After having prayed for a good 13.34 minutes behind the steering wheel of a stationary car that was on the RIGHT hand side of the car, I decided to take my chances in the moving traffic. Stalling three times and barely avoiding collisions, asking directions twice I get to the fairy to take me to the Isle of Arran off the Western mainland of Scotland.

I arrived after an hour at sea, looked at the map and drove south to my first Pict sight. After asking some locals walking their pony, I parked at a small closed grocery store and followed a path to Torylin (Originally this would have been a burial mound or 'cairn' with this picture being the entrance to the 'cist' itself, however moving careless men over 3000 years have left this as it remnant).

There aren't really any REAL signs indicating where the hell these sites are, you drive to where your map tells you back and fourth about 5 or 6 times. Ask a local, if you can understand the accent and park on the road and walk a mile and a half through sheep shit until you see a bunch of rocks! Macrie Moor is the sight. Set in a small valley with the remains of an old farmhouse about only 300 years or so. Macrie Moor I is the first of 6 you come to in this valley. It is believed to be another cist, however the forms of the rocks might lead to another view. Macrie Moor II is a BEUTIFUL henge! The smaller other stones could have been as large as this one in the picture but might have fallen and are still somewhere buried by the +/- 3000 years that passed. To the second's right side there is another henge, Macrie Moor III the larger stones are mostly visible, yet some other rounder stones make up this henge. This leads us to Macrie Moor IV. If you see in the photo, to the left there are the smaller and rounder stones that are the IVth sight. Strange is that these 'round' stones are also in the III'd as well. Hmmm? In the photo you can see the old farmhouse and top left is the first. II can be seen at the extreme right. There was another, but it wasn't all too great in my opinion and I need to get moving'!

Fort Dunadd was once the capital of ancient Scotland around 2000 years ago, it of course had another name but I can't remember. This fort had only one way up it, the sides were shear cliffs of rock that were there before construction and the men only had to 'touch up' some of the walls as in the photo. As I said, it is in the middle of a valley with great visibility against attack. On top of the fort, there is a bowl. There are many theories to this, the most common is that they would leave the first milk of the cow in spring to give to the fairies, this ensured that they were well and were blessed with a bountiful year by the fairies. In any case it is really damn cool to see. Next to the bowl is where the real power was, the King of this mighty country would supposedly be accepted here as king as he placed his foot into the holy print representing his authority or something like that.

@ 2 miles down the road is another Cairn, Duncrhraigaig to be precise. It is in a horrible state, collapsed rock and earth that would have been on the top covering the tomb have fallen and robbers pilfered anything that was inside before hand. Dating from again around 2000-2500 years old, not too bad. On top the historical society has placed a cist, (where the burnt remains of the person would have been) believed to have been the original. I wasn't scared of no damn foot and mouth disease! No sign is gonna stop ME! Hopped the fence and went to see a BEUTIFUL henge, There weren't any signs but I believe my map told me Ballymeanoch. There were supposed to have been around 11 stones, yet only 6 are visible. It is believed to be a 'dancing ring' due to its close distance to Fort Dunadd. Next to it was another small cairn/henge overgrown with grass. Upon getting back to the road I caught another angle to Ballymeanoch, she's a beut!

Going north on the A82 along the Loch Ness, I turned west on the A831 and found another well preserved cairn Corrimony. Same construction as the other cairns south. Big change however in the esthetics here. There are henged stones surrounding these cairns in the Highlands that aren't visible in the ones in Argyle in the Kilmartin valley or surrounding areas. This one was excavated and the roof either had fallen in and removed or simply removed, you can see from the top where the inside cist would have been in the middle. Also there are starting to be a lot more cupmarkings here as well. Maybe they had more ferries (or little people as they call them) up here? On the way back I stopped @ Drumnadrochit, next to the Loch Ness monster museum and called my mommy. No one there and left a message. I wasn't interested in the castle that was under construction, you had to pay 10$ to get in AND wait for parking, up to Inverness I go along the winding Loch Ness. Couldn't really look at the loch because of the winding road.... I should have stopped to take a picture! Damn, I be dumb sometimes.

Outside of Inverness are the Clava Cairns. Three cairns within 50 meters from each other, approximately the same height and construction except the middle and last ones have the same henged stones to them. First cairn excavated w/o roof as in Corrimony, yet this one is MASSIVE! Next to the Second cairn, here we can see the large monoliths surrounding the cairn. It is said that the monoliths are astrological in nature, Equinoxes and what not. To the right of the second is a small henge sort of structure, it almost looked as though it was made by some recent hippies rather than ancient Picts. It just seemed too well made, however there was a very profound cupmark on one of the stones. Third cairn was dissected by the same road I took to get to see them! This has the henged stones as well and an identical entry as the others as well. On my way back to Inverness I thought of what sort of life these people would have had. What did they believe in, where did their gods live and what language(s) did they speak. We don't really know anything about them except a lot of theories and scientific guesses. I saw a sign outside of a pay as you enter battlefield where the Scots and the British killed each other in the late 1700's. I was more interested in the Gaelic on the sign! COOL!

Back to Inverness to hunt for a B&B, I got this real cheap as you can see from my view.

This was one of the best days I had. Went north still, up the peninsula to see some more sites. My goal was to go all the way up to the tip of the country and say "I am at the tip of this country", but then I remembered that the Shetland Islands are further than that and I didn't have enough for money to take a ferry! I stopped @ Carn Liath. This is a Broch, a very old fort/settlement building. It served two purposes about +/- 2500-3000 years ago. It seems that inside would find precious items or even people, there was on the out side terraces that would have had huts and people. The division walls on the terraces were still visible. Upon entering the broach, to the right was a very small chamber to where there would be some sort of security to either say 'yes' or 'no', I think that the no would result in bloodshed. In the inner of the broch to the left are the stairs leading to the lookout point, which are the walls of the broch. Here you can see where it is your enemies are coming from. (This is a castle in the view) After this I was still trying to convince myself that I could STILL go to the top of the country and tell myself that I was there! I kept going north, I shouldn't always listen to myself. But this time I am glad I did. Stopped in the little town of Helmsdale and went to the tourist office made out of an old barn. The lady said that there are some sights around here and I demanded politely where they were. She was such a nice Scot, she sent me north with the name of some landowners and away I went! I drove about 7 miles and turned on the road that was their driveway. I asked the woman of the land if I might be able to see the broch, her son of around 35 offered to take me there on the 4-wheeler due to its distance and inaccessibility. Up we got on the machine with the company of his two boys of 6 and 3. The 6-year-old even drove the damn thing half the time, not bad at all either! We hit a point to where there were a lot of boulders and had to cross them with the machine. The closer we got to the jutting edge of the land that lay out to the sea; we came to the broch. From on the wall, the defense was incredible. There was only one way to even reach this broch because straight to the south and north and east by cliffs deep valleys! Incredible! This was hardly EVER touched by anyone! It was well preserved and as I investigated, it seemed to be almost identical to Carn Liath. From inside the entrance you see how small the entry is. Here you can see the passageway to the stairs, @ the bottom of the stairs as you are to turn left to enter you see another security room. Another view from inside the structure. We were coming back over stones in the forms of perfect rectangles that seemed to have radiate out from the center of the broch, these were actual houses!!! These were the suburbs of this broch.... It was incredible. I decided to go back south, I had seen more than I had ever thought. Back through Inverness and to Aviemore where people love to ski. If you look hard enough, you can still see snow on the mountain! Find B&B, listen to a guy play the bagpipes in the parking lot. Too damn cool!

At this point I had no idea as to what I was to do nor where to go or what to see. I was in the middle of a country that I didn't know nor had ever seen. I decided to go south, for I had to leave south from here, why not? I followed loch after loch, never keeping their beauty in digital but more vivid mental. I came to a loch, Loch Laggan. It seemed suitable to what I had pictured in the series 'Highlander'. I kept hearing "There must be only one, McCloud!" - Funny, huh? I thought of what people before the Burger Kings and McDonalds.... Where would they have been, what would they have seen? TOURIST INFO in the little town of Laggan. "Where is the hill fort that I have heard of?" and their reply was: "You see that little white spec up there (pointing miles away to the top of a mountain)?" Yeah, OK! I drove into a thing for horses. She said to walk this way, and I did with the same limp that she told me to walk! (HAHA - A little Peter Sellers joke) Up a damn mountain, across the woods and to grandmothers’ house I went! And this was my view. This was a fort around the same time as Dunadd, made from natural rocks that stood around. They only needed to build the walls around the rocks. Again this is an accessible area to ONE way!!! They were ingenious! This picture shows the lower end of the wall. Look close, the area of the wall is actually around 13 foot deep. The same wall is side framed here, (covered by 3000 years of dirt). I was drained from my discoveries of distant people that we will NEVER understand and barely breathing due to the mountain and said: "F-it!" I went closer to where I was supposed to leave. Getting there took 5 hours longer; I went through Dundee, Perth, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.... Big and small cities with big and small names, I wasn't there for them. I stayed in Perth for a night but didn't take a picture of the beer and burger I got for a really good price just to spite you, HAHAHA!

Woke up, pissed off that I didn't see the top of Scotland and that I didn't take the pictures of the things that I have written about here, I'm very upset here @ this point, you know! With little pounds I go, of course after my breakfast (without the pork) they ALWAYS gave me a weird look when I said that. I go to Ayr, close to Prestwick to not spend and eat beans as I say. I laid on a really nice grass area next to the beach given to by some frigging lord or something in 1800 something, not important anymore I suppose. But yet another view of the beach looking @ the Isle of Arran to where I started 10 miles West.

Broke and waiting to return to my cave in BXL. I took a picture..... My final picture, and then I went to the airport. Nothing really great to show you in an airport now IS there!