Stoer Point

I've done some very fancy investigation (all right, I simply read the caption on the photo I used as my banner) and have found out that the picture was taken at Stoer Point. I now want to go there desperately. I've found that it's 2 hours away from Inverness & 3 hours away from Portree - so very obviously we'll likely go there from Inverness. That actually works out perfectly because we'll be in Inverness the longest (aside from Edinburgh) so we'll be able to take the time and go out there.

clipped from www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk One of the best walks in the area begins at the lighthouse car park and heads north above the cliffs for two miles to the remote Point of Stoer. The coastal scenery is spectacular, and the views still better if you head a few hundred yards inland to the summit of the 141m high Sidhean Mor. But the highlight is the Old Man of Stoer, a 200ft high rock stack just offshore, a little south of the Point of Stoer. You might even see climbers swimming across the 30ft wide channel to the platform at the foot of the stack or scaling the stack itself.

When do they shear the sheep in Scotland I wonder? Will I even be able to see any fluffy ones? Are sheep nice? If I see one will the Scots let me pet it? Paul always says I should just open a petting zoo or live on a farm.

Two Weeks?!

As I posted earlier this weekend - I was considering getting some pricing information on a two week trip since I was feeling very rushed with our one week trip. Also, I wanted to move it later in the year. So I talked to the woman I was working with at myguideBritain and she created us a new itinerary with prices based on end of April beginning of May. So the cities we're thinking about visiting now are:

Arriving in Edinburgh
1st two nights in Glasgow
1 night in Fort William
2 nights on the Isle of Skye in the town on Portee
3 nights in Inverness
2 nights in Aberdeen
1 night in Stirling
3 nights Edinburgh
Leaving from Edinburgh

The trip costs has doubled - but considering we've moved slightly into the "high season" I don't think that's too bad. I'm thinking that Paul and I are still going to do it and just be very, very budget conscious for the next six months. We're only going to do this once! We need to make it count.

To save some money we are going to fly with Aer Lingus and we're going to take advantage of this Great British Heritage Pass where you buy a pass for a number of days and it'll get you in free to a lot of attractions. It's going to be $15 a day for Paul and I (combined!) so that's pretty good considering that a few places are 11GBP per person. I'd like to do all that stuff off of the beaten path - but I also want to be able to say I've seen those places everyone talks about when they talk about Scotland. Plus we pay ONE time and know where our budget is after that instead of getting to the 8th day and realizing we can't see anything else.

One question for anyone who lives in the UK: I've priced out everything but petrol and food. Can someone tell me the average cost of a meal when eating out and also the average cost of petrol? I know that the petrol prices will likely change by next year - but I'd still like to get a rough estimate now...