Scotland: The West Highland Way

The West Highland Way is a trail that runs from the Milngavie, just north of Glasgow, to the town of Fort William, 95 miles north in the Scottish Highlands.  Our job as a crew for our runner was to make sure they had whatever they needed when they got to each check point throughout a 95 mile run.  Whether it be food, new shoes and socks or just more water, we were there to give them what they needed along the way.  The race itself would take anywhere between 24-30 hours to complete, that is with no breaks for sleep.  We arrived in Milngavie with about 8 or 9 hours of time before the race started, which was at 1 am.  We were all amped up so we did not sleep much the night before, so running on adrenaline we set out at midnight to drop our runners off and head to the first check point. We dropped off Josh and Angela, then headed out to the first checkpoint. Lets just remind everyone that over here, you drive on the left side of the road(this takes a lot of getting used to!) Our first check point we were headed to a town called Dryman, we hate this town.  I am sure it is nice and the people are great, but it is impossible to find in the dark with a map and signs that always apparently lead Stirling.  ALL ROADS LEAD TO STIRLING!  We were a mess.  After about two hours of endless driving and getting lost, we ended up making it to the first check point and met up with Angela.  She did not need much, but it was nice to know we were capable of actually getting to a check point.  The next check point was a bit more terrible because the group was introduced to a tiny insect called a midge.  These flying insects are much like mosquitos in the sense they fly, bite and leave little marks on your skin, but are worse because there are a ton more of them and they attack in large groups.  We only had two insect head gears, so only two people would go out at a time and the other three would stay back and try to sleep. Whitney and Amy couldn’t sleep, Shae and Kiki could kind of doze off but still not really, and Matt could have slept just about anywhere.  For most of our day it was sitting and waiting at check points for her to run by for five minutes and get what she needed, but the honor of helping someone complete a goal in their life was something we were all proud of and helped us carry on throughout the day.  One positive thing about being up so long was getting to drive through the Highlands.  Nothing can describe the awesome beauty of Northern Scotland.  The rolling hills, vast grass lands and mountains cut out by glaciers is almost unreal, the entire time you had to remind yourself that this was a real place and not something from a movie screen.  Every time we stopped we tried to sleep as much as possible, but we were in a mini van and sleeping comfortably was not really possible.  After being up from Midnight to about 3 am the next morning, we finally finished crewing and were just waiting for Angela to be done with the race, we missed it.  Her husband’s plan was to wake us up about 30-45 min before her projected finish time and meet her at the finish, but somehow she put on the turbo and finished an hour and a half before her ETA, moving up about 20 spots in the process.  We slept that night on the floor of their hotel room, not getting a room of our own because we did not know if we needed it or not.  We were so lucky they were nice enough to let us crash on their floor or else we would have been spending even more time in that damn van.  The day was a success and a great experience, but we were spent and completely depleted of anything, good thing we had the whole next day to just relax and sleep in the nice cozy highland town of Fort William. 

They had really crazy meats at one of the checkpoints... all we wanted was coffee.

This is what the checkpoints consisted of... food, water, restocking her backpack, changing socks, and telling her how far until the next checkpoint.

Our awesome crew, Team Skate Works

It was a very long two days, but I'm sure we would all do it over again in a second.  We had a lot of great laughs in that van over two days, and we enjoyed every second of it. We even got to see the Harry Potter Train!  If you ever are looking for an adventure, and something a little out of the ordinary, be sure to look up The Highlands!

Scotland: Days 1 and 2

When we arrived in Edinburgh, the city became magical.  Even though it is designed to bring in the tourism, there is something about this city that brings someone into another world.  Getting off of the bus our group thought it would be easy to walk to our hostel from the bus station with very little knowledge of the area, were we wrong.  Lets just say we took the long way and eventually made it, just slightly broken.  The first hostel had a tremendous view of Edinburgh Castle and was at the beginning of the Royal Mile.  We did not have much time that night to do anything more than find something to eat and explore a little, but from what we saw it was going to be great.  A friend back home(Major kudos to the fabulous Stormie Lew) recommended we try this baked potato shop right in the heart of the city. Imagine a frozen yogurt place, but for potatoes.  Even more amazing was the walk through what is considered Old Town.  With churches, street vendors, street performers, and some of the most beautiful architecture we have ever seen, Edinburgh is one of the prettiest cities.  The Royal Mile has everything you need, but at a price.  There is food and bars on every corner for sure, but it is much more expensive than if you walked down to Grass Market or Cow Gate.  We pretty much walked the entirety of the mile when we visited Edinburgh and Hollyrood Castles.  Edinburgh Castle has been inhabited since the 1st or 2nd centuries, with a fortification built on it since the Roman Empire controlled the British Isles.  It is a stunning fixture on the landscape of the city.  From almost every point you can see the fortification sticking out over the edge of the cliff, almost as if it was still looking out over the city.  Learning it was not where any royalty stayed, we decided to walk the mile and quarter to Holyrood just to check it out.  Holyrood Castle is where the Royal Family stays when they are visiting Edinburgh.  It is expensive to tour the castle, something like 22 pounds each, so we walked outside of it and took some pictures and went on our way.  Nice castle, but we liked the pubs and shops we stopped at along the way and on the way back much more than we liked the castle itself.

The View from our first hostel.

Our first of many walks down The Royal Mile.

The Baked Potato Shop, thanks Stormie!

One of our many stops along the way

Pictures of Edinburgh Castle

 It was a couple great days exploring, but the next two days became some of the most challenging and exciting days on our trip, crewing for the West Highland Way Race.

Finally an update from Dublin!

We were finally able to get the internet to work on the computer the last day of our stay in the hostel in Dublin, but then after completing a whole write up the computer freaked and accidentally deleted the whole thing.  So here is another stab, I know everyone has been pining for stories of our travels.

It is a weird feeling flying into an airport that is not in the United States.  Maybe it was just the timing or just sheer luck but we had no issues or wait getting off of the plane and going through the visa and customs procedure in the Dublin airport.  Visa stamping was more of just going to a window where a upset lady grabbed your passport, stamped it and said move along without any other questions.  Customs was even easier, we all just waked strait through to doors from the baggage claim and ended up basically on the street, I guess I was expecting more of a process that was going to drive me crazy standing in lines and waiting, guess we got lucky!  On the taxi drive into the city you almost lose all of the preconceived thoughts of Ireland as a land of rolling hills, pubs and dotted with castles, replacing them with the knowledge of knowing it is a modern city.  The highways are like the United States, except people are driving on the wrong side of the road.  Interesting, though, all of the street signs are written in both English and Gaelic.  There has been a push in the past couple of decades for the schools in Ireland to teach the children the original language of the island, in hopes to restore more of a sense of national pride.  Still I am not quite sure what the driving laws are in this country, to me it seems like more of a free-for-all, very chaotic, but maybe it is the way it always has been and people are used to it.  Seeing a city for the first time in the seat of a car is always exciting, none of it you have experienced before.  The streets of Dublin are lined with modern buildings next to buildings of some age and historic importance.  After getting out of the cab at our hostel and checking in we caught the first glimpse of our room for the first time.  The pictures on the website must have been done in another room because ours was nothing like what we saw when we first booked it.  Feeling like sardines in a can, our room was small, three bunk and warm room for six.  Being five of us we figured they would never put someone with us so we felt ok with the fact it was all friends in such a tight area.  We settled in and decided we all needed to eat and probably grab a pint somewhere close by.  We found a good place to eat the first night, and we drank our first real Guinness.  Now I have had my fair St. Patricks days in a bar and have had what America calls a Guinness, it does not compare to a fresh glass in the city of its creation, simply magical.  (Wish we could bring you one Brian!) We walked around after, taking in some of the sites that were close by, but we all got pretty tired quickly and decided it would have probably been best for us to head in for the night and get an early jump the next day.

On our first real day we decided we would go check out the Kilmainham Gaol and the Guinness Factory.  Both of these did not disappoint.  First, Kilmainham Gaol was a prison built in 1796 and is very a large part of Irish history.  Many leaders of the rebellion were imprisoned and some even executed here.  While on the tour we got to walk through the jail, stand in the cells, sit in the chapel, and see where some of the executions even took place.

Looking through a peep hole into a cell

The group in one of the cells at the gaol

Children were also imprisoned at the gaol, this is where they got their one hour a day outside.

After the tour of the gaol, the tour of a brewery sounded pretty great.  Then we were off to Guinness.

We learned the art of pouring a proper Guinness

Now that we have figured out the wifi situation we will update more often.  More stories and more pictures to follow, sorry for the delay!