Backroads and The Royal Deeside

This is my second Scotland Backroads trip and my fourth one overall. They do an amazing job. Intrepid and fun (by and large American) guests, wonderful off-the-beaten-path hikes, fabulous lodgings, and the leaders are excellent, fun and knowledgeable humans (and if you are in Scotland they have scotch in their backpacks at all times.) The backstage coordination is flawless as they wrangle as many as three vans to be magically in the right place at the right time to pick us up and/or dispense snacks and drinks, and the leaders appear out of nowhere at various remote spots along the trails to welcome you to wherever you are. Our leaders are two Americans (with European lives) Stephen and Josh, and one Brit from the Lake District, Fiona. I was also stoked to hear that a leader from my trip five years ago, Keith, a Scot, is now basically running all the UK trips.

My Uber to the meeting place was interesting, thanks to the driver. As always, I am struck by the knowledge Scots have of their country’s politics and history, and always with a unique turn of phrase. For example, his declaration that Trump and Boris Johnson were “worked up the back” by the same people. True! He opined that the current rise of the right around the world, most specifically Brexit, all had to do with trying to stop “people of any other hue” from showing up in the UK looking for a place to live and work. Also true! He also offered an excellent conspiracy theory about Nicola Sturgeon’s recent fall from grace and the office of First Minister. He said he knew it sounded crazy but was convinced that it was all orchestrated by the English because she had become too well-known, too widely seen as a strong world leader in her own right, and her being a her did not go over well. So they dug up dirt. He said nobody really bought the seriousness of the allegations that she and her husband misused SNP funds.

He dropped me at the beautiful Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh where our group of intrepid Americans met one another and the three trip leaders. As usual, mostly couples, except for me and also a trio of women friends traveling together . This is great, although they cast a pall over the trip as it appeared they had COVID (although later we learned it was not COVID which maybe they should have said earlier but still they were hacking up their lungs and one just can’t do that these days). They also introduced themselves by reporting that while they all lived in various places they became friends in Santa Fe where they each had a second home. They met “through their horses” which could have been a funny and charming line yet their delivery made it less so. They had various other personality, uh, quirks, like knowing everything, trashing Edinburgh, constantly talking about the fact that they had second homes in Santa Fe and also this great trip one of them had just finished in the Dolomites. Luckily they largely kept to themselves so they wouldn’t infect all of us. I think the only person who caught their bug was one of the leaders, Stephen. And he was way cooler about it than 98% of people.

The first couple of days we did largely wooded hikes along rivers and waterfalls in the southern Cairngorms, near Balmoral in the Royal Deeside area.

We stayed at a charming family-run B&B in Ballater and learned that members of the Royal Family had just enjoyed dinner there.

The Family looms large around Balmoral Castle, and despite pretty universal pro-Scottish independence sentiment, in this area of the country it doesn’t extend to the Royals, largely because they show up here both physically and financially to support the community, the beneficent landholders/overlords that they are.

One is struck, when wandering about Europe, with the immense weight of history. From Neolithic civilizations like the Picts in Scotland, to the Roman Empire, the Vikings and all the royal houses throughout history, with all their religious wars and Empire building, it’s quite a lot. Not to mention the World Wars which were of course much more immediate, dangerous and costly in many ways. And as I’ve said people here know their centuries of history as contrasted with Americans who largely can’t be bothered to learn 200 years of our own history, not to mention acknowledging what happened before we got here.

Now, mind, some of the history Scots claim to know may not be entirely accurate, especially that surrounding beloved and often rascally historical figures. For example, it’s remarkable how much Robert the Bruce and William Wallace got around in those days, how many places they slept, or roamed the halls or passed by, considering they were on horseback and didn’t live long (Bruce died at 54, Wallace at 35). Same deal with Bonnie Prince Charlie, and he was in Scotland for a grand total of 14 months before he escaped after Culloden and wasted away in an alcoholic stupor in Italy.

With a history that long, though, there’s no telling what you might find on a hike. Neolithic carvings, for example, and former 2,500 year old crannogs, which are artificial islands that had wooden structures on them, connected to the shore via a bridge. Like this:

One of our hikes featured a crannog constructed by people 2,500 years ago (the structure being long gone), followed shortly by a standing stone from the 800s, and a few steps later a natural “pot-hole” which was kind of an above-ground cave you could slither into which was the alleged hiding spot of the cousin of Rob Roy MacGregor.

Anyway, back to Backroads. One of the things they do really well is connect their guests to local culture via local folks. In the case of this trip, we gathered with a whisky expert for a tasting, a restauranteur and his wife for a lovely meal in a tiny cafe next door to Balmoral, the winner of this years Braemar Highland Games (attended by the varsity members of the Royal Family), and one of the best pipers in the world who also happens to make the ancient instrument.

I’ll just tease it up by saying that I’m now one degree of separation away from Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish of Outlander fame. And from multiple members of the Royal Family.

I’ll leave you with a few photos from my favorite hiking day, up into the remote Eastern Highlands near Balmoral.