The traveling teacher

I'm not going to lie, my choice to stay up late last night was not so much fun this morning! But, being the last day of the tour, I knew that I would have yet another overnight bus back to London coming up. We left Morag's Lodge (Fort Augustus, Loch Ness) and headed south towards Fort William in the hopes of spotting Ben Nevis, Scotland's highest peak. Although it is not an incredibly high peak, it is a dangerous one, claiming several lives due to the drastic changes in conditions (especially the fog). In the direction of Ben Nevis Commando Memorial Our first stop of the day was at the Commando Memorial, in the shadow of Ben Nevis and overlooking the Commando Training Depot established during World War II. The memorial commemorates the men of the Commando force that fought during WWII. Although Ben Nevis towers over the area, we could only see the base of the mountain, as there was a lot of cloud cover. River Pattack After a bit of a drive, we made our n...

I have not been very good at keeping up with my travels, so this is still from my trip to Scotland mid-September... Trees for Life Hazel tree Day 4 on the Haggis tour was a very busy one. We left our hostel near the shores of Loch Ness, and made our way to Trees For Life, "a conservation charity dedicated to the restoration of the Caledonian Forest." Here, our tour group participated in planting 2 native species of tree, a birch tree and a hazel tree. Due to time and manpower constraints, we were only able to plant 2 trees for the entire group. Many of us had hoped to plant a tree each (30 trees), but the time that it would take to dig all of the holes (the charity's volunteers pre-dig the ground) meant that it was not possible. It is something that the charity is keeping in mind, and we discovered that you can do trips specifically to plant trees. One of the volunteers was a year 2 (grade 2) teacher, who is also taking a year off to refresh himself after 20 year...