Dunoon and Argyll Forest Park

Dunoon and Argyll Forest

Today, it was up bright and early to go take the coach to Dunoon and Argyll forest!

Before getting to Argyll forest, we made a quick bathroom/photo stop at another part of Loch Lomond. I cannot express how grateful I am for this stop. I was pretty much two seconds from throwing up the contents of my stomach from motion sickness when the coach parked and I sprinted out onto solid ground. I'm very prone to motion sickness, and I usually take Dramamine, but I'd been find on all the trips so far and it makes me sleepy so I hadn't taken any.. that was a mistake. But, with the cool, fresh air of the beautiful day (and a very helpful bench), I felt better in no time and was able to enjoy the stop.  Today was a near perfect day, weather wise. The most gorgeous day I've seen here so far. I didn't wear my rain jacket at all - just my CNU sweatshirt and a scarf. We spent some time at this part of Loch Lomond, taking in the beauty. Though there were clouds, the sun was shining and it was almost painfully bright! As one who feels like she hasn't seen proper sunlight in weeks, this was really exciting.

Jumping photos are my favorite. 

I've decided that this will be the 'thing' I do at each place we visit.

We found the sad remnants of snow at Loch Lomond! 

Someone had attempted to make a snowman at some point... 

GORGEOUS DAY.

After the quick break at Loch Lomond, we climbed back into the coach and drove for about an hour to get to Argyll Forest Park. We did about a three hour walk of Puck's Glen here, and it was simply breathtaking. Along the way, Gary told us a few stories about faeries - Puck's Glen is associated with a lot of faery tales. Sarah and I were even used as props at one point in these stories. We were each given children (played by two guys of the tour) that we had apparently given birth to. Turns out, Sarah's "child" wasn't actually her kid - her child had been stolen by the faery king, who had replaced it... It was a weird story. But awesome nonetheless.

Puck's Glen was really green, and really wet. Not incredibly muddy, mind you - just wet. There were trees, moss, and little water falls all over the place. It really felt like a faery kingdom. We wandered within Puck's Glen for quite some time - surfacing to the outside world at the end, and feeling completely mystified by the beauty. It was like it's own little world, and it felt like nothing else existed outside of this green haven. 

"None of this feels real." It was just so... majestic.

After the gorgeous walk through Argyll Forest, we drove about fifteen minutes longer and stopped in the town of Dunoon. It was a really pretty area, if calm (it was a Sunday, after all). Since Sarah and I ate on the bus, we went with Gary and a few others for a little random exploring. We were going to go on a little forest hike, but ran out of time. We still got to see some cool back areas of Dunoon though, and that was awesome. After this little trek, the group went back to the location of the old Dunoon Castle.  It was a very picturesque, green area. I throughly enjoyed just sitting and looking around at the beauty. The water was so pretty, the sun was shining, and the grass was dry enough to sit on (yay!) while we listened to Gary tell a few stories. There were a lot of opportunities for Sarah and I to use or black and white film cameras today - from the unreal greenery of Puck's Glen to the beautiful scenery of Dunoon, I was in photo-heaven. I used about half a roll of film today alone (which is good, because I need to be finished with the roll by Tuesday at 2...).

After this, it was time to head back to the bus. We took a ferry across the water (about twenty minutes) and then had an hour bus ride back to Glasgow. I pretty much slept my way through this part of the trip... But, thankfully, no motion sickness relapses! Glory hallelujah. 

Overall, it was an absolutely fantastical day, and now I am exhausted!

Glasgow Park Walks

Wow okay it's been a while. Sorry... I haven't really been doing anything too life-changing - mostly just class and enjoying the lower levels of stress I have here.

The past two Fridays, I did go on walks with Gary (Student Tours Scotland). If you're curious as to the history/specifics that I may not have gone into, feel free to check out the links - it takes you to the page where Gary has written a description of the tour.

Linn Park
Two Fridays ago, we took the train to Cathcart and explored Linn Park. Linn Park is Glasgow's second largest park. It is beautiful, if pretty muddy at times. Some people got creative in trying to avoid the mud; I basically just went right through with my converse. My feet stayed surprisingly dry! Anyway, I spent the afternoon roaming the forest and taking lots of beautiful pictures. Quick sample:

The next day (Saturday) was mostly spent in bed.. until around 8:30 when Sarah and I decided to go out. We walked down to a restaurant/bar/pub called The Bookclub. It was super cute inside, and we each got a drink and spent a good two hours people watching. We're really good at it. During that time, I think I found approximately seven thousand future husbands (Okay, not seven thousand... More like seven). I gave them nicknames based on what they looked like - a few included Hair (he had really good hair and kept playing with it), Glasses (he reminded me of David Tennant and I got really excited), Shirt (... I liked his shirt), DJ (he was the dj and was awesome), and then two boys we deemed 'Straight?' because we honestly weren't sure... but they were cuties.

I got a sort of raspberry daiquiri - it had vanilla rum, chambord, raspberry, and lime. It was yummy! Sarah's had ice cream in it... that was delish too.

Pollock Country Park
This past Friday, another walk with Gary! Pollock Country park is "largest country park inside a city boundary in the continent." The main draw for Sarah and I was the opportunity to see a HIGHLAND COW! But anyway, the scenery was gorgeous, and we got to get pretty darn close to a few Highland cows!

I love these Friday walks - they are a great way to see more of Glasgow, and to force me to leave my room and experience all Scotland has to offer!

Loch Lomond

Since my last post, I went to my classes, did my second set of Organic Chem Lab experiments, watched Doctor Who (cried over Doctor Who), watched three Disney movies (and felt like a child again), and then (probably most importantly) went to Loch Lomond with Gary and Student Tours Scotland!

Loch Lomond is a "freshwater Scottish loch" and is "the largest inland stretch of water in Great Britain" (thanks, wikipedia...). Basically, it's a huge, gorgeous lake! We started the day with a forrest walk along the Millenium Path in Balmaha that was absolutely breathtaking. It was also freakishly windy. I honestly feared that I would be lifted into the air a couple of times, and then once or twice I thought the wind was going to knock me right over. Fun stuff. Here are some highlights:

Also, may it be noted that I have done absolutely NO editing on these - what you see is what I saw, and what my camera captured. This is in reference especially to the first one, which I think is GORGEOUS and have no idea how I managed to capture those colors.

After this gorgeous walk, the bus took us to the town of Balloch, where we had time to wander on our own a little. Sarah, our friend Corinna and I went back and wandered around a little area that got us up close and personal with the loch:

This was near a little enclosed shopping area, which we then wandered around a little as well. It was a nice, relaxing and pretty afternoon. After about an hour and a half here, we headed to our final destination - Luss Village and the Quarry Path. Gary took us up Quarry Path first. Along the way, there  is a waterfall/river area that he stopped to show us, and then set us loose to manage ourselves as we wished. We spent quite a lot of time by the water - it was just so pretty. We had to be pretty careful, because everything was wet, slippery, and it was a pretty steep drop down to the water. Golden rule of Student Tours Scotland is "Just Don't Die" and you bet we were taking that to heart. However, that didn't stop us from climbing our way around the mini-cliff down to get closer to the water for the view (and a photo-op). This is what that area looks like:

After we tore ourselves away from the waterfall, we walked down the path for a while and then found our way to a gorgeous church with a small graveyard around it. We spent some time in there, then headed into the village of Luss. We didn't wander through the actual village much, but we did go out onto the pier so we were standing directly over Loch Lomond.

It had to be done.

The Church

Then, it was a sleepy bus ride home, and a chilly walk back to the Student Apartments! It was a FANTASTIC day, and we got so many good pictures it's crazy. I spent the rest of the evening (from sevenish to nineish) laying on my bed trying to muster up the energy to go make some dinner. I ate, and then went through my photos and started to write my blog post! Now, I'm off to bed!