I had just wrapped up a long run in the snow with my friend Jenelle on a chilly February day in northern Michigan when my phone rang. As I was getting into my car to drive home my friend Mark called me out of the blue and invited me to join him on a trip to Scotland he was planning for the upcoming fall. I was immediately intrigued. I told him I would look into it, and after doing some research and seeing pictures of the scenery of Isle of Skye, castles of the Scottish Highlands, and the Ben Nevis Ultra race course (which conveniently was held on September 17, 2023), I told Mark I was in. I signed up for the race and bought my flight soon thereafter. My trip dates would be September 15-25, 2023.
Mark’s schedule was shifted back, and he flew in on September 18th and would return home a few days after my trip was over. My friend Kara is an avid traveler and fellow ultrarunner and she also signed up for the Ben Nevis Ultra. Kara and I flew out of Detroit on the same Iceland Air flight. After a layover and quick bite of pizza at the airport in Iceland, we caught our next leg to Glasgow. Kara and I rented a car and traveled together until I picked Mark up on Monday, and then she would go on to get her own rental can and join up with some other friends that were flying in for the rest of her adventure.
Once in Glasgow, I pulled out £100 at an ATM (that was all the cash I would need as most places accepted credit card) and then we went to the rental car centre for our car. After about an hour in line we were ready to go. Sleep deprived from the long night of overseas travel, it was time for me to learn very quickly how to drive from the right-hand side of a car, in the left lane. It was nerve-wracking for the first two days, but by the end of the trip I felt pretty comfortable driving as they do in the United Kingdom.
Kara called the host of the place we were staying, Sheildaig Farm Bed & Breakfast, which was only about an hour from the airport, near the southern end of Loch Lomond, to coordinate check-in. We were able to settle in at about 2pm, giving us time to fit in a trail run that turned into mostly hiking because of the elevation gain.
We picked a moderate trail in Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park using the AllTrails App. It was a three-mile out-and-back up and down Conic Hill. We parked at the visitor centre and set off in the rain. Typical fall weather in Scotland. But we had rain jackets and were excited to explore!
The first part of the trail climbed gently through a lush forest of old-growth pines and mossy carpet. Then it climbed out of the trees and we were offered views of a pastoral landscape under the patchy gray sky before the pathway led us to our first overlook of Loch Lomond and its many islands.
There were free-range cattle moseying around and grazing on the upper slopes of Conic Hill. We pressed on in the wind and light rain, gawking at the scenery around us. Scotland was already impressing me!
We summitted the hill and came down a slightly different path, intent on completing a loop until we encountered these Highland Coos! The horns were intimidating and we decided not to skirt too close to the animals. So, we followed the trail back down the way we’d come.
We popped into the St Mocha Coffee Shop and Ice Cream Parlour for some tasty empire biscuits to ease our hunger until dinner, which we had at Duck Bay Hotel & Restaurant. I got a vegan sweet potato curry and French fries, which was a good choice after an hour in the rain.
After posting some photos on my Instagram account and taking a shower (most of the showers I used in Scotland were equipped with electric heaters with dials to easily control heat and water pressure, but this particular one was touchy), I promptly went to sleep. I slept from 8pm to 8am without waking. I really needed that.
Our second day in Scotland started with breakfast served by the proprietor at Sheildaig Farm. I enjoyed a plate of Scottish smoked salmon, toast, and eggs. And of course, a whole French press of strong coffee.
We checked out and hit the road towards Kinlochleven. It was Saturday, and it was packet pickup day for the Ben Nevis Ultra, which was on Sunday. We had until 8pm to complete the kit check and bib pickup at the race expo so we had plenty of time to explore, hike, and run along the way. We made several stops…
We drove north along The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond (yes, we did listen to this Ella Roberts song as we drove along the shoreline road (and yes I’m listening to it now as I type this sentence)), stopping once for the photo above. A few miles down the road we pulled over at a carpark for Falls of Falloch. It was a short hike to the view pictured below. We didn’t take the time to hike all the way to the true waterfall.
The road wound up into the highlands and suddenly all of the scenery was jaw-dropping. When we found a place to pull over at a trailhead in Glencoe National Nature Reserve we stopped to admire the views and stretch our legs with a mile run.
Our next spontaneous stop was the Glencoe Visitor Centre. I bought a higher-quality rain jacket and rain pants for the upcoming Ben Nevis Ultra (the forecast was looking like I would need it) in the gift shop and we ran another mile loop on one of the nature trails there. We saw a 17th-century style turf house there.
Glencoe is close to Kinlochleven, and the race expo, but we had plenty of time left and Kara and I both wanted to see the Glenfinnan Viaduct, and the steam train made famous as the “Hogwartz Express” in the Harry Potter films. I figured that wasn’t going to be high on Mark’s list of sights to see so we made the drive up there to see it.
The hike to the train bridge (once we found the trail) was very scenic in and of itself. Bagpipes echoed through the valley and we had an overlook of Loch Shiel nestled in the hills. We had to wait nearly an hour before the train came, but it was worth the iconic photo (and seeing Harry Potter fans dressed up in Gryffindor attire). Fortunately the weather was great!
After seeing the train, we drove to Kinlochleven and checked into our room at Tigh Na Cheo Guest House.
I wrote a separate Ben Nevis Ultra race recap, which includes details of my race (I dropped at mile 19 but not before summitting Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the United Kingdom). The full 33-mile course had over 12,000′ of elevation gain, but I still finished with 8,556′ gain (and descent). Definitely enough to wear out my legs! I crossed the highly technical, knife-edge Càrn Mòr Dearg Arête in wind gusts up to 40 mph and icy rain. The only way off that ride was through, and it was very intense! Hypothermia would have been a serious threat if I didn’t have the right gear, so I’m glad they enforce the mandatory kit check!
The next three pictures below are form the Ben Nevis Ultra course.
Check out the separate Ben Nevis Ultra race recap for more details and photos from the course!
Kara had missed the cutoff time needed to climb up Ben Nevis so she was routed along the river to the Glen Nevis checkpoint. I met up with her back at the guest house and we went out for dinner. I had a relatively bland fish and chips dinner but it was good to have hot food and be warm and dry and not at the precipice of slippery cliff at the edge of a foggy abyss.
We left Kinlochleven early on Monday morning to drive back to the Glasgow Airport. The photo below is a shot from the road through the highlands.
I parted ways with Kara at the airport and picked up Mark, who I’d spend the remainder of the trip with. Mark and I headed back north and had brunch at the Marston’s Queen of the Loch Inn in Balloch. We caught up over a couple plates of Scottish breakfast and coffee until we could check into our room. Then we went for hike in Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park. I picked the Ben A’an trail (because my sore legs just needed to summit another mountain), which turned out to be a nice selection. Fortunately Ben A’an isn’t nearly as strenuous of a climb as Ben Nevis, but the trail was still steep enough to be a good workout! The view from the top was very rewarding. It was also extremely windy up there.
This next set of six photos is from our hike to the summit of Ben A’an and back.
After Ben A’an we stopped at the nearby Tigh Mor Trossachs, the castle-like hotel pictured below.
I drove the long way back to our hotel, looping around Loch Achray and Loch Venachar and through the town of Callander. We ate dinner at the Marston’s restaurant and had a laugh over watching two elderly Scottish gentleman go at a carvery (what looked like a 10,000-calorie platter of various meats and potatoes), shoveling food into their eager mouths with both elbows held high in a very crab-like (or Garfield-like) feeding motion.
The next morning we checked out and hit the road towards Cairngorms National Park. Our plan was to camp under the starts in the park, but we had all day to follow our whims.
Our whims were to explore some castles. The first one was Doune Castle, which we stumbled upon just driving through the town of Doune. It had the typical medieval castle look to it, and I learned that it was the castle featured in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (the scene where King Arthur and his knights find the castle manned by a taunting Frenchman). They sell coconuts shells in the gift shop, in case you need to get around by horseback. Doune Castle was also used as a set for some episodes of the Netflix show Outlander. At the recommendation of the staff person there, Mark and I bought Explorer passes, which granted us week-long unlimited access to all of the public castles in Scotland (and there are a lot of them). The next five photos are from Doune Castle.
Our next stop was Stirling Castle. We punched in the GPS to the park-and-ride station on the outskirts of town for free parking (and to avoid having to drive and park in the city). We caught a free bus into town and it dropped us off right near the castle entrance. We were able to avoid the lines and got in quickly with our newly purchased Explorer passes.
After exploring Stirling Castle we had worked up an appetite. We ate at The Portcullis restaurant right outside the castle, and I ate what would be my favorite meal of the trip: angel hair pasta with prawns and shreds of smoked salmon. It was delicious! Mark and I got non-alcoholic Guinness to go with our food.
After lunch, we wandered down to check out the old Stirling Bridge.
We walked back up into the downtown area to find a bus stop. Per the schedule posted at the bus shelter, the next bus to the lot we were parked in was in about twenty minutes. So, we waited. When our bus finally came, it breezed past without stopping. Mark and I ran to catch the bus stalled in traffic up ahead in waved the driver down and he just shook his head “no”. We tried a different bus stop and had to wait again. Seeing other patrons waiting for a bus to the same destination was promising, and sure enough our bus finally came.
When we got back to the rental car, Mark tried some driving in the large parking lot. He wasn’t quite ready for the open road then but later we eventually we split the driving time.
Mark and I drove through a chill rain in search of a place to sleep. Our original plan was to camp in the open in Cairngorms National Park, but the Killiecrankie Visitor Centre was closed by the time we arrived. The landscape was hilly and rocky, and although camping is allowed anywhere there nothing looked like a comfortable spot. We stopped at a diner and asked for recommendations for a place to set up. They gave us directions to a nearby campground. We checked it out in the waning light but it was a not-so-scenic field of grass and Mark wasn’t feeling like getting all the gear wet. So we tried another campground just down the road and fortunately they had a cabin (a cozy tiny house, actually) available for that night.
Mark drove through the dark campground, car bouncing erratically over deep potholes, with windshield wipers on high as rain beat down. Rabbits fled frantically in every direction and an owl swooped through our field of vision in a blur. It was ridiculously chaotic. Like, all-hell-is-breaking-loose-level activity. You had to have been there to understand just how comical it all seemed in the moment, but we had a good laugh about it.
It was a short drive up the road from the campground to the quaint village of Aviemore. It had a touristy feel with cafes and sporting goods stores lining the streets. We grabbed cappuccinos and breakfast from a bakery and popped into several of the sporting goods stores.
Next, we drove into Cairngorms National Park and hiked a loop around Loch Morlich. It was a perfectly pleasant loop but aside from the rolling mountains it felt like it could have been home in Michigan.
After our four-mile hike we drove into Inverness, where we had a room booked at the Columba Hotel. Inverness, with a population of about 47,000, was the largest city we’d visited aside from flying into the outskirts of Glasgow. Driving in city traffic was still stressful and once we found a place to park (not an easy task, and it wasn’t particularly cheap) we left the vehicle there. Mark took a nap that afternoon and I went on a ten-mile solo running tour of the city, starting and ending at the hotel.
Here are some more views from my run along the River Ness and through the City of Inverness:
I wrapped up my run around 6pm and Mark and I ventured out for dinner. We ended up ordering pizza and fish & chips and splitting both.
The next morning we checked out of the hotel and drove southwest along the northern shore of Loch Ness. THE Loch Ness. The weather was windy and misting and I’m sure if we could have seen through the fog we’d have seen Nessie out there in the water.
Urquhart Castle was on our way and opened at 9am, which we timed perfectly. This was probably my favorite castle to explore. Castle ruins on a peninsula jutting into Loch Ness is hard to beat.
That said, Eilean Donan Castle, further on our way towards Isle of Skye, was a really neat castle as well.
Eilean Donan is a private castle so our Explorer passes didn’t get us inside, and we opted not to pay the entrance fee. We did eat at the cafe and I tried Haggis (minced lamb liver and lungs mixed with suet, oatmeal, and seasonings) in the form of a Haggis ‘n Cheese Toastie. I’d describe it as a venison bratwurst flavor. It really wasn’t bad.
Our next hotel was in Kyle of Lochalsh, the village on the mainland end of the Skye Bridge. We got there in the late morning so we kept driving onto Isle of Skye. This was probably my most anticipated part of the trip so I was eager to get out and see the highlights. It was raining pretty hard, windy, and chilly, but that all added to the Scottish vibe. I was gawking at the scenery just along the roadside.
We stopped at the visitor centre in the town of Portree and then headed up to the trailhead to the rock formations known as The Old Man of Storr. It was about a mile hike up in the driving rain before the giant fingers of rock became visible through the fog.
The photos don’t fully capture the weather or the scale of these awesome rock formations. Mark waited near the Old Man of Storr and allowed me to run off ahead to take pictures from different angles. I met a couple from Michigan that had actually heard of Huron Pines (where I work) before and have even seen Kirtland’s Warbler! Small world!
We left Old Man of Storr thoroughly chilled. I was thankful for the new rain gear I had invested in for the Ben Nevis Ultra. It came in handy throughout the trip (and for wet October days in Michigan). We drove back to the Kyle Hotel and checked in, then ate dinner there. We used the towel warmers and radiator to dry out our wet clothing while we dined and when we got back to the room it was like walking into a greenhouse or pet store full of tropical aquariums. It was so humid and stuffy I didn’t sleep well.
The following morning we returned to the Isle of Skye but this time took a turn before reaching Portree and headed west to tour Dunvegan Castle and hike Neist Point.
Dunvegan Castle was in much better shape than Urquhart Castle, with hallways full of portraits (including one labeled “probably Florence”), fancy dining sets, and a lower chamber housing the Great Sword of Dunvegan. The castle grounds also featured an expansive botanical gardens. And the most unexpected part: it also offered boat tours to view seals.
After leaving Dunvegan Castle the already narrow roads turned into single-vehicle-width strips of tarmac that conveyed two-way traffic (many of the drivers fellow tourists like us). There were passing bulges in the road every few hundred feet (when the landscape allowed), and we had to figure out on the fly how to negotiate those with oncoming traffic. Just before Neist Point we reached Cafe Lephin and we enjoyed a nice lunch of sandwiches, scones, and coffees.
At last we reached “the end of the world”. Neist Point, the very western-most point of the Isle of Skye, is not easy to get to (especially true when you live in Michigan), but it was worth it. I had made this a must-do thing on my Scotland itinerary and it was worth the hype. The views were amazing! We even had dry weather and a little bit of sunlight! It was incredibly windy though (30 mph constant with gusts 40+ mph).
I ran, with great delight, accumulating 3.1 miles and 1,230′ of gain as I explored the peninsula’s towering sea cliffs, rock cairns, lighthouse, free-ranging livestock, and rusty old shipping equipment. The next seven photos are from Neist Point.
I had driven to Neist Point and Mark drove us back to Kyle of Lochalsh. The picture below shows just how narrow these two-way roads were on the remote areas of Isle of Skye. For all their slimness, the roads were in generally good condition.
We got back to the Kyle Hotel with some daylight left. I opted to go for another solo run. I started by running to and crossing the Skye Bridge on foot. The views from up there were epic.
Then I ran into the village of Kyleakin (visible in the photo above), where I noticed some castle ruins perched on little hill overlooking the sea loch. I had to investigate. I ran that way and found a trailhead and interpretive sign for it, learning that it was called Caisteal Maol. The trail was only open during low tide, as it becomes submerged during high tide. It happened to be low tide. Lucky me!
Not only did I get to check out the castle ruins up close, I got to run past some really cool crusty old boats like Insolence.
Mark and I had decided to do dinner on our own, so I stopped at the Pizza Mia for a very delicious vegetarian lasagna.
The next morning we left Kyle Hotel and traveled to Fort William, where we would stay for one night at the Travelodge. We had a sunny morning for the beautiful drive, and for once it wasn’t gray and windy!
With the calm, sunny weather and access to saltwater fishing (no fishing license is required to fish from shore in saltwater in Scotland, although the process is complicated for freshwater fishing), I assembled my travel fishing rod and small box of tackle I had brought with me. I didn’t have bait so I had to use artificial lures to start. I tied on a white paddletail grub on a quarter-ounce jighead and casted out. I was surprised when a fish hit the lure on the first cast. So I tried again and hooked into a small fish. My first Pollock. It was my 582nd species of fish on hook-and-line (see my full lifelist here and photo gallery here).
It took a few casts but I caught a second Pollock. It seemed like I would catch a bunch of them, but then the action stopped and I didn’t catch any others. Eventually, I walked to a grocery store and bought some raw shrimp. I spent and hour soaking a shrimp-baited hook, waiting for a bite, but nothing hit the bait.
Mark, who had been strolling the streets and checking out shops in Fort William, found me and around 2pm we were allowed to check into our hotel room. I packed the fishing gear away, happy to have caught at least one novel species, and then I went for a solo run before we went out for dinner.
I ran along the pedestrian-only street in the main shopping district of Fort William to the trailhead for Cow Hill Circuit. This trail brought me up a hill with views overlooking Fort William and also Ben Nevis.
After my 10K run Mark and I went out for pizzas and NA beers at Black Isle Bar. Back at the hotel room, we watched the 2000 film Vertical Limit.
On the morning of our last full day in Scotland, we strolled the streets of Fort William one last time before we drove back to Glasgow. This time we went into the city centre and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express.
We were able to check into the hotel right away. It was spitting rain again but I went on one last solo run to explore the city sights. It had a big city feel that I hadn’t quite experienced in the UK yet. I ran to the cathedral and explored that, ran through the Glasgow Necropolis, bought some watermelon at an Aldi, ran through the Merchant City district, shopped a book store, and took almost as many photos as steps.
Final run logged, I returned to the hotel and Mark and I went to the Di Maggio’s restaurant next door for pasta and one last round of non-alcoholic brews. Then it was time to repack my bags in preparation for my flight home in the morning. As I reorganized my luggage, Mark and I followed our respective NFL games of interest (he was tracking the Detroit Lion’s game and they won, and I was cheering for my Vikings to pull off a victory against the LA Chargers but unfortunately they failed to achieve victory in that closely contested matchup).
Mark drove me to the airport in the morning and dropped me off there before he continued on his own for the last couple days of his trip in Scotland. I wrote some postcards and got an email from Iceland Air that my flight back to Detroit was canceled. Instead, I would have an extra layover in Chicago and a late flight from Chicago to Detroit. It was frustrating to have my Detroit arrival pushed back to midnight as it meant another hotel night and resulted in me not getting home until the following day. Overall, the trip as a whole was fantastic. Scotland is an amazing place!
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