Friday 9 August – Dublin to Edinburgh to Highlands
Friday started with a twist. We had received an email a couple of hours earlier from Hainan Airlines advising that our flight from Dublin to Shenzhen in September had been cancelled. Uh-oh. We frantically tried to call Hainan Airlines to confirm what our options were. The phone cut out a couple of times, but they ended up ringing back to continue the discussion.
I’m not sure why it got cancelled so far out, but we had two options – Paris or Madrid. They were talking each time about a flight from Dublin to Paris or Madrid onto Shenzhen. Given we were already going to be in Madrid and flying to Dublin just for the flight, we asked for that option. They obliged and put us onto a flight leaving the same day as originally planned – just a few hours earlier. Rather than a 19 hour stopover, it would be close to 26 hours. Enough time to go to Hong Kong Disneyland??? We will see.
The forecast for Ireland and Scotland was rain, and lots of it. We had some breakfast and decided to just hop in the car and drive to Dublin Airport. We had to drop off the car around 12:30pm anyway for our 2:30pm flight. It rained on and off for most of the drive.
As we got closer to Dublin, it was only around 10:45. We thought we might have time to stop somewhere and have a look at something. We heading towards the jail, but it was still another 15 minutes away plus another 30 minutes to the airport after that. We decided we wouldn’t have much time and that going to the airport would probably be the smarter move.
We still needed to fill up the car before dropping it off. We saw that there were a few petrol stations off to the side. We went to the first one but it was card only. Surely there would be one with an attendant. We found the next one just up the road and pulled in. The guy said that the pumps would only work with an Irish credit card. D’oh. We headed back towards the airport and the petrol station there. At this point when going through the airport terminal areas, I should have listened to Ros. I went towards the parking area rather than the lane I should have. We then had to do a big loop that added about 10 minutes on before we got to the petrol station. Upon looking at the GPS mapping of the drive, I realised I had driven a huge love heart!
When arriving at the airport, the second time, finding the drop-off point for the car was interesting. I was sure I was driving through a bus only area – there were lots of buses but no cars! I went into the drop-off office. In there was a lady and guy behind the counter. The lady behind the counter was extremely pissed off with whoever she was talking to on the phone. Somebody had stuffed up the paperwork for a guy getting a car and he had somebody else’s booking. Thankfully the guy finished up his bit and served me. The paperwork I received via email said we only drove 228kms … doesn’t seem like much. Their paperwork had the wrong end odometer on it – we actually drove nearly 1000kms.
The walk from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 was quite a hike. We managed to drop our bags off quite easily and head up to have some lunch and wait for the plane. The gate for boarding doesn’t get displayed until an hour before the flight. It said gate 337 and go to gate, so off we headed. As we got to the gate it said “boarding” – oh crap, boarding 20 minutes early! We got towards the front of the line and then Ros said “what’s our flight number” – not that one! The previous flight had been delayed about an hour and was only just boarding. We weren’t the only group that thought it was our flight boarding.
We got called for the flight – rows 1 to 10 first. We were row 18 (last row of the plane – because it gets off first as you enter through the back door, not the front). We all got herded onto two buses but had to wait on the bus for about 15 minutes before making the five minute drive to the plane where we waited for another 10 minutes.
I’m still not 100% sure why they board through the back of the plane with the cargo up the front, but hey, to each their own!
The flight was uneventful, with just a bit of wind directly after the take off.
Upon landing we were first off the plane because we were at the back of the plane near the exit. As usual with Edinburgh Airport, there are signs for customs and to declare/not declare. It doesn’t matter which side you go, there is nobody there to check anything.
Our next stop was Europcar to pick up the car. What a nightmare. We got there just after 4pm and by the time we left with a car it was 5:15pm; we had lost a whole hour which meant our arrival time at our accommodation was going to be about 9:15pm. They said a number of times that ‘they were getting the car ready’ and it wouldn’t be long. After 30 minutes of that, I told them that I just wanted a car and didn’t care anymore. They eventually ‘found’ a car for us. Rather than the one we had booked, they upgraded me at no cost a Mercedes-Benz C200 AMG. Quite a nice car to drive – once you work out where the automatic gear shift is!
We ran into a bit of traffic getting out of Edinburgh as it was peak time. Beyond that though, apart from road works, it was a nice and easy drive. This car definitely has a bit of pick-up in sports mode.
There were lots of scenic spots along the way – the mist had rolled in and seemed like it was just 100metres above the car and blocking out parts of the mountains. Very beautiful.
We made a ‘pit stop’ along the way at “The Hairy Coo Shop”.
We made our way through Inverness and then doubled back down along Loch Ness to our destination – Highland Bear Lodge. What a beautiful place. The room we had was humongous and quite a spread of breakfast stuff included too. I had my camera out to take a few photos and Ros mentioned to the lady that I had a drone – she was more than happy for me to fly it – tomorrow that’s the plan!
Due to the time we just unpacked some stuff and went to bed.
