Entering Scotland!!

We are staying at the Glasgow Pond Hotel which is actually really nice. It has free parking and Wifi which seems to be our main criteria now when we are searching. Our first impression of Glasgow is that it is really lively! There is so much to do if you spend money - but maybe not the best place to just aimlessly wander around. So we went to the Whiskey Distillery, Glengoyne and got a guided tour. I can now appreciate Whiskey without actually enjoying the taste haha but Matt loved it and we bought a bottle of 12 year old Whiskey and are having a little bit each night. You never know, I might develop a taste for it! The tour guide was great -he told us that Glenguin Estate Winery was started by someone (possibly a relative) who used to work at Glengoyne, moved to Hunter Valley in Australia and still wanted a link to Glengoyne Distillery. 

The waterfall that supplies all the water necessary for cooling the whiskey in the distillery. The water that goes IN to the Whiskey comes from a reservoir six km away. 

Trying the 18 year old whiskey at the end of tour

Dad would be killing to make a joke out of this photo

Me about to try the 18 year old Whiskey

Matt out the front

Loch Lomond lookout - There is one family (The Macfarlans) that have delivered post out to all the islands on their boat since the beginning. They let people catch a ride with them sometimes but we didn't get a chance to look into it this time. 

Our hotel - Matt having a drink of his new whiskey

 

Then yesterday we went to Botanic Gardens. It was pretty good for something different. It was also free - our favourite :D haha

Botanic Gardens

Glass house at Glasgow Botanic Gardens

Glasshouse (Kibble Palace)

After the Botanic Gardens we went shopping to find me a new jumper. We found one in Topshop so I was happy. I needed something that I can just throw on that matches everything. Then we went to Walkabout for some drinks and food. Walkabout is the Australian themed pub that they have everywhere in heaps of countries. Its the one Matt (my brother) got offered the job in Blackpool. Drink were so cheap! Everything on the table cost 14 pound in total!

Matt hating Carling beer

Me hating my house wine.... but they came free with our burgers so I couldn't complain. 

Drunkoes

Brotherswater & Lake District Wildlife Centre

So we started off camping in our little 2 man tent at the foothills of the mountains at Brotherswater, Cumbria. The caravan park was crazy! It had an Inn/Pub of it's own, it's own caravan park bar where you could even order food, its own shop with everything you could possibly need and full laundry and dishwashing areas. For the money we were paying we thought it was great value. It was just the weather that was the problem. When it was sunny it was so nice and hot, i even fell asleep in the sun on the first day. But when the sun hid and the wind came out it was SO COLD! Trying to cook on our little stove outside the tent was difficult in the wind and the only place for us to sit was outside. When we woke up in the morning and realised that all the mountain peaks were covered in snow (apparently very weird weather for the season) we decided we needed to fork out for a tent upgrade. We went to the Mountain Warehouse and bought a new little 3 man 2 section dome tent - there is more than enough room for us both to sit in the living area in our camp chairs and cook and stay out of the wind. The tent also opens up on both sides so when it's sunny we can have the whole thing open. Then the sleeping area is about double the size so we can keep all our bags and everything indoors with still heaps of room for us to stretch out! It wasn't too expensive either. Although the wind was so strong at night it ended up snapping one of our poles... but should be easy enough to repair. It's being held together with masking tape at the moment. Other than that though the tent is perfect and we love it. 

The day that we got there we were just chilling near our tent when an RAF helicopter flew right past so close to the ground. We were spun out by that until two RAF jets screamed past probably only 200m off the ground right over our heads. It was so so loud!! This also happened the next few days but since they are so lightning quick, we only saw it on the first day. It must be a training flight path for the RAF but was so awesome. Google Typhoon RAF jet and you'll see what I mean.  

Cooked up some garlic bread - sitting in our new tent

Dinner :)

Local specialty cheese and biscuits (these are all on different days by the way we aren't eating that much i promise!! :P

'The Living Room'

We waited for good weather and went out on our first walk since arriving in Brotherswater. We went to go climb Dove Crag - which was a peak close to our campsite - close to where we saw all the snow on the peaks when we woke up.

Diet Coke's new promotion man

Matt finding anything to climb

Exhausted already

This is a little cave called 'Priests Hole'. Its a tad difficult to get to but is really popular for wild camping. Apparently from where we were camping you can see the torches of campers up here from all the way down the bottom. 

Priest's Hole

The pile of rocks is called a Cairn and helps direct you up the best path to the peak

A shot of our caravan park  from the mountain - Our tent is a little blue one to the left of a stump towards the right of the picture. 

The peak of Dove Crag

Eating hotdogs on the peak of Dove Crag

Tourist Matt

I stepped in a deep bit of mud - devastated!

Old farmhouse which was a part of the old settlement in Brotherswater - is actually kind of creepy when you're there as it's deserted !

So many sheep and lambs along the way

Chilling back at our tent after the trek to Dove Crag in the amazing weather 

We also went to Lake District Wildlife Park and had a look around.  We actually spent ages there, the monkeys and turtles were pretty entertaining. My camera died before we got to the monkeys though :(