Overseas Adventure Travel
Idyllic Great Britain: England’s Lake District, the Scottish Highlands & Orkney Archipelago
6/6/2025 to 6/27/2025
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Page 1 – Days 1-2 in Chester
Page 2 – Days 3-5 Wales & Lake District
Page 3 – Days 6-8 Lake District & Edinburgh
Page 4 – Days 9-11 Edinburgh & Orkney Islands
Page 5 – Days 11-13 Orkney Islands & Inverness
Page 6 – Days 14-16 Inverness
Tour Day 14 - Explore Isle of Skye
This was a day that I had been really looking forward to. I had seen videos of the gorgeous mountainous terrain of the Isle of Skye. My good friend Jim raved so much about when he visited the previous year, I couldn’t wait to see it in person. My only concern was that the drive there with the stops we were doing would take 3.5 hours each way. That didn’t leave us much time to explore Skye.
Our first comfort stop was at the Ledgowan Lodge. It appeared to be a hunting lodge.
I liked the swan statues on the stairs.
We were offered coffee/tea and cookies, which made it a nice long break from the driving.
The closer we got to Skye, the terrain was getting more mountainous.
Tom pointed out the circles in the river. They are salmon farms.
We stopped at the side of the road at a scenic lookout and enjoyed the view.
We next stopped to see the Skye Bridge. It was constructed in 1992. It allowed people to get to the island without taking a ferry. We had to walk down a steep dock to get the photos we wanted.
We continued enjoying the scenery. I don’t like taking photos through bus windows, but it worked out OK in some places.
We were only going to the town of Portree, which is about halfway up the island. The dramatic landscape starts about a half hour further up the island that we wouldn’t get to see. It is a shame to drive that far and miss the best part. I was able to take a photo out the window of the Old Man of Storr rock formation in the distance. I didn’t think I would have been able to see it this far away.
When we stopped in town, the first place Tom took us was the Portree Color House Viewpoint. It is the most popular photo opp in town. They are quite a pretty sight. There were lots of boats in the harbor.
We then had about an hour’s free time to eat and sightsee. We were supposed to have fish and chips at a restaurant the previous day but missed it due to our late ferry. So, we asked Tom where to get some in Skye. He told us that the Chippy Restaurant is always crowded, but he hadn’t eaten there. We decided to try it.
We could tell we were in Scotland with the two guys in kilts waiting for their orders.
It is a take-out restaurant, so we were very fortunate when a couple left their seats just as we were looking for a place to sit. It had been a good recommendation. Yummy fish!
We had a little time to walk around the small town. There isn’t a lot there to see. I was so glad that they didn’t have a big cruise ship there that day. They do dock there regularly.
There was a war memorial monument in the center of the square with a lion on top.
They also had one of the brightly colored heart statues. This one had a Highland cow on it. The back side of the statue was the back side of the cow.
We drove out of town enjoying the scenery.
Tom told us to look out the right window to see a statue of Collie & Mackenzie, two mountaineer explorers. We went by very fast. I was shocked that I got a photo of it.
About an hour and half into the ride back, we stopped to get photos of the Eilean Donan Castle. The area is pretty with the castle on its own island.
Tom also wanted to share some Drambuie with us. With it being manufactured on Skye, it seemed most appropriate. Drambuie is a sweet Scotch liqueur. It is much more enjoyable in the Rusty Nail after dinner drink where it is mixed with Scotch.
After leaving the castle, we were able to see it from a different angle. It was bigger than we could tell from the first view.
A little way down the road, we pulled over and parked. Tom wanted to show us the ruins of the Urquhart Castle. There are a lot of castles in Scotland.
When it was time to meet for dinner, we were thrilled to see a young girl dancing to recorded Scottish music. She was so cute and unlike the other dancers we saw the previous evening, she couldn’t stop smiling. I had to put a video of her in the review.
Our group dinner that night was at the Waterfront Restaurant.
It was a pretty good meal. I had the Venison Casserole and Cathy had the Supreme of Chicken Breast. For dessert we had the Sticky Toffee Pudding and the Drambuie Crème Brule.
Tour Day 15 - Visit Rothiemurchus Estate • Visit Highland Folk Museum
This morning for our last full day of the tour, we were going to the Rothiemurchus Estate in Cairgorms National Park. We met park ranger Ross, who was going to take us on a walk through the area.
It was a very pretty walk taking 45 minutes to go 2 miles.
After the walk, we boarded the bus for our next destination. Tom told us during the trip that we would see Highland Cows during the tour. This was the day! Everyone was excited to see cows with hair in their faces. Ross took us up to a fence where there were a bunch of Highland Cows in the field. He shook the bag of feed to get them to come up the hill. To make them move faster, he poured some feed into the trough. He told us to take photos while they were coming up the hill since they would have their heads down when they were eating.
Everyone was having a great time taking photos of these special animals. We had finally gotten to see them, and the sun was shining brightly for great photos.
After our visit to the cows, we had a nice lunch in the Barn Café near where the bus originally parked at the park welcome center for our walk. It was a very nice home cooking place. Tom told us that we had a £15 allowance to purchase what we wanted to eat. I ordered an incredibly delicious mushroom soup with a cheese scone. Cathy had a different soup. Mine was better.
After lunch we walked over to the welcome center shop. Tom got silly and put on a Highland Cow hat.
On the way back to Inverness, we stopped to take photos of the Carr Bridge. It was built in 1717 but was badly damaged by floods that destroyed the bridge walls. It was still a very pretty photo opp.
When we got back to the hotel, I decided to visit the St. Mary of Annunciation church nearby.
The blue ceiling and stained-glass windows were attractive.
Our farewell dinner was being held at the Tulloch Castle. It was quite a nice place.
We walked up the staircase to a large dining hall.
In the dining hall was a painting showing members of the family from the early 20th century. The girl in the upper left apparently fell down the stairs after seeing her father having an affair with a woman. She has since haunted the castle and is referred to as the Green Lady. She has been seen many times and a photo was taken of her.
I took the opportunity with us sitting together to take photos of everyone. It is nice to have this to remember the wonderful new friends we met on the tour.
Stuart & Cathy Bruce & Lisa
Marcia & Sam Donna & Gary
Peter & Linda Anne & Michelle & Mary
Nyla Tom
We had appetizers of a delicious vegetable soup and Cauliflower Florets.
For the main course, I had a Duo of Beef. This was a combination of feather blade and ox cheeks. Cathy had the salmon filet.
For dessert we had an apple crumble and raspberry cranachan.
It was quite a good meal in a beautiful environment. But it was sad to know that we would all be travelling to different places the next day. That’s the downside of having good travel mates. But there were many more upsides.
Tour Day 16 - Return Home
Since we booked our own air, OAT wasn’t responsible for getting us to the airport. Tom did arrange a large van taxi to take us and Peter and Linda to the airport at 8:00 AM for our 10:25 AM flight. It was a nice leisurely morning.
I was concerned about our connection time at Heathrow, since we were arriving at terminal 5 and leaving from terminal 3. We only had 85-minutes before the flight would leave. Everything I read said that we should allow 3 hours if we had to change terminals. That wasn’t comforting. I will say that the stars aligned for us in that the bus to terminal 3 arrived about 4 minutes after we got there and there was no long que. Immigration and security also went very fast. The airport just wasn’t very crowded. We arrived at our gate 43 minutes after leaving our plane. Really good time!
We were pleased that we would be on an American Airlines 777 rather than the British Airlines A380 we came over on. This plane had much better seats, more storage space and everyone had access to the aisle.
We arrived back in Miami early and met our driver to go home. It had been a great vacation.
Recap
It is difficult to recap a vacation when you visit so many fascinating and beautiful place. I won’t even try, since the review says it all. What made this trip even more special was that we were able to visit our dear friends in Yorkshire before the cruise and then share this tour with a very friendly group of fellow travelers. It is unusual when everyone on a tour group gets along and enjoys each other’s company. We really lucked out.
Our Trip Experience Leader, Tom, could not have been better. He took great care of the group as well as any of our individual needs quickly and cheerfully. Being a history buff, we learned so much from him about the amazing historical, beautiful places we visited.
We also were so lucky with the weather. It was in the 60’s most days and the sun would shine when we were touring the different sites. We would have occasional light rain when traveling in the bus, but by the time we arrived at our destination, it had cleared up. Very unusual for land tours in the British Isles.
We are just so glad we went on this tour. We will have many fond memories about it.
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