You take the high road, and I'll take the low road
And I'll be in Scotland before ye!
But me and my true love, will never meet again,
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond!
We left a little early today, as we had a fairly long drive up to Loch Lomond. But before we set out, we paid a quick visit to some relatives. These were Ian and Anne and their two boys that we had dinner with the other night (Ian is my mother's cousin).
They live in this enormous three story house, on the other side of the river Cree from Newton Stuart. Apparently, when they bought it some 17 years ago, it was quit run-down and they've been doing it up since. In fact, they told us that when they bought it, it was so run-down that it actually cost them more to buy their son David a house in Edinburgh! Anyway, they've done an amazing job, and it looks like a real mansion.
Their house was built in 1749, as the house for the minister of the church (which you can still see - it's just across the road from their house, and it still gets used, in fact there was a funeral there when we arrived). But for a number of years before they bought it, only the ground floor was being used - the rest had essentially been abandoned.
We only stayed for coffee, and a brief tour of their house, then we were off. My cousins were heading down to the Cotswold, and it was
a six hour drive for them. So we left there around 12 o'clock, and said goodbye to our cousins again (it's just me, my mum and grandmother
again, now).
We took the western road up to Glasgow, and on the way, there's a piece of road which they call the "Electric Brae". This is a pretty cool effect. Essentially, the mountains on one side and valley on the other are configured in such a way to create a optical illusion that makes it look like you're pointing uphill, when you're actually pointing downhill (and vice versa if you face the other way). So what people do is you stop in the road, put it in neutral, and take you foot off the brake, and it looks as though the car rolls uphill!
It's called the "Electric Bare" because for a long time it was thought to be an electric or possibly magnetic phenomenom. Of course, we know better these days (an electric or magnetic effect strong enough to roll a car uphill would also kill mobile phone reception, wipe the hard disk of your laptop and render a digital camera pretty useless!), but even after you know it's just an optical illusion, I wasn't able to pick it - it still looked like we were rolling uphill!
We stopped for lunch in a little fish and chip shop in Girvan, but I never really thought that much of it. The fish was mostly batter and the chips were clearly frozen chips (not like what I've become used to over here :) )
After lunch, it was a pretty uneventful drive up to Loch Lomond, just on the other side of Glasgow. There was a bit of a mix up with the B&B, and my mum had to sleep in a double bed with my grandmother (hehe) but I had a big double bed all to myself!! Aaah, comfort :p