I get around…

No news or updates this time around, but I figured it might be an idea to map out where I’ve been on my travels out and about in Scotland (specifically those bits when I leave my home town, Edinburgh).

This is just a ton of links to previous blog posts featuring places you might be interested in if you ever visit. (Or at least, the places I figured would provide a bit of variety while I was prancing about dressed up!) The links (below the map) are provided in the order they were published.

1: Happy Bunny (Dunbar)

2: The Swimsuit Edition and
The Swimsuit Edition II: Boobwatch (Belhaven beach)

3: Fife, The Universe, and Everything (Crail, St Andrews, Cellardyke lido, and Aberdour railway station)

4: Girly road trip: A Stab At St Abbs (St Abbs, Alnwick, and Scottish Border)

5: Girly road trip: By Jupiter! (Jupiter Artland)

6: Feelin’ Hot Hot Hot (Prestonpans)

7: Scotland, I Am In You (Wick, John O’Groats, Loch Fleet, Loch Ness, and Dalwhinnie Distillery)

8: Strange New Worlds (Dundee, Balmedie Beach, Daviot Stone Circle, and Tarlair lido)

9: Strange New Worlds: Get Tae F…alkirk (Falkirk Wheel, and The Kelpies)

10: Dumbarton Rocks? (Dumbarton Castle)

11: Getting Over The Ups and Downs (Pentland Hills)

12: What’s In For You At Inverewe (Corrieshalloch Gorge, Inverewe Botanical Gardens, and Loch Maree)

13: Scotland’s Tropics: Epic Pics (Glasgow, Ailsa Craig, Logan Botanical Gardens, Mull of Galloway, and Castle Kennedy)

14: Three Days Of Twist-ing (Kingussie, and Loch Morlich)

15: Girly road trip: Need For Mead (Lindisfarne Island)

16: Girly road trip: Hello Mondo Lomond Hills (Bunnet Stane, Lomond Hills)

17: Forced Feminisation Photos (Hillend Ski Centre, and North Berwick)
and Getting Old Rocks! (Yellowcraig Beach, North Berwick)

18: Girly road trip: Stirling Work (South Queensferry, and Stirling)

19: Girly road trip: Mind The Gap (Hadrian’s Wall, Sycamore Gap, and Vindolanda)

20: Girly road trip: Benmore Gardens

21: Girly road trip: Dawyck Gardens

22: One last, epic, Scottish girly day trip (Eilean Donan Castle, Glenfinnan Viaduct, and Glencoe)

I’ve also been to other places that didn’t really merit their own write-up, but you can find their photos lurking in the gallery:

a: Loch Lomond

b: Loch Chon

c: National Museum Of Flight, East Fortune

d: Newcastle Upon Tyne

Whenever I do more trips around the country, I’ll update the map… 🙂

One last, epic, Scottish girly day trip

There are only so many interesting places I can get to in a day trip, and most of them I’ve already visited. At some point, it’s inevitable that I’d come to the end of my list of the furthest-away ones, and well, here we are… (any more will have to be much closer to home!).

In Twist-mode, the ‘day’ has to include time to get the warpaint and structural engineering sorted out, and then the driving, which takes up several hours before we get anywhere. It’s tiring, ya know?

About time I got a photo in traditional Scottish weather…

This time I wanted to conquer a few bits of the Highlands I hadn’t managed before: Eilean Donan Castle, Glenfinnan Viaduct, Glencoe, and the Famous Grouse statue outside Glenturret Distillery. Sadly, the last of these, the Famous Grouse, had been removed when they decided to use a different malt whisky as part of its blend (I located it in an uninspiring industrial estate, a far cry from the leafy idyll at Glenturret)…

There can be only one! (It’s amazing the effect Photoshop has on an umbrella…)

Eilean Donan is famous from films like Highlander or The World Is Not Enough. The old mediaeval castle was destroyed by the Royal Navy in the 18th century during the Jacobite rebellions, and rebuilt in the 20th century with the bridge added. You can see why it crops up in films from time to time: it’s surrounded by water and hills and from certain angles seems timeless.

Come on Eilean…

It’s usually a stopping off point for people visiting the isle of Skye, but my next destination was 40km due south, but a lot, lot longer by road. We were also racing against time to get there: at 10.30am a steam train crosses Glenfinnan Viaduct. Yes, it’s also known as “the Harry Potter train”, but I gotta tell ya: I could grunt and strain until my face went purple and veins throbbed on my forehead, but I will never give even the tiniest, mouse-sized shit about Harry Potter… (nor have I ever).

I was the only person on this hillside not looking at the train.

As expected, it was mobbed with tourists from around the world, making it exceedingly tricky trying to find a spot to set up the camera with a view of me and the viaduct, but with nobody else in the shot. Managed it though!

We knew before starting the journey that this would be a day of long drives, and short intervals of leaping out of the car to take a few photos before driving on again. It wasn’t restful, and we didn’t really have time to appreciate the surroundings (another time, in another guise, perhaps). It was great for photos, but not so much as a journey nor a day out!

Glencoe: making myself centre of attention?

The last stop was Glencoe, and by this point it was the middle of the day and all the scenic car parks were overflowing. If you ever want to come to this part of Scotland, make sure you get here early (or off-season). We drove along, hoping to find even the most absurdly small spot to park, as one grand vista after another rolled by. Finally, we found one, with deep ruts, pot-holes, and puddles. It would do.

And then two coaches full of Italian tourists rolled up and disgorged their passengers. In an instant, most of the vantage points were gone!

I managed to find a gap between two badly-parked cars where we could get a couple of decent angles without anyone else in the way. And it was so hectic, I didn’t have time to put my boots on (not that most people would notice or care!) What the hell – sometimes the only thing that matters is the end result, and with the dramatic scenery of Glencoe behind me, I call that a good result!

End with a flourish!