Tops and toboggans

Today was the big one! Before I left Scotland, Gordon had asked me ‘have you seen what you have to do?’ and to be honest, I really hadn’t looked into it too much. He’d been googling ‘Heavenly Ladder’ and probably stressing out enough for the two of us😂

The brief was: 1000 steps up to the wall and then a further 460 up the ‘Heavenly Ladder’. They forgot to mention the 9 watchtowers and numerous steps in between!

So, up the 1000 steps we went.

At this point, we could see our path into the distance but not the final destination.

Once we reached the last of those towers, we could finally see our target. I wanted to say that it didn’t look too bad but having been caught out the other day, I wasn’t going to speak too soon😂

Some of the towers have fabulous detail.

And there we were, at the bottom of the ladder looking up the 460 steps with the final part consisting of a 45 degree angle which you had to scale using your hands.

You know what? It was actually not that bad!

The cloud hid a bit more of the scenery than I’d have liked but it didn’t rain and we made it up and down in one piece!

And back we went. We had begun at tower 10 but had to go back through it and all the way to tower 6 to experience the bit we’d all been looking forward to! Instead of having to walk back down 1000 steps, we got to ride a toboggan😊 So much fun and a far easier way down.

Back on the bus for a two hour journey to our next stop and then dinner at a jade factory. Unfortunately jade isn’t one of my favourite gemstones but it was interesting all the same and I got a pic of a pretty cool carved ship.