Edinbrrraaaaaaaaaaaaa !
Say aloud the capital of Scotland. Say Edinburgh. I bet you just said it like this ‘Ed-in-bra’. I do the same. It’s pronounced ‘Ed-in-ber’. Doesn’t sound quite right saying it the second way.
I wish Eddie was here because if he got with a girl in Edinburgh, I could have said to him Ed in bra. Would have been bloody brilliant. But he’s not and it isn’t.
After a jolly old time in Inverness, I came down to my last destination of the trip as a Backpacking Battler. Sure, in all regards I’ll always be a Backpacking Battler and I do still have Newcastle, London again and France to do but I won’t be really doing those in the backpacking style I’ve been doing all this since the 1st of July. I’ll be staying with either Mark or will be with the family. And so Edinburgh begins.
Caught up with an old pal from back in Sydney, Sophie Mackenzie. She’s studying over here at Edinburgh University so I went for a visit. I had some time to kill before we were scheduled to catch up so I decided to climb a hill. It was recommended to me as I’d get a pretty choccas view of the city. It took me until I was half way up the bloody thing to realise the wind was blowing a gale at what felt like one hundred knots and the mud on the shifty trail was ankle deep. Wasn’t up the top long before slipping my way back down the bottom.
Most days I’ve had a geez around the old and new towns of Edinburgh watching kooks stack it in the ice skating rink and kids screaming on all the rides. It’s been colder than the look a female gives you after you’ve done something she doesn’t agree with. This has meant the days of exploring have tended to be shortened. Only ended up doing one day trip out of the four days I had here. Went to St Andrew’s which was a hoot.
The museum of golf didn’t confirm the fact that the word ‘golf’ is actually an acronym; Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden. It didn’t not confirm this though so there is a possibility it is still truth.
Although a very crisp temperature, the sun wouldn’t stop shining through scattered clouds along the coast of St Andrew’s. After visiting the St Andrew’s Cathedral which is no longer fully erect, I did what I came to do. Walked around St Andrew’s golf course. I took a few photographs and took in the magnificence of it all. It’s the most lush green grass I’ve ever seen let alone walked on. Dad would have been frothing. Because it’s a members only course, unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to go have a swing. Not that I had any gear to play a couple of holes anyway. St Andrew’s town was very quaint but I’d go as far to say that it is one of the better places I’ve visited on this experience. Would be a pretty nice place to retire to with two beaches (they have sand and are actually beaches with waves) and an internationally renowned golf course – ‘the home of golf’.
This part of the trip is a rather significant one. It’s where this Battler spent the last of his days backpacking per say as he’ll be meeting up with Mark in Newcastle followed by his family in London, consecutively. It’s the last days of exploring lonesome but also the last days of being able to just pack up and leave to go wherever. Not that this is particularly a bad thing.
Sure it sucks and I would love to continue traveling around Europe but it’s now time to wind down. Contradictory to part of that last statement, winding down is what I won’t be doing for the next four weeks until I land in Sydney.
Edinburgh has been a pretty chilling city, but nowhere near close to my favourite. Hopefully will get warmer as I head further down south, although I really do have my doubts.
As I was checking out of the hostel, I received a Facebook post from Mark. He had informed me that his flight was cancelled from Heathrow to Newcastle and he would no longer be able to meet me at the bus station. Instead I am meeting his grandparents there, only knowing their names and having no idea what they looked like, and vice versa. Seems like Mark could very well be a Backpacking Battler by the way things have gone for him so far