Jul 18

Alarm went off in the gym at 7:00 am. Leaders got up, had breakfast, made lunch etc. Then by about 7:45 there was finally some significant activity starting to happen by the Scouts. They had about 45 min to get ready for the day but they all seemed to manage.

We split up a bit again today. We had already planned to go hiking in the highlands today so our 11 Scouts all went with 5 of the now 11 adults, and 2 of the Kelowna Scouts joined us. The 13 Scouts and 5 leaders made it to the station by 9:00 am, with plenty of time to buy our return tickets to Aviemore and find the train to board. Unbelievably cheap train fares here. It was about 2 pounds return fare for each Scout for about a 35 minute train ride from Inverness to Aviemore.

In Aviemore we had to wait almost an hour for the bus to Glenmore. The bus people and the train people don't talk to each other, as the train schedule to Aviemore is just about every hour arriving at 17 past. The bus from Aviemore to Glenmore runs once and hour, leaving the train station about 1 minute before the train arrived
We caught the 11:16 bus to Glenmore, which is a popular hiking area. There are many walking and iking trails well marked throughout the area. We chose a trail marked as 3-4 hour hike. It was a loop walk, with an extra path leading up to a Bothy. At the top of the loop a few Scouts volunteered to go up to the Bothy and some went back to the visitor centre. Then when we reached the Bothy there were several Scouts volunteering to go up Meall a'Bhuachaille (say that 10 times fast!). Due to limited time to go up the hill the Scouts moved at a really good pace up and down so that they could make it back to the bus stop in time to catch the same bus back as the rest of the group.

We all caught the same bus back to Aviemore where we had to walk about 1 ¾ hours for the train back to Inverness, so the Scouts all did a little shopping up and down the main street in Aviemore. It was more like shopping for ice cream, but it was a nice day and there were plenty of people in town due to a some kind of steam train and tractor festival. The Scouts actually had enough of Aviemore after less than an hour, so we all met up back at the train station to hang out while we waited for the train.

While we were there the local steam train pulled up and some of the Scouts took pictures of it.
We made it back to Inverness and rushed up to Smith & Jones pub for dinner. We arrived there about 5:45 and we had to get the Scouts out of the pub by 7:00 pm. It was pretty good food and reasonably priced. They actually were able to get us out of there on time, and then we had the big decision as to what to do next. Most of the Scouts wanted to go to the movies but in the end only about 6 finally decided to go. Three of them to that silly Eclipse movie (all girls and Trevor) and three of them to Predators. Unfortunately Predators is rated 15+ here in Scotland so we couldn't go in. Besides we took the milk route to the cinema on the bus so we ended up late for Predators anyway. We had to make alternate arrangements, with some of the Predators crew going to Eclipse (also girls) and the other Predators who wouldn't be caught dead going to see Eclipse managed to find their way back to the hall on a bus and some walking. So it's another late night again tonight. It's pretty hard to avoid that with it being light out here until at least 10:30.