Category: Sabbatical

  • Getting to Stirling

    For no reason beyond “Never been there, and people mentioned the castle”, I went to Stirling. Turns out to be pretty easy to get to; I could have caught the train as it passed through a station close to my hotel, but I decided to catch the thing from Waverley instead, mostly because I wasn’t…

  • Edinburgh Again

    This time I’m staying out near the airport, where the hotels are cheaper, but the tramline will take you into the city centre easily. Though one of the two catch-ups with folks went late enough that the last tram had gone, so I utilised their guest room. One catch-up was with someone I knew, plus…

  • Aberdeen Again

    This one’s mostly a photo dump. Aberdeen Beach has a bunch of food trucks/trailers parked along it, though the only one that was open when I went there was a double decker bus turned into a café. You had to place your order from outside, through a little window, then come in past the kitchen…

  • Thurso to Inverness to Aberdeen

    My traditional paranoid room check involved looking under the bed, which answered the question of “how come the shower drains so slowly? are they not clearing the trap?”. Given that the under bed area had an empty water bottle and a large-size beer can, I’m going to guess that deep cleaning isn’t a thing that…

  • Quiet Day In Thurso

    I try to do a Big Day/Small Day cycle when traveling, to keep from getting burned out. It doesn’t always work, and it’s not always possible, but when it pays off it means I can better appreciate what I’ve done & seen. Yesterday was a pretty big day, so today was a quiet one. I…

  • John O’Groats

    I’d previously looked at tours that’d take me out here, but didn’t understand how tourist seasons work, so I just took the Saturday bus from Thurso instead. And thanks to Doktor Hobo, I now have the idea that Thurso is an Australian abbreviation of Thursday stuck in my head, so thanks for that. Breakfast at…

  • Getting to Thurso

    The hostel dorm was louder last night, not due to people packing up or talking, but due to general sleep noise. Pretty sure the guy in the bunk above me was humming in his sleep, and there was way more snoring than before. Churn for the room seemed to be about 50%, which seems high?…

  • Getting to Inverness

    Aberdeen station is surprisingly well lit for a UK station, at least in photos – All the white everything probably contributes, but I don’t remember other stations being this bright. I may have travelled this way once before, when Gulo T. & I took the Sleeper to Inverness, but it was night & we were…

  • Aberdeen

    I stayed at this hotel a year or so back, during my tour of dying British seaside towns, as the coworkers called it. From memory, I decided on the location, at least in part, because it meant I could take the sleeper back to London in a set of circumstances where I could enjoy it…

  • Trying Something Different With Edinburgh Photos

    On Sunday, my last day in Edinburgh, I got a day pass and rode the tram a lot. Went to the airport for absolutely no reason beyond “it was there”, and went to Leith/Newhaven because it’s where the other end of the line is. I’ve been through Edinburgh airport a few times, but never in…