Inverness's Hogmanay has been historically a low-key affair,but this year things are different. News regarding the Hogmanay celebrations have just been proposed but are yet to be finalised but plans are being made for a Hogmanay concert in Inverness which will be Headlined by a major Scottish act.

The Highland city of Inverness has announced an ambitious programme of events for their seven week long Winter Festival. There will be a bigger than usual Hogmanay (New Year's Eve) party when the sky above Inverness Castle will be ablaze with fireworks. The festival will begin with the switch-on of the Christmas lights on 20 November and will be followed by a concert on 30 November (St Andrew's Day) featuring performances by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Highland Council was severely criticised for spending £250,000 on a torchlight procession and 14-minute firework display to mark the Old Scottish New Year on 12 January this year. This time the fireworks will be on Hogmanay, with a concert by "a major Scottish band" also being lined up. There are concerns that the Highland Council has left the planning a bit late as many major bands are already booked elsewhere. The Blazin’ Fiddles group has already turned down an invitation to perform due to a prior booking. Other events on Hogmanay that have been suggested include seven-a-side football, a Highland games challenge, and an Auld Lang Syne "world-record attempt" in the streets of Inverness.

What started as a direct fast link between the continent and mainland Scotland ends already after seven years. The Scotsman reports today that the service will end on Saturday 13 September 2008. The Greek firm Superfast claimed that it wasn't making enough money. As a regular mainland to Scotland traveler I must admit this never proved to be a good alternative, at least not for people living in the Netherlands. The services between Hoek van Holland - Harwich, Hull - Europoort and Ijmuiden - New Castle and even the Eurotunnel and Calais to Dover ferry services were there a long time before Superfast Ferries started their venture. Despite the growth in tourism they didn't profit enough and cheap flight are probably one of the reasons for their lack of financial outcome. A short note on the website of Superfast Ferries is all the information there is available. A quote from the article of the Scotsman:

The only sea link between the Scottish mainland and Europe will end on Saturday without a replacement operator in sight. Forth Ports is in talks with a number of operators with a view to taking over the seven-year-old route but nothing has come to fruition so far. The Netherlands-based operator Norfolkline also said it is weeks away from deciding whether or not it will pursue the Rosyth link. Kell Robdrup, managing director of Norfolkline, said: "We are looking at the possibility of a Zeebrugge to Rosyth service, but we have still to take a decision. "We are always looking for new opportunities, but this is not an obvious choice for us." The Superfast service started in 2001 and was heralded as a great boost for Scotland's tourism and freight industries. A £20 million terminal was built in Rosyth, using around £12m of public money. Alastair Short, policy manager with Sestran, said: "The loss of the Superfast link is a big blow, and we are hopeful that a replacement can be found in the shortest time possible.

Scotland is world famous for its number one export drink, Malt Whisky. Almost hundred working distilleries provide the world with famous malt whiskies such as the Macallen, Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, Highland Park, Bowmore, Bruichladdich and many others from the well known whisky distilleries. Scotch is available in almost every bar and restaurant worldwide which is amazing if you think about it. What a lot of people don't know is that Scotland is home to quite a few breweries and their number is rising. Beer has been produced in Scotland for a long time, much longer than whisky, and dates back as far as 5,000 years. Thomas Pennant wrote in A Tour in Scotland in 1769 that on the island of Islay "ale is frequently made of the young tops of heath, mixing two thirds of that plant with one of malt, sometimes adding hops". During the 18th century some of the most famous names in Scottish brewing established themselves, such as William Younger in Edinburgh, Robert & Hugh Tennent in Glasgow, and George Younger in Alloa. In Dunbar in 1719, for example, Dudgeon & Company's Belhaven Brewery was founded. Scottish brewers, especially those in Edinburgh, were about to rival the biggest brewers in the world. By the mid 19th century Edinburgh had forty breweries and was "acknowledged as one of the foremost brewing centres in the world".

Nowadays you will still find many breweries in Scotland and the most famous ones are the Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh, Black Isle Brewery, Belhaven that claims to have begun brewing in 1719, Traditional Scottish Ales in Stirling and The Highland Brewing Company (Orkney). New breweries nowadays seem to open mostly on the islands of Scotland. Good examples are Islay Ales, the Colonsay Brewery and the Arran brewery, founded in 2000.

Easdale Island will be the centre of the world when the World Stone Skimming Championships 2008 will be held on Sunday 28 September. Easdale, the smallest permanently inhabited island of the Inner Hebrides, is one of the Slate Islands in the Firth of Lorn, 10 miles south of Oban (as the crow flies - see map). Easdale was once the centre of the British Slate industry with more than 500 people working in the quarries. The slate was exported around the world until the 1950s when production halted. A ferry sails from Easdale to Ellenabeich on the nearby island of Seil, which is separated from Easdale by only a narrow channel. The island has a population of around 60 and no roads!

Since 1997 the World Stone Skimming Championships take place on the island and because of the former slate quarrying, there is enough material around to be used for these championships. The organisation of the Stone Skimming Championships have their own website with information and photo's. A quote from their website:

The championships are held every year. Anyone of any age and any level of skill can enter. Each competitor is allowed 3 skims using specially selected Easdale slate skimming stones. For a skim to qualify the stone must bounce at least three times - it is then judged on the distance achieved before it sinks. Registration for the championships takes place at Easdale Island Community Hall from 11am on the day itself.

Easdale island

RSPB Scotland reports today that Scotland is well on the way to being fully re-populated with it's largest bird of prey, with 15 white tailed sea eagles being released this week in Fife. The 15 white tailed sea eagles are to be released from a secret location in Fife in a bid to reintroduce the species to the east of Scotland. The white tailed sea eagles were already resident in Wester parts of Scotland such as Mull, Rum and Wester Ross.

The white tailed sea eagle is a large bird of prey and is related to other raptors such as hawks, kites and harriers. The eagle is a large bird, 70-90 cm long with a 250-300 cm wingspan. This large eagle breeds in northern Europe and northern Asia. The largest population in Europe is found along the coast of Norway. A quote from the RSPB website:

East Scotland Sea Eagles (ESSE) is a five year partnership project between RSPB Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) to reintroduce sea eagles to Eastern Scotland, building on successful reintroductions in the West Coast. This is the second year that chicks have been collected from nests in Norway, reared in specially constructed aviaries in Fife, and then released into the wild. In 2007, the first year of the project, 15 chicks were released and travelled widely all over the East of Scotland. Bird F, known as 'Fifer', even made it over to the sea eagle haven of Loch Frisa on Mull over the winter, before returning close to its 'birthplace' near Perth. This years chicks will also be radio tagged, so that their progress can be tracked over coming months and years, until the birds reach breeding age in 3-5 years time.

More information on this majestic bird is available on the RSPB Website

The 2008 Piping Live Festival in Glasgow, the fifth, started last Monday 11th August and finishes on Saturday 16th August with the World Pipe Band Championship on Glasgow Green, where the expected audience will be around 40,000! The Piping Live Festival will take place in several venues all over Glasgow and include the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, The National Piping Centre which serves as a national and international centre of excellence for the great Highland Bagpipe and its music, and George Square at the heart of the city which is the main open-air stage of Piping Live!

Some of the artist are Edinburgh-born Steven Blake who has been a music scholar at Stewart Melville’s College for seven years, the first piper to receive such a scholarship, Rough Tides, which is a new band from Glasgow who are playing Irish/Scottish traditional music and Fergus Muirhead who played at every Piping Live Festival. He is also greatly in demand as a speaker at burns Suppers all over Europe. Some of the other artist are the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Skipinnish and a great number of pipers and pipe band.

Some concerts have to be booked in advance while others are free. For a complete overview of venues, artists and bookings hake a look at the official Piping Live Festival Website

August, the traditional summer month, began in many parts of Scotland with heavy rain, causing flooding in some areas. Kilbirnie in Ayrshire was one of the worst effected towns, but Callander and Stirling were hit as well while parts of Dumfries and Galloway had problems with the heavy rainfall too. BBC Scotland has reported a lot about the heavy rainfall. On the first of August BBC Scotland reported: "A major clean-up operation is under way in the North Ayrshire town of Kilbirnie after torrential rain caused a river to burst its banks. At the height of the alert on Friday morning, more than 30 firefighters were deployed to areas badly affected by flood water from the River Garnock. Strathclyde Fire and Rescue said in some parts the water had been more than one metre deep."

Later that week, on Thursday, there was even more misery to report: "Several days of heavy rain have continued to cause flooding problems across many areas of Scotland. People living near a Renfrewshire dam were warned of the risk of flooding for the second time this week. Police said once water levels at the dam, near Lochwinnoch, had been reduced it was expected to be demolished. In Edinburgh, the visitor attraction Dynamic Earth was forced to shut for several hours after rain caused "cosmetic damage"." Continue reading....

I found an interesting survey today which was held by VisitScotland and Hollywood star Billy Boyd. People from the UK were asked to give their top 10 things to see and do in Scotland to find out what people chose as their perfect day in Scotland. Those surveyed were given a list of 108,000 possible activities in Scotland, which is a huge list to choose from. The results are interesting and show remarkable differences between several groups in the UK. The top ten results are:

Mancunians are the most inclined to seek out Scotland’s world famous Loch Ness Monster. Liverpudlians are keen sleuths searching Scotland’s famous landmarks for the Da Vinci Code and the Holy Grail. Sphering (going downhill in a huge transparent balloon) is one of the most popular activities for Cumbrians. Liverpudlians will go furthest to enjoy Scotland’s national drink (they included sailing to Britain’s remotest mainland pub, The Old Forge Inn, in their top 10). Holiday-makers from the Midlands and the North East of England are most likely to in creep through the spooky underground crypts and dungeons in Edinburgh. Londoners like to be spoilt with luxury experiences on a visit to Scotland. Adventure sports feature frequently in top ten things to see and two for visitors from most UK regions - supporting Scotland’s positioning as European Capital of Adventure. Paddling with a porpoise (small dolphin) is listed among the activities that people in Yorkshire like to take part in. The survey revealed that the top activity for people from across the UK to do in Scotland was dolphin watching in the Moray Firth in North East Scotland – not surprising give wildlife features so highly on popular TV programmes such as BBC’s SpringWatch. Taking a trip in a Loch Lomond Sea Plane, was voted a close second in overall UK results.

The first picture shows Chanonry Point on the Black Isle close to Inverness. This is a famous place to spot Dolphins from very close by. The picture was taken from Fort George (below), another great tourist attraction in this part of Scotland.

Fort George north-east of Inverness. This is a large 18th century fortress with perhaps the mightiest artillery fortifications in Europe. It was built to pacify the Scottish Highlands in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745.

After 30 years the Isle of Jura in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, has it's own direct link with the mainland. Until recently the islanders and visitors had to travel to Kennacraig and Islay first before they could get to Jura. The new service cuts two hours off the journey which makes it much more attractive for daytrippers to visit the Isle of Jura. The journey time between Craighouse on Jura and Tayvallich on the mainland is less than one hour. The passenger service itself is run by Islay Sea Safari since the 16th of June using a 36ft Rigid Inflatable Boat. The new ferry service will not run all year round but will be operational from the 16th of June to the 29th of September. The route is from the Stone Pier in Small Isles Bay at Craighouse (picture), Isle of jura to the pontoons owned by the Tayvallich Bay Association at Tayvallich. The three-year summer pilot is subsidised by Argyll and Bute Council and implemented by the Jura Initiative at the Edge group as well as the Jura Development Trust. The Press and Journal published an article today about the official launch. A quote from the article:

The new passenger ferry service has attracted funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) for major infrastructure improvements at Craighouse, which have just been completed. Councillor Duncan MacIntyre, Argyll and Bute Council's roads and transportation spokesman, said: 'These improvements at Craighouse are to be welcomed with open arms.' The service runs every day, apart from Tuesday, until September 29, with four crossings each day, two in each direction, at a cost of £30 for a return trip. Next summer and the year after the service will run from April to September. HIE development manager Colin Mclean said: 'The project aims to boost the level of economic activity and visitor spend on Jura as well as enhance the sustainability of local businesses.' Isle of Jura Development Trust development officer Elaine Campbell said: 'We are delighted to have this project finally realised and fully support the benefits it will bring to the island.'

In a few years time, planning is 2011, Scotland will have the biggest windfarm in Europe. The Scottish government approved the plans for a 152-turbine windfarm which will be located on either side of the M74 motorway near Abington in South Lanarkshire. The new windfarm will be built in clusters of turbines on either side of the M74 motorway. It will have a total capacity of up to 548 Megawatts (MW) and will be capable of powering up to 320,000 homes. Scotland has very ambitious targets when it comes to generating renewable energy. Their target is to generate 50% of the total electricity demands from renewable sources. A quote from BBC Scotland:

Plans to build Europe's largest onshore wind farm in South Lanarkshire have been approved by Scottish ministers. At present, the largest wind farm in Scotland is currently being built on Eaglesham Moor to the south of Glasgow. Details of the Clyde wind farm were announced by First Minister Alex Salmond at the World Renewable Energy Congress in Glasgow. The approval for the development between Biggar and Moffat follows a public inquiry which was concluded in 2006. Approval for the project was welcomed by WWF Scotland director, Dr Richard Dixon. "The Clyde wind farm is a good proposal because it is close to major centres of population, who will use the power it generates, and away from Scotland's most valuable landscapes," he said.