Monday, June 4, 2001

Happy and sad at the same time, refreshed and thankful for the wonderful time we had spent there, we bid Carbisdale goodbye early in the morning, deciding to spend the day in Inverness, before heading down to England again. We arrived in Inverness midmorning, and after putting our packs in storage for the day and confirming our night train south, we set out to explore the Capital of the Highlands.

It was pleasant. We walked pretty much all of it in about two hours, visiting Inverness Castle (the current courthouse), and stopping at a shop to buy souvenirs for folks back home, including some very nice Scottish whisky. For a while we entertained the idea of taking a day-trip to Loch Ness, but we decided against it mainly because of the price; just too costly a sudden splurge for four budget travelers. We contented ourselves with admiring the River Ness, hoping to catch Nessie on a shopping trip into town (alas, no luck). We then dipped into a pub for lunch (The Gellions, pronounced Gellons, as was mentioned to us by an American-dwelling expatriate).

From there we visited the Inverness High Street pedestrian shopping street, just wandering about. We walking into Woolworth to buy some postcards, when suddenly Val bursts in the door and starts yelling our names. All the (very, very) quiet Scots around look at us flabbergasted that we should know this loud creature. It turns out that she had a good reason to be screaming. "He's outside. That guy. That guy that Danny was making fun of!" she says. Danny, on the train north to Edinburgh, had been doing an impression of Sean Connery. But, could it be? Well, yes, it WAS Sean Connery right outside. Who would have thought!

Who knew we'd see Sean Connery in Inverness!!! Due to the crowds
all we could catch in a photo was his head, but it is him
Day 7: June 4, 2001

That, however, was the high point of our day in Inverness, a day that stretched incredibly long. There was little to see around the train station, and after the pub in the station closed, there was nothing to do but play Mad Libs. We had a little excitement when we decided that we were hungry, but not having enough money to eat at a sit-down restaurant (all the pubs had closed), made a dash to Burger King, only to find that, being 5:53 pm, BK would be closing for the day at 6:00 pm. Olympic sprinters could not equal us as we scrambled from the BK to the station (about 1/2 mile away) and back in time to order and get our food before they closed. In the end, however, we got our burgers and were happy.

Yvette, Lari & Yvonne pass the time at the Inverness Train Station.
It was just that exciting...
Day 7: June 4, 2001

The next two hours went by very slowly, but eventually our train pulled into the station and we started getting ready for our trip south to England. In retrospect we all decided it would have been better to have stayed until early afternoon in Carbisdale, but at least we got to see a place we'd never seen before. And boring interludes and mad food dash aside, we had a good time.

Yvette & Danny under the English/Gaelic sign for Inverness
moments before setting off south towards Stratford
Day 7: June 4, 2001

Excited and exhausted, we took our seats in the train, getting comfortable for the overnight trip south, from Inverness all the way down to Stratford, to visit our good pal Will Shakespeare.

To Day 8: Stratford-upon-Avon