a week now (which was good for me) so I decided to treat myself.

It’s funny that I wouldn’t consider going to the cinema by myself back home. Here I don’t care. It’s the same with my appearance. I’ve been walking around with barely any makeup on, my hair verging on awful waves and curls, and donning an army jacket that belongs to my friend and does little to help me blend into the crowd. But I don’t care. I’m actually unusually confident with myself. So strange. But I like it.

I saw Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. It was funny. Just funny. Worth the money? Yeah but only because I got a student discount. Some laugh out loud funny moments but, yeah. Good. Funny.

After the film I headed back to the hostel and met my roommates. Both of them men! – A young Texan travelling the UK (He’d just came back from the Highlands today too) and a young Spaniard who’d been living here since the beginning of February and was currently looking for a flat.

As I talked to them it confirmed inside me that I definitely prefer hostel living. You get to meet such a diverse range of people.

I warned them that I had a 5.30am wake-up call and they chuckled and said they didn’t mind as long as I didn’t snore. Apparently a few nights ago another guest had come back from the Edinburgh night life completely wasted. He’d passed out on the Texan’s top bunk and kept them awake, snoring really loudly. After an hour or so, he woke up, leaned over the edge of the bed and thrown up all over the Texan’s stuff! Yikes!

I regretted not going on the underground ‘City of the Dead’ and ‘Graveyard’ tours while I was here but admitted to myself that I was way too much of a chicken to go on my own. I mean, they’re supposed to be the most haunted places in Britain! Think I’ll bring a friend to that.

At around 10pm, I settled into bed before my roommates and picked up the first Harry Potter book to read. It was surprisingly very good. Who knew?

I decided to carry on with yesterday’s plans and head to Urquhart Castle. Stopping in Drumnadrochit’s little gift shop to pick up a postcard, I asked the friendly woman behind the counter how easy it was to get there. She said it would take 40 minutes and told me to follow the main road up to the mountains.

*Ahem* Since then I’ve realised she thought I had a car. No. I was walking. And it was a long walk indeed! Walking doesn’t bother me too much. It’s better than polluting the environment with fumes. But I was unprepared for a mountain walk with more twists and turns than a M Night Shyamalan film! Not only that but the cold disappeared and the sun came out in full force. Every time I took my coat off, however, the wind would come back and it would start picking to rain again.

One of the views while up on the mountain

But I’m not complaining. It was fun. A good chance to exercise. And I got to see some amazing sights on the way.

After an hour and 20 minutes of walking, I finally made it to Urquhart Castle. And it was well worth it!

Urquhart Castle

The remains are beautiful, with so much historic information scattered around for you to find out about. Not only that but considering there’s not much left, there’s a lot to explore. It’s right next to the loch which is just as gorgeous as it looked yesterday.

When I doubt that I could live in a place like this permanently, away from all the craziness of city life, all I have to do is look at the loch. That itself and its beauty would be enough to wake up to every morning.

Me on the highest tower at Urquhart Castle

Urquhurt Castle

After half an hour of so, the grey clouds returned and it started raining. Everyone ran to the tourist centre to shelter but I stayed wandering around by myself. I was used to this weather by now and it didn’t faze me. I still had a lot to see.

View from Urquhart Castle (in the rain)

After another half an hour or so, I sat on a bench and wrote my postcard home before also heading into the tourist centre to buy some lunch (lentil soup) and souvenirs (a bottle of Scotch whiskey for my Dad and a Scotland keyring for myself).

When I realised I should be getting back, I felt quite sad. It’s my last day at Drumnadrochit and I’ll be sad to leave. This week is going so fast already. A bit part of me doesn’t want to go home. I want to do this forever.

I walked back and headed to the gift shops near my hotel to pick up the rest of my souvenirs for my family. As I reached the door, I bumped into a group of three who looked at me with astonished faces. Our exchange went like this:

Them: “Did you walk all the way … to here?”

Me: “From the castle?”

[They nod]

Me (grinning): Yeah.

The noise at the window turned out to be the wind as the frame is very loose and old-fashioned.

Surprised that it was a sunny day, rather than the forecast miserable grey weather, I decided to get up and have a wander around to see what I could do. I’d already decided that I wanted to get out on the Loch. No fear of water was going to make me miss that!

I headed to the hotel reception, booked and paid for my place on a 2pm boat trip, and headed over to the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre. That was an experience in itself.

An ancient skull of the dinosaur they suspect the Loch Ness Monster evolved from (if it is, in fact, real).

The Exhibition consisted of walking through several rooms while huge screens played you the history and significance of the Loch. Of course, it touched on the subject of the Monster. The film was filled with dozens of sceptics able to pick apart and logically explain the ‘sightings’ caught in pictures or on video.

Very educational, if not a little creepy. There was a family always one room ahead of me which meant I was walking through on my own. The rooms were set up to give you the feeling that you were, first, underground and then, under the loch. Eek.

In the room made to feel as though you're underwater, I looked up and got the fright of my life to discover *this* staring at me on the ceiling. Yes, there is a fake man inside.

After I was done with everything, I headed a few doors down to the Loch Ness Monster Exhibition. This one consisted of a long corridor filled with the photographs and newspaper clippings on the monster before leading into a cinema room which played a piece of film on a loop featuring all the different ‘witnesses’ who claimed they were 110% sure they’d encountered the monster.

I realised that I’d probably seen these two exhibitions the wrong way round. I’d spent the last hour being shown how the pictures had been doctored and what happens in the Loch to make many visitors believe they’re seeing ‘something’, and now there were a bunch of crazy people on screen in front of me insisting it was real. Really real. Uh huh. Yeah. Sure.

My personal opinion? I believe there may have been something in the loch back in the 1930s when the first sighting occured. Perhaps a descendant reptile from a dinosaur (as they suggest). But do I think there’s still one around? No. Maybe there was something back then. But not anymore. I believe most people did doctor pictures and convince themselves that they’re seeing something when, in fact, it’s nothing.

Outside the Loch Ness Monster Exhibition/Centre

I returned to the boat trip’s pick-up point at 2pm, eager to get onto the water and see the loch up close and personal. The Captain (the very definition of a Captain Birdseye lookalike – the old one, not the new hunky Action Man one), however, had some bad news. Because of the lack of visitors to Drumnadrochit (thanks to the flights being grounded), there weren’t many people wanting to take boat cruises. He asked if I could wait until 3pm when there were a few B’N'B guests in the village booked up for that hour.

I said it was fine and took a stroll into Drumnadrochit to find lunch. I chose a small café and sat at a window seat overlooking the sunny village and across from a map of the world, filled to the brim with foreign coins from tourists who’d visited. It was so quiet. The impression I got was that during the summer this place is filled with visitors. Nevertheless, everyone I’d met so far were unbelievably friendly, really eager to make me feel welcome.

At 3pm, I headed back to the meet-up point again and was picked up by a minibus with six other people, all in groups of two.

The boat trip really was something else. No matter how much I try to convey it, it’s never going to do the loch any justice. It was enormous – an obvious thing to say but you have to see it to believe it. To truly understand how huge the loch is and how eerily dark the waters are, you have to be smack bang in the middle of it on a little boat that’s open to the elements. It really is an experience in itself.

I really do believe that the hype about trying to spot the monster overshadows how incredibly beautiful and breathtaking it is.

The Loch

As I took this picture, the sun went behind the clouds at a strange angle. I'm glad it did.

Moi on the Loch

After the amazing boat trip which ended way too soon for my liking, I decided to go and see Urquhart Castle which was supposed to be a short distance from Drumnadrochit. With my bag of water and an apple (for energy, of course) on my back, I started out the hike in the lovely sunny weather.

Ah but Scotland! How I love ye! You really can’t decide what weather you are, can you? Only a mile into my trek, it started SNOWING! It wouldn’t have been that surprising but I’d been boiling from the heat of the sun only a few minutes earlier. Suddenly I was being pelted with quite vicious hail stones!

Snow (which you can only see if you make it bigger) in Drumnadrochit

A horrible load of black clouds had descended over me, and with the wind getting worse, so I decided to turn back. I didn’t like the idea of being stuck in a storm on a lonely country road. By this time it had just gone 5pm. I’d already spent the majority of my ‘food’ money on lunch so I popped into the local convenience store at the village to grab a few small items for dinner – Pot Noodle, Pringles, A box of cookies, and another apple. Oh, yes, ladies and gents. I know how to live healthy!

To my utter astonishment, when I emerged from the shop, the sun was back out and the snow had stopped! I was speechless! The black clouds, however, had remained and didn’t look too trustworthy so I returned to my hotel room to make food and just hang out with a few books. Thank Google I did! At just after 6pm, a vicious storm started!

Being here in Scotland has definitely ignited something in me. Last night I suffered from homesickness but tonight I feel enlightened.I’ve been reading more of Into the Wild – a perfect read for a traveller – which details the short and tragic life of Chris McCandless. Not only that but it also briefly touches on a few other young travellers who, like McCandless, wandered off in search of a deeper meaning to their life, away from the materialistic and Capitalist society they were raised in.