Scotland, day 1 (monday)

I left home around 2.20am and picked up Arjan. He's a friend and he booked the trip. Great! 
We drove to Schiphol Airport and after waiting for a while Yolanda, the owner of Fotografie-reizen.nl, and 2nd tourguide on this trip, arrived.
Then all the other participants arrived and my job as tourguide took off.

We went through customs, got on the plane and touched down in Glasgow around 8.25 hours.
At the rental cars we got ours, a VW Transporter. Besides tourguide, I was the driver as well.
We all got in, and then drove up north via the A82 en later on the A87. Our goal was to reach the famous Sligachan bridge by sunset.
Our first stop however was at the Drovers' Inn, near the banks of Loch Lomond. Here everybody got the first real taste of Scotland. 
The atmosphere was great already.

After coffee/tea and some sausage/bacon rolls we went on. I soon drove over the Rannoch Moor area and through the Pass of Glencoe and got a glimpse of all the familiar places I'd been to several time.
But now there was no time to stop, we had to reach the Isle of Skye before darkness. We'd back here in a few days for the second half of the trip.
Fort William, a quick toilet stop at Eilean Donan Castle, over the Skye bridge, we arrived right on time at the Sligachan bridge where everybody enjoyed their first Scottish sunset. And what a great sunset we had!! The sun went down in flames of 1000 tints of orange, yellow, magenta and pink.

After driving the final 20 miles in complete darkness (man, it's dark in Scotland!) we reached the Royal Hotel in Portree.
The day was concluded with a nice dinner and a nice large, warm bed.

The first day was a success!!