Sunday Evening approximately 9.00pm, we headed towards the Royal Mile, not knowing what to expect only to find that we were going to be taken on a ghost tour. Not just any ghost tour, Barney our eccentric guide described it as ‘the most terrifying ghost tour!” The BBC described this area as possibly the most haunted location in Britain! We wandered through Edinburgh’s abandoned vaults that were buried for over 150 years because of the unsavoury crimes of prostitution, cannibalism, torture and murder. As we moved from room to room, our guide fed us with stories of ghosts and unexplained events that had us all holding hands. With such a scary evening, some of us were only too happy to be rooming in such large numbers when we returned to our hostel at 11.30pm.
The next day we had a quick shop in Princess Street, Edinburgh. We hopped on the bus to experience the breathtaking scenery as we traversed through the Scottish countryside heading for Fort William. We stopped in Loch Lomand, a beautiful and absolutely freezing cold lake where far too many photos were taken and a Kangaroo Court Session was ordered. One or two students were once again found guilty for crimes of stupidity, crimes. We had lunch at the town of Stirling and saw the William Wallace (correct spelling this time!) Monument after watching Braveheart on the bus.
We then headed into Fort William where we were greeted by the Lochaber Rugby team who had generously provided dinner. The boys mixed well with the team and were glad to have a home cooked meal after the hostel food for two days. Afterwards we went to the local entertainment centre were we went bowling, played pool and continued to get to know the Fort William boys.

Now Tuesday, we had a great training session at the Lochaber Rugby club, the weather was lovely, blue skies, and sunshine ..... it must have been at least 7 degrees (!) but the view of the snow capped mountains in the background of the club – it was just magnificent. After training, we went up Aonach Mor, which is the West Coast of Scotland’s ski area and is on Ben Nevis – Scotland and the UK’s highest point. We took the easy option – the gondola, and had lunch in the snow before returning to Fort William and the hostel for a rest before tonight’s game.
We left for Lochaber Rugby Club at 5pm for our 6pm kick off. (I believe they arranged this kick off time deliberately to make the temperature colder!) We were once again piped on to the field by a Fort William local lad, and then the game commenced. After our last two training sessions, we had worked on a couple of things that we thought would improve our game and the lads worked very well to put it all together.
We won our first game on tour, beating Lochaber Rugby club by a ‘safe’ margin, but more importantly, our boys put into practice the game plans that we had worked on and gained a great confidence boost while playing some ‘good to watch’ Rugby.
After the game, we were once again welcomed into their clubhouse for dinner and after match speeches, and had a lovely evening.
Tomorrow, we go to Inverness travelling along the shores of Loch Ness, perhaps we’ll see some interesting swimming costumes ........ who knows!!