Inverness

 A day in Inverness, weather didn’t look promising although forecast expected no rain, it’s the middle of summer and the temperature range is 10-15 degrees!

Taxi ion to the town for some of the tour members to drop off some laundry hen we walked along the river Ness, castle isn’t very old but built on the site of old castles, is undergoing so renovation to make it into a tourist attraction for the city.


We walked down towards the Cathedral, an Episcopalian cathedral, reasonably new, built in 1800s and finished in three years, ran out of funds before they could build the steeples.


Quite nice inside, with some beautiful stained glass, although the sun was not shining outside.


We were to cross the river at this point, but the footbridge was closed due to the Highland Games that were being held further down the river.


Back we went to get a chai latte and a walk around some shops before a whisky tasting.


Still not keen on whisky, only took a couple of sips of mine, but interesting how it is made and where the differences come in. Young man who hosted us has spent some time in New Zealand so there was some discussion about midges and sandflies. 

Went in to an amazing second bookshop, two floors with spiral staircase, lots of people in there and quite overwhelming, so headed down to the Highland Games 






Blue sky one way, grey sky the other, fancy houses on the other side of the river.


Stayed at the games for a couple of hours watching the men throw rocks, and the hammer and the women throw weights up and back  over their heads and over a high jump bar, three got to thirteen feet high - not sure how heavy it was, men were getting ready to do the same with a heavier weight, when I decided it was getting too cold and I should make my way back into town for some soup and then back to the hotel for an early night and to get up to date with the blog






Men in kilts, was hard to get good photos but you can see the rock in the air in the one below, think they were getting over 20 metres.



Women in kilts below, some of the competitors were from Canada and England, apparently they do the circuits over summer time. Looks like summer doesn’t it?


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