Hiking Scotland – Wee Dram of Scotland

Gannet Woodstock, Unexpected Orcas, Public Bogs, Vikings, Puffins, the Most Northerly, one final Broch and a Spaceport. Featuring various isles: St. Ninian’s, Noss, Bressay, Unst & Yell. And a bit about Leith.

July 8, 2024July 13, 2024 by weedramofscotland, posted in Gannets, Hiking in UK, Noss and Bressay, Puffins, Scotland Travel, Shetland, Solo Travel, St. Ninian's Isle, Uncategorized, Unst and Yell

In the category of better late than never, it is time, at last, for a wrapping up of the final days of this trip. Thanks for coming along with me while I was there and now in fond remembrance. This will be a longish one, but hey it’s mostly pictures.

And so onward we go. The highlight of our next day was to be a wildlife boat trip around two nearby islands, Noss and Bressay. On our way to catch our boat we stopped at Lunna House, a 17th century Laird’s home that was requisitioned by the UK War office as the first location for Shetland Bus HQ during World War II.

Operations were moved to Scalloway in 1942 (see previous entry), but this is where it all started. As often happened, the stones for the original Lunna House were pilfered from a nearby Iron Age Broch which is one of the reasons why so many broch ruins around the isles are quite a bit shorter than they might otherwise be. Lunna House base was established by David Howarth, who started his career as a BBC War Correspondent before joining the Navy after France fell to the Nazis. His memoir, “The Shetland Bus,” is a gripping account of his extraordinary life. A commemorative plaque for David Howarth can be found in the nearby cemetery of Lunna Kirk (the oldest continuously operated kirk in Shetland), but his ashes were scattered in Lunna Voe per his request.

Richard, Jill, Barb and Brent peruse David Howarth’s memorial plaque.

Many of the moss-capped headstones in the kirkyard have been tagged by authorities as having “failed a regulatory test” to the point where visitors are warned against even approaching them because I guess they might slooowly tip over? This strikes me as somewhat hilarious after navigating the Mousa broch steps yesterday. The headstones look pretty solid to me and this one’s hairdo brings to mind four particular lads from Liverpool.

And that’s all the history you are getting for this day. I know you are sad! Wipe your tears away, for we are off to sail around the isles of Noss, an uninhabited nature reserve since 1955, and Bressay. The tides have been sketchy of late which we are told may force an early return to port so fingers crossed. The highlight of the tour is a ginormous gannet colony on Noss, where approximately 150,000 of the gorgeous, graceful seabirds nest along a mile-long stretch of cliffs. I feel a slight kinship with gannets because their 6 foot wingspan matches my own.

Mr. Nonchalance, our skipper Captain Phil

Phil Harris is the owner of Shetland Seabird Tours and is a life-long birder and naturalist. He started his career as a firefighter and then trained to pilot fast rescue boats in the rough seas around Shetland, so we were in expert hands in many categories. Plus he had a great sense of humor, regaling us on the dock with cheerful warnings about how seasick we were all likely about to become.

One of the many benefits of traveling alone is that you can validly call shotgun in situations like these and nobody gets mad, so just like that I was Captain Phil’s Number One.

The very first thing that happened when we entered the bay was Phil completely losing his mind and grabbing his big-ass camera because we unexpectedly came across a family pod of orcas. The first orca we saw was a big male, who was bearing down on us with his giant fin piercing the water like freaking Jaws. I had recently seen David Attenborough’s Wild Isles featuring the famous Shetland Pod 27 and watched them brutally murder a baby seal in slow-motion. Circle of life and all but still it was a bit concerning watching the big guy heading straight for us, especially having heard about the orcas that had recently attacked boats near the Iberian peninsula.

Of course the big orca peeled off and Phil, in between snapping photos, reported the sighting in local WhatsApp and Facebook groups. Orca tracking in Shetland is a collegial community effort (as you can imagine, a lot of naturalists live here), and in fact orca-spotting groups were instrumental in assisting the Wild Isles crew in finding Pod 27 after a two-year effort. The community shares sightings and helps build a pool of information so scientists can gain a fuller picture of orcas’ behavior and track their movements. As it turned out, this pod was a new one, heretofore not observed in Shetland, which felt like a bit of good news.

Reluctantly leaving the orcas (who hung around the area for the rest of the day) we sailed around some fabulous cliffs, the Bressay Lighthouse and watched a great skua (called a “bonxie” in Shetland-ese) fend off a gannet for a fish.

Speaking of bonxies, Phil calls them the assholes of the seabird kingdom due to their general aggression toward other birds. Also if you are dumb enough to walk too near their nest they will absolutely fly at your head. Phil also claimed that they poke the eyes out of puffins but I feel like this was merely a gruesome embellishment. They are kind of cool birds and right now Bonxie is the lead contender for my next dog’s name, so.

And now for the gannet colony. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it. I mean, 150,000 birds is a lot and they layer the cliff walls, packed in like sardines and yacking at each other having a ball like they are at an outdoor music festival. They are also gorgeous and incredible divers. And once they are submerged underwater, they keep flying while they fish. For a short video narrated by Scottish Obi-Wan Ewan McGregor, check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXXuK9eQVUw&t=9s

Below is one of those “wait for it” videos. If you are creeped out by slo-mo Exorcist talking, this is your trigger warning.

In and amongst the gannet colony were guillemots, members of the auk family, just like puffins. They are literally descendants of the Great Auk from days of yore. The birds nest in colonies to protect their eggs, which they lay directly on the ground, or in this case on top of cliff ledges. The eggs are shaped like pears and so roll in an arc, presumably to keep them from tumbling into the sea.

Phil and his demonstration guillemot egg.

Captain Phil’s lecture about the spa-going habits of female guillemots.

As we continued sailing along the cliffs next to the gannet colony I managed a few awesome photos if I do say so, and have no idea how. Here are just a few.

They flew alongside the boat as we pulled away from the cliffs to round the tip of Noss and head back to Lerwick.

Sound on to experience full gannet exuberance.

I mean what a flipping awesome experience. It even remained fantastic through that one moment when, as I was facing backwards on rough seas taking photos of gannets flying overhead I suddenly realized I was seasick, sat my butt down and grimly faced forward. It passed.

As if we hadn’t seen enough magical wildlife, once we returned to the harbor we were greeted by a friendly and inquisitive seal. I think Phil called him “Freddie,” so he’s likely a regular.

When we parked (is that the right word, I’m not a boat person) at the dock Phil climbed out, tied us off and instructed me to turn off the boat for which I received a round of applause. Aye aye, Captain.

And the day wasn’t even over! We drove west to Scalloway and walked to a lighthouse on a grassy point, passing sheepies and ponies and marveling at the light.

Let’s take a moment, shall we, to appreciate the product-free coiffures of the Shetland pony.

And lest you thought you were going to slip through a single solitary day without a sheepie photo, well that is obviously silly.

Next morning we were off for a walk around the perimeter of St. Ninian’s Isle, a small island connected to the south Mainland via the largest tombolo in the UK. It’s completely exposed all summer but generally submerged in winter. I can’t explain why, but it was fun to traverse.

St. Ninian is the patron saint of Shetland. While as usual, Neolithic artifacts have been found on the island, there’s also a ruin of a lovely 12th century chapel named after the saint. In 1958 an excavation on the chapel grounds found a horde of 8th century silver in a wooden box under a stone slab. Eighth century you say? Horde, you say? We know what this means – Vikings! The horde was possibly hidden from the Vikings or by the Vikings after being stolen, who knows. A local schoolboy, Douglas Coutts, who was assisting the grown-up archaeologists from Aberdeen University, made the find on his first day of being a helper. Apparently he wanted to lift up the stone slab to see what was underneath, possibly to find bugs, but the grown-ups ignored him. He did it anyway. You can see the horde at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. It’s considered to be the best example of surviving silver metalwork from Scotland’s early medieval period, and the pieces are quite intricate and beautiful. Here’s a little video if you’d like to learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqw7cwYbWzo&list=TLGGrdK6ZEugXgIwNjA3MjAyNA&t=250s

Our merry band set off around the island, taking in beautiful cliffs, a few swimming puffins, a stile or two, and stopping for lunch along the way with views across the sea.

Kirsty told us she had been talking to a guy and he recommended a remote cliff walk, saying it was his favorite on the island. So we went off-book and drove down deserted roads with Kirsty periodically pulling over and consulting her phone to make sure we were on the right track. At one point she blew her cover about our off-the-grid situation by saying, with a wee bit of relief in her voice, “Oh, there we are.”

We drove through Silwick, a pretty much deserted settlement, and parked in front of a gate, girding our loins to face the only dangerous animal that inhabits Shetland.

Luckily, this was our only animal encounter on the walk.

We walked up a hill and were greeted by some of the most spectacular views we had seen to date. Our rogue excursion was a smashing success. Kirsty plans to recommend that this walk be added to the official WS itinerary for future trips.

The next day was a momentous one because I was finally able to bust out my new raincoat for the first time this entire trip. And the weather was misty and moody at last! Also, yay, ferries! We took an early ferry to Yell and drove across that island to another ferry terminal to catch a ferry to another island, Unst. We stopped on Yell briefly to view a very, very rare Scottish puddle duck.

Another cool attraction on Yell is the Windhouse (pronounced “windhoose”), a derelict home perched atop a hill along the main road. It was built in 1707 and remodeled in 1885 with all the latest appliances. Silhouetted against the skyline, the creepy looming ruin can be seen for miles around. It has been deemed by experts to be the most haunted house in Shetland if not the entire British Isles. It’s built near the ruins of a broch and bodies are literally buried in the garden. As for ghosts, there’s a Lady in Silk – thought to be the skeleton of a woman with a broken neck who was discovered under the floorboards at the bottom of the staircase (!!), a dapper man in a top hat, a creepy child and a black dog probably named Sirius. There’s also a rumor that nobody can survive a sleepover on Christmas Eve night. The story is that in olden times a shipwrecked mariner turned up at Windhouse on December 24. He crossed paths with the home’s inhabitants getting the heck out. They explained that noone had ever been found alive on Christmas morning after spending the night because they were slain by an unidentified entity. The mariner decided to stay anyway, because this is a horror movie, and in the night he was startled awake by some kind of monster from the sea. He promptly dispatched said creature with an axe and buried it nearby. Sadly we don’t have a description, the body has not been found and it’s unclear whether the mariner’s actions reversed the curse.

I wish we had been able to stop and wander around the ruin, but we had a ferry to catch and they wait for no one.

Upon arrival on Unst, the northernmost of the inhabited British Isles, we stopped briefly at Bobby’s Bus Shelter. It’s named after local boy Bobby McCauley. Bobby, who took the bus to school every day, grew weary of the often long, cold and wet waits every morning at the bus stop. He wrote a letter of complaint to the local newspaper requesting that a shelter be built.

What Bobby wants, Bobby gets. The shelter was duly built and, soon after, a sofa appeared, followed by a table, a microwave, a carpet and other comforts of home. Before long, the humble bus shelter was a warm and welcoming place with its own visitors’ book. Now it is one of the most photographed attractions on Unst.

This brilliant shelter is decorated with a different and imaginative theme every year. Some examples: the Queen’s Jubilee, outer space, women’s suffrage, the colour yellow and an underwater theme.

Bobby recently earned his PhD at the University of Glasgow, so the bus shelter served him well.

And now a rather violent segue from sweet bus shelters to Vikings, as Unst is one of the richest Viking heritage sites in Europe, with over 60 longhouses uncovered by archeologists so far. At 61 degrees north, the island was the perfect resting spot for Norse travelers on the trading route between Scandinavia, Greenland and Newfoundland. Many settled in this northerly outpost, working the land and making it their home.

We stopped by the Skidbladner, a model Viking longship perched next to a longhouse replica just off the highway. After seeing all the longhouse ruins on this trip it was fun to see what they might have actually been like. Walking around the deck of the longship brought home how incredible, dangerous and possibly deeply irresponsible it was for the Vikings to set off in wooden ships and sail them westward into completely unknown northern waters. With no GPS, no motor and no idea the world was round they relied solely on a sense of adventure and perhaps too much testosterone. Since they managed to run into the UK, Iceland and further afield as far as Canada (at least), the gods were obviously in their favor.

Our walk for the day was through Hermaness Nature Reserve to visit Unst’s northernmost point, which is also the furthest north you can go in Britain. From there we hoped to see the lighthouse on uninhabited Muckle Flugga, which is basically a rock in the sea and a wee bit further north.

It was super boggy for the first mile or so but this wonderful boardwalk keeps walkers on the path with dry feet and protects the plentiful birdlife.

When we ascended to the clifftops, we were rewarded by a single puffin, featured at the beginning of this entry and below. It was thrilling.

This sweet little baby sheepie perched on his mom’s back was totes adorbs.

The mist grew ever more pervasive as we walked, diminishing our chances of seeing the lighthouse.

The furthest north I’ve ever been, with Muckle Flugga in the mist behind me.

After the hike we intended to visit a teahouse, but overshot it and accidentally happened upon the Saxavord Spaceport, which was awesome. It is a former RAF base on a remote peninsula of Unst which has become the UK’s first licensed spaceport for vertical rocket launches. It will allow up to 30 satellites and other payloads to be launched into commercially valuable polar, sun-synchronous orbits (not taking any questions on that), which are in high demand from satellite operators for communications and Earth observation.

And, best of all, because this is Scotland, even serious rocket launchers have a sense of humor.

We found our way back to the route and headed to the teahouse. Almost every Unst business, it seems, advertises itself as being the “most northerly.” We even passed by the Most Northerly Kirk. Likewise, Victoria’s Vintage Tea Shop was advertised as the most northerly. And it served the most northerly, and delicious, scones.

And so, my dudes, we at last find ourselves on our final day in Shetland. We spent our morning on a lovely walk near Eshaness. But first, a note about Shetland’s plentiful public toilets, or “bogs.” There are so many of them and they are all plumbed, well-cared for, and have plenty of parking. As remote as Shetland is, one never has to worry about drinking too much coffee in the morning. Some are quite creatively decorated with special bog poetry framed on the walls.

Our walk started at Eshaness Lighthouse, the spot I had visited earlier with Drew. We meandered along the volcanic clifftops, navigating lots of stiles (I love stiles) and reveling in the plentiful wildflowers.

We came across a storm beach composed largely of giant boulders which had been tossed onshore by violent wind and waves over the years. Hard to imagine on this lovely calm day.

The trail then let us to the Holes of Scraada, a collapsed sea cave, apparently Britain’s largest.

We next walked by the remains of an old water mill and then happened upon the Eshaness Broch, where we had our lunch.

After our last lovely walk, we boarded the van and drove back to Lerwick, where Kirsty dropped folks off at the Shetland Museum and I had to bid a very fond farewell to my intrepid compatriots before heading to Sumburgh Airport for my flight to Edinburgh.

Sadly but fondly bidding farewell to my fellow travelers.

One last and lovely photo of Shetland, courtesy of Jill.

My flight back to Edinburgh on LoganAir – clearly will never get over the plaid headrest situation. It is everything.

On my last two nights in Scotland I had decided to stay in Leith, a few tram stops and couple of miles north of Edinburgh. It used to be the gritty, druggy dock area of town (see “Trainspotting”) but it has undergone a massive redevelopment and is now known for its vibrant arts and culture scene, cool neighborhoods and a plethora of fabulous restaurants, coffee houses and bars. Edinburgh has five Michelin-starred restaurants and three of them are in Leith, and in fact Leith now has the highest concentration of said restaurants per square meter outside of London. (For the record I have had fabulous meals in two out of the three, Tom Kitchin’s last year, Heron this year and Martin Wishart still to come.)

Leith is the home of the Royal Yacht Brittanica, and in honor of her being nearby I booked a room at Ocean Mist Leith, a boat with a singular history. It was built in 1919 as a minesweeper but a year later was sold to Kenelm Guinness (yes that family), a race car driver, inventor and playboy, the kinds of “occupations” men of his circumstances had the freedom to choose back in the day. I mean who wouldn’t choose to be an inventor if having an income didn’t matter? Kenelm converted the boat to a “gentleman’s pleasure yacht,” which – er, whatever.

Abysmal haircut, a mustache is never a good idea, and yikes “bvb” alert. (before vital braces)

The boat next changed ownership through a series of Dukes, Sirs and MPs until it was requisitioned by the admiralty during World War II, finally fulfilling its original purpose as a torpedo recovery vessel. Then it changed hands through several businessmen, including one who ran whisky from Scotland to California during Prohibition. It docked in Leith in 1983 and became various nightclubs and restaurants before falling into disrepair. The current owners took it down to its bones for a complete, and gorgeous, renovation.

The hotel is extremely, extremely cool and somehow I was given the room at the bow of the boat that served as Captain Kenelm’s quarters.

Since the room is at the bow of the ship, the floor slopes sharply upward to the windows.

If you don’t want to be disturbed you must put this creepy weighted lion outside your door.

And my dudes, I had my own deck and I must say I was quite, quite fancy during my stay. Here I am enjoying a Guinness on my deck just because.

To you, Kenelm. I hope you invented something.

The following morning before heading to the airport I walked around town, grabbed a coffee and snapped a few last photos.

And at last we find ourselves at the end of this trip. So much gratitude to all of you for coming along with me, and for all your kind comments.

I’ll leave you with this sign inside a Leith coffee house called Toast, which is very – Scotland.

OK and maybe also some blooming azaleas from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh.

At the risk of this blog ending like Lord of the Rings, just one more, a farewell poppy from the gardens of Busta House.

Until next time, safe travels, happy landings and all my good wishes.

Walking Across Shetland with Wilderness Scotland

June 9, 2024June 14, 2024 by weedramofscotland, posted in Hiking in UK, Scotland Travel, Shetland

While I do wish I were still in Scotland, I’ve been back stateside for a couple of weeks enjoying a minor, but dumb virus I caught on the flight home (people were hacking up lungs all around me – could I have put on a mask? Why yes I could have.) Being a completist, it’s my pleasure to welcome you to the final blog posts of this trip in which I join some boon companions for a lovely guided walking tour around the Isles. To give you an overall sense of how it all went, at the end of each day, our Kiwi compatriot Barb announced, ‘This was the BEST day.”

I met my fellow voyagers at the Holmsgarth Ferry Terminal in Lerwick where they had just disembarked from the overnight ferry from Aberdeen. We were an intrepid troupe of seven, a couple from New Zealand, a couple from the Scottish Borders who had moved from Wales in solidarity with the Scots’ (futile) vote against Brexit, and a couple from Boston. Our guide was a fabulous woman named Kirsty, who lives in Aviemore and has guided for Wilderness Scotland for years.

Kirsty’s brilliant personality pretty much captured here.

Our break-in walk was the Hams Circular on Muckle Roe, and just a warning, town names on Shetland are generally delightful. Just a taste – Brettabister, Bridge End, Dale of Walls, East Hogaland, Fladdabister, Funzie, Heglibister, Oddsta, Skarpigarth, Southpunds, Stebbligrind, Wadbister, Virkie and, weirdly, Ireland, and everyone’s favorite, Twatt.

The suffix “bister” is Old Norse for dwelling or farm.

We walked across active peatlands to cliffs overlooking the sea, passing croft ruins, wildflowers, sheep and seabirds along the way. And of course a pony because Shetland.

A male eider. The drab brown female is in the water to his left.

Kirsty and my delightful English couple, Richard and Jill. Jill hated getting her photo taken with a passion of a thousand suns but on day one she made an effort to be polite.

Shetland’s coastline is a festival of picturesque cliffs and rock formations.

In Shetland they paint numbers on their sheepies instead of using dollops of paint. Here is sheepie number 51.

Barb and I were partners in excessive sheep photography

This is the last sheepie photo I shall subject you to. For the day.

After our lovely walk, we checked into our lodgings for the week, the Busta House Hotel in Brae, which was loaded with personality. The earliest part of the house was built in 1588 by John Gifford, a minister. In the 1950s the house was purchased by a member of parliament, and he was able to rescue, and install around the garden, gargoyles from the House of Commons which were being discarded during renovation work to repair wartime bombing damage. The Queen stopped by for tea in 1960, parking the Royal Yacht Britannia at the dock behind the hotel. A ghost named Barbara haunts the place, but honestly the backstory is too long and overly complicated and not that compelling.

Bluebells alongside one of the House of Commons gargoyles

The Long Room, where the Queen had tea and we met before dinner every evening.

A brief word about my companions for the week. The Kiwis, Barb and Brent, spent some time in the Bay Area but now are back in New Zealand. Barb was very talkative and a funny storyteller always there with a little quip. Brent was the silent and reserved type but had a twinkle in his eye. When called into service he could be as funny as Barb with a finely honed sense of comic timing. Barb was a retired teacher and Brent had the foresight to be writing code for Apple around the time the first iPhone was released. I didn’t work this out until halfway through the trip, at which point, under the relentless pressure of my questioning, Brent finally shared that some of the code he wrote is in all of our phones and its job is to move photos around. Of course me: “Did you know Jobs?” Brent: “I held the door open for him once.” Pause. “He said thanks.” Barb said the best thing about being an Apple spouse in those days was the parties, the worst was the secrecy. She wasn’t allowed to visit Brent in his office or even raid the kitchen of its free food, much to her dismay.

The best bit of New Zealand slang I learned from them was “long drop,” a much more descriptive way to refer to an outhouse.

The Brits, Richard and Jill, were also a well-oiled comedy duo. Richard is a retired solicitor. They were both quite lovely and talkative and had worked out a conversational style over the many years of their marriage whereby Richard would carry the main points of a story while Jill would serve as the chorus, speaking over Richard, sotto voce, somehow not interruptive but rather additive. Color commentary as it were, delivered often with her head tilted back and a hand brushing back a strand of hair. It made me laugh every single time.

The Boston couple were dealing with a sad health situation. Bob, another retired lawyer, was suffering some neurological issues affecting his balance and cognition and his wife, a stoic woman of sturdy New England stock, was doing her best. He did not often join us and she split her time between staying with him and coming along on our walks. They seemed to enjoy themselves even with everything and the Wilderness Scotland folks arranged other activities for them.

Everyone was aligned politically which added a lot of freewheeling spice to our conversations.

The following day we visited Jarlshof, the best-known prehistoric archaeological site in Shetland, walked up to the Sumburgh Head Lighthouse in search of puffins and continued on up and over a hill behind the airport. What? I know, it’s so crazy, but there are ancient ruins in two separate locations a mere stone’s throw from the airport. The past and the present live in close quarters on an island with 5,000+ years of human history.

Jarlshof contains ruins dating from 2500 BC up to the 17th century and is sort of a microcosm of Shetland history. It means “Earl’s Mansion” which was coined by, who else, Sir Walter Scott who visited the site in 1814 and based it on the Scottish period name of “the laird’s house.” Similar to the discovery of Skara Brae in Orkney (see previous blog entry), the remains were discovered after a storm washed away part of the shore. Formal archaeological excavation began in 1925 and discoveries included a Bronze Age smithy, an Iron Age bothy and roundhouses, a complex of Pictish wheelhouses, a Viking longhouse and a medieval farmhouse, each visible in turn as you ascend the small hill, one age atop the next like a time machine layer cake.

Bronze Age ruins below a 17th century stone house.

On top of the farmhouse with Sumburgh lighthouse a tiny dot in the distance

We walked from Jarlshof up to Sumburgh Head Lighthouse, another of many of Shetland’s nesting grounds for numerous species, including ….. puffins!!!

We saw loads of puffins floating in the ocean in groups, and flying around the cliffs. They fly like you would imagine, a bit off-kilter, comical and flappy. Puffin wings are on the small side, so for them to stay aloft their flappers must be deployed at the rate of 400 beats per minute. This is not an impediment by any means, as puffins can fly up to 55 miles per hour and can dive to depths of 200 feet in search of fish. They spend two thirds of their year out at sea, coming back to the same burrow every year, where they lay exactly one egg. While they mate for life, they enjoy long-distance relationships, heading out to sea on their own and reuniting yearly to mate and raise their puffling. And while they are away they lose their bright beaks and the black markings around their eyes, which would render them rather difficult to identify. Interestingly, researchers know very little about their lives at sea so who knows what they are up to.

Now, I don’t know how many of you follow puffin-related instagram accounts, but if you do, you are treated to amazing close-up pictures of these adorable guys doing adorable things. Well – that’s because the photographers have ginormous cameras and are very very patient.

Looking through binocs for puffins, giant camera at the ready

But we did spot one of the little dudes just below the lighthouse, chilling in the opening of its burrow.

We walked on, continuing our loop around the point. Here are a few shots from our walk above the airport.

Above is one of Sunburgh’s runways. The A970, the only road to the airport, literally crosses over the bottom of the main runway. There are gates that go up and down when a plane needs the right of way. As you drive your car across, a sign warns “Positively No Stopping” and “Straight Ahead” is painted on the pavement.

The following day we were to climb Ronas Hill, the highest point of Shetland, and then take a boat in the middle of the night out to Mousa to visit an Iron Age broch and watch kestrels come home to roost, arriving back at the hotel at 2:00 am. We were all game, even though none of us had stayed up that late in decades.

The Three Sisters of Glencoe, a Fairy Bridge and a Haunted Pub

May 9, 2024May 11, 2024 by weedramofscotland, posted in Glencoe, Hiking in UK, Jacobite History, Scotland Travel, Solo Travel

I spent today, my last in Glencoe, with the Three Sisters. As it came to a close, I left the glen and drove to Appin to find a fairy bridge and have dinner at a haunted pub on the shores of Loch Linnie with a castle view. These are the kinds of activities you can throw together in Scotland.

We have Three Sisters in the Central Oregon Cascades known as South, Middle and North – not the most original but people were probably tired from crossing the Oregon Trail and not feeling particularly creative. In Glencoe the sisters are known as Beinn Fhada (long hill), Gearr Aonach (short ridge) and Aonach Dubh (black ridge), all a part of a ridge known as Bidean Nam Bian, meaning “peak of the mountains.” Also more descriptive than creative but the Gaelic adds zhuzh.

Morning commenced with a hike called The Lost Valley, or Coire Gabhail (pronounced “corry gale”), located between the easternmost sister and the middle one. The valley was not lost but a secret, and hard to access. It was used by the MacDonalds as a hiding place for rustled cattle (the family business) and it served as a refuge for those who escaped being murdered during the 1692 Massacre of Glen Coe. Although not really a refuge, as it turned out, since more folks froze to death after escaping than were killed by members of the Campbell Clan, aka rudest guests ever. Ah, but you know all about the Massacre because you read my previous blog and memorized all the facts.

The hike featured some challenging moments and the idea of urging a herd of cattle up this canyon seems completely insane but back in the day maybe cows were tougher. And fleeing up into the canyon in the snow and dead of night with no light source sounds even more impossible.

While relatively short, the hike is a gnarly enough to merit installed hiking accessories along the trail which is not much of a thing in Scotland. There are steep metal steps, handrails, and metal cables drilled into rock next to a sheer slope so you can pull yourself up. Another bit of perilous business leaves you to your own devices as there was simply nothing for it. It’s a section of smooth, steep rock with a fun drop off down one side. Walkhighlands says, “the scrambling is pretty straightforward but some may find the situation airy.” Meaning too much air and not enough rock I guess? To make matters more exciting, the rock has been polished to a high sheen due to years and years of rear-end polishing thanks to all the butts that have slid down it. If you find yourself in Glencoe, do not attempt this hike if it’s been raining. This would be my advice.

And goodness gracious me it was beautiful.

The Lost Valley itself was like a moonscape. Much larger than I expected, it could hold a fair few cattle. And by that I mean easily hundreds.

The descent was easier even with my knees not being fully stoked. And there is often a piper in that particular parking lot, as there was this day, and so my return was scored with a triumphant soundtrack. That’s right, I thought. I did it and now the pipes are playing me home.

By the way, McRaggie plays entrance music whenever I open the car door. More orchestral than bagpipes. It makes me smile every single time. And I play the NYTimes mini-crossword for the little jazzy piano tune it plays when you complete it. Maybe I should speak to a therapist about this.

Buoyed by not dying, I thought another walk was totally reasonable and so stopped for a quick ramble to visit Ralston’s Cairn. And admittedly I never would have known it existed without Instagram. Ralston Claud Muir was a train driver on the West Highland Line and loved to hike in the hills of Glencoe. He sadly died unexpectedly at 32 and his friends and family erected a wee cairn and spread his ashes there. It’s a gorgeous spot, off the trail and a little hard to find, which he probably would have appreciated. I suspect other ashes have been surreptitiously added over the last twenty plus years.

The cairn walk is a festival of Three Sisters views.

The trail is along the old military road that runs through Glencoe.

I planned to head to nearby Appin for dinner, and had recently learned there was a lovely walk in the area. It’s in Glen Creran Forest and features a 500 year old bridge known more specifically as, of course, the Fairy Bridge.

The hike is at the end of a single track road along Loch Creran lined by fabulous old homes with brilliant landscaping, azaleas in full bloom. Saw lots of ladies out and about tending their gardens. And so many border collies.

Arriving at the small car park, no sooner had I turned off the ignition than I was unexpectedly accosted by a blonde Norwegian woman who told me with great certainty tinged with agitation that this was the wrong car park. “I’m sorry?” “Are you going to the Fairy Bridge?” “Yes.” “Well, this is the wrong car park. We followed navigation but there’s no cell service here. Do you have different navigation?”

Forgive me, but I had absolutely zero interest in suggesting we should walk together even though I had downloaded the map and didn’t need cell service and I’ll fight anyone who says Walkhighlands.com would ever lead you to the wrong car park.

Plus I had to pee, so.

“Well, I’m just going to go for a little walk anyway to stretch my legs I think,” I said, trying to make her go away. She wandered off and then reappeared before I could lace up my boots, and shared more late breaking news. “I went up there,” gesturing vaguely behind her, “and there’s a board, and there’s a way you can get to the Bridge from here but it’s a detour (thus implicitly sticking to her wrong car park theory) so I’m sure you’ll find it.”

Does she want me to ask her to come with? Or is she leaving? If I can find it, why can’t she? What is happening? I saw she had a dude in her car because one of his legs was sticking out of the door and she kept going back and consulting it. I’m imagining he was rolling his eyes at this whole Fairy Bridge ordeal that she coerced him into (I mean to be fair how many men would be like, yes please, let’s go see the Fairy Bridge). Also he was no doubt exhausted by the disproportionate drama that invades much of his life due to this woman of certitude.

When she wandered off again to consult the leg I seized my chance, vaulted out of the car and hauled ass up the steep trail.

The real revelation on that walk, though, was not the bridge but the bluebells. They completely blanketed both sides of the trail along the entire walk. I couldn’t quite capture their beauty. Some things are just better in real life.

Not easy to outdo the bluebells but the Fairy Bridge was relatively nifty. And for the record, it wasn’t part of a “detour” or whatever. Walkhighlands remains invincible.

Coincidentally, the BBC just ran a piece on the couple who created (in 2006) and continue to maintain that invaluable hiking resource, Helen and Paul. You might enjoy taking a peek: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72py4xg2w4o

I walked along the road for a bit on the way back to the car and tried to imagine what it must be like to live there…..and came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be a hardship.

I should also mention, as it ties in beautifully with a story you’re about to hear, that I came upon a signpost along the Fairy Bridge trail which referenced nearby Glen Ure and included quite a detailed history. Back in the 1700s Colin Campbell was the Laird of Glen Ure and you might jot that down as we rejoin our pal McRaggie in the parking lot and head to dinner at the Old Inn.

Appin, on the shores of Loch Linnie, is interestingly central – it’s 100 miles from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness. The Old Inn, I had heard, is allegedly haunted by the ghost of a Highlander wrongly hanged for murder. Excellent. The pub was established in 1670, closed in 1880, and Jim Mulligan bought the property in 2016 and gamely undertook a $1.2 million restoration project. Jim believes he has identified the ghost. He thinks it’s James Stewart, known as “James of the Glen.” He was hanged for shooting Colin Campbell, “The Red Fox,” (honestly these monikers) in Appin in 1752.

This is what happened. Campbell, a government agent, was shot in the back while collecting rents from members of the Stewart family whose estates had been forfeited to the British government due to the clan’s support of the 1745 Jacobite rising. Upon being shot James allegedly informed everyone, “Oh, I am dead,” or words to that effect, and his alarmed compatriots observed a shadowy figure running away into the hills. George II’s government was jittery after the ‘45 and thought these could have been the first shots fired in another rebellion and so London sent word to do whatever was necessary to handle the situation, preferably making an example of the perpetrator. Shut it the hell down, in other words.

Our future ghost James, the most powerful Stewart in the area, had led local opposition to the evictions. In other words, he was a perfect mark. And so he was arrested and charged with aiding and abetting the murderous act of his foster son, Allan Breck Stewart. (Sounds odd but sons of clan members commonly lived under the protection of the clan chief). Allan fought on the Jacobite side at Prestonpans and so was another obvious scapegoat, although he wisely fled to France and so was beyond the reach of government authorities. After a four day trial, with most of the jurors being (ahem) Campbells, the verdict was a foregone conclusion for our poor James.

He was hanged near Glencoe (wee reminder here that the Campbells were also the bad guys in the Glencoe massacre sixty years earlier) and, dear readers, avert your eyes. His body was left dangling from the gallows under guard for three years. Under guard. Lest you think your company piffles FTE on unnecessary tasks.

It was known locally that neither Allan nor James were involved in the murder. You can see why James, in particular, would be super pissed about the chain of events but it’s hard to imagine that he’d live out his ghostly days haunting a renovated pub in Appin. Getting his sweet, sweet revenge by bothering its staff.

Ah but our story doesn’t end there. Many stories about Scottish history that have seeped into popular imagination are due to either Walter Scott or Robert Louis Stevenson wandering through the past in search of material. They wrote accounts about historical incidents which launched these mostly forgotten and not widely known events into worldwide notoriety. They were, in essence, the 24 hour news cycle of the early 1800s and had much to do with romanticizing Highland culture.

In this case, a hundred years after the murder, Stevenson’s father found, in Inverness, a slim volume called Trial of Stewart. He thoughtfully purchased it for his son who was writing a book on the history of the Highlands (instead of designing and building all the lighthouses in Scotland, see previous blog entries about this family).

As a result of this gift, our man Allan Breck Stewart, even though he managed to escape history for a time, became the lead character in “Kidnapped,” Stevenson’s book that dramatized the Appin murder. Thus Allan, who played quite a minor role in the Appin murder, became immortalized a hundred years after his death.

Also, now I have to read Kidnapped.

So not to cast aspersions on our friend Jim the pub owner, but his sly assertion that the ghost of the Appin Inn is James of the Glen – because he drank in the pub (as did everyone) and because some evidence for the trial was presented in the Inn’s back room, is clearly more about publicity than reality. But I mean good for him, if a famous ghost gets him butts in seats, all to the good.

Speaking of reality, let me be clear that this does not mean the pub is ghost-free. Staff have been creeped out by rattling glasses, pans flying through the air and chairs falling over. Mysterious footsteps in an empty upstairs room and shadowy ghost figures have caused people who aren’t paid enough for this crap to turn out the lights and skedaddle. Most creepily a nonbelieving staffer, alone at night, said, “The fire suddenly went down and the glasses in the gantry started rattling. We had a St. Andrew’s flag up above the gantry and, when the glasses stopped, the flag started billowing. I looked round and a chair was on its side.”

Yikes.

The last thing you should know about the Old Inn at Appin is that the food is excellent – they specialize in locally sourced grass fed steaks, which I ordered. So, dear reader, I have my first (confirmed) experience of eating a Highland Coo. Don’t judge. I feel bad about it.

Flashback to my last trip – ahh the Hebrides.

The pub serves a DELICIOUS black pepper cream sauce to go with their steaks and chips. It’s a hefty portion served hot in a ramekin. I was contently dousing a bite of coo when something fell in with a splash. I stared, taking a second to clock that a dreaded yellow jacket had swan dived into my ramekin. I harbor quite a bit of hate in my heart for the aggressive meat-eating little dickheads, their families, and all they represent. I scooped it up into my spoon and flicked it onto the table where it staggered around drunkenly, coated in black-flecked white goo. My first thought, and I’m allergic to yellowjackets mind you, was that I need to have my cream sauce replaced as soon as possible. I waved down the waiter and explained – he nodded and whisked the ramekin away. Shortly thereafter the bartender brought me a new one filled to the brim and steaming hot. I dismissively gestured at the bee, still carving a drunken path around the table, he nodded, disappeared and came back with a paper towel. The bee found its footing and obligingly climbed onto it and he took it outside. He told me later he tried to wipe the peppercorn cream sauce off the bee but could not give me a solid prognosis as as to his recovery.

“He’ll probably be popular with the other bees,” I suggested, possibly batting my eyelashes. I mean seriously, my hero. An entire new ramekin of the best sauce in the world and a bee whisperer.

After basically drinking my weight in sauce, I wandered down to the Loch and snapped a few backlit photos of Castle Stalker. It’s privately owned but they do arrange tours and take people out there by boat during the summer.

And what is its history, you ask? We are at the end of our entry and possibly our tolerance for obscure Scottish history, so allow me to simply share the nutshell version. It was built in 1320 and many clans have passed through its halls since. There have been MacDougalls, Stewarts, King Bruce, the Lord of Lorn, a MacLaren, MacCouls, MacDonalds, Campbells, a dude called Donald of the Hammers, more than a few murders, battles, cattle rustling, a passage of title via a drunken wager and also a besiegement or two. It was occupied by government forces after Culloden and served as a local center for the surrender of weapons. The roof collapsed at one point and the owners didn’t bother repairing it because no roof meant no taxes. At last, in 1965, Lt. Colonel Stewart Allward purchased it from a Stewart and oversaw a ten-year restoration. It’s now fully habitable.

Castle Stalker. It’s larger than it looks.

The day’s adventures having at last come to a close, I headed back to Glencoe for one more night. It was such a beautiful evening I drove down Glen Etive and gave the Bookel a proper goodbye.

May the Fourth Be With You

May 6, 2024May 7, 2024 by weedramofscotland, posted in Hiking in UK, Scotland Travel, Solo Travel

I know it seems like only a few months have passed, which is accurate, and yet here we are again, thanks to the miracle of air travel.

Speaking of, even though you might be hoping to hear another tantalizing tale of a Swiss quantum computing seat-mate, alas you will have to be satisfied with an AirPods case. A friend and I recently agreed that the most crucial and nonnegotiable travel accessory, besides one’s passport, is a pair of noise-canceling AirPods. They are a matter of survival, even more so than fully bolted airplane doors. On my flight from Redmond to Seattle, after everyone boarded, the flight attendant addressed us all, holding an AirPods case aloft. It had been found in the boarding area, she tells us, so whose is it? As she regarded us expectantly, I joined my two seatmates, both pilots (also an excellent choice, Universe), in immediately double-checking to make sure we had our cases. Because the rule is, when someone says here’s a lost thing so who can’t keep track of their stuff, you immediately must assume that you are the culprit.

Our determined attendant announced the recovery of the case eleventy billion times and not a soul raised their hand. Finally a woman did, but ultimately this was a disappointment as she briefly looked at the case, considered it, and handed it back. Finally the attendant, like she was talking to a bunch of toddlers, waved the case in the air yet again and said in a sing-song voice, “Oh-kaaaay, I’m going to leave it here then,” and handed it to someone who took it off the plane.

One of my pilots said to the other, grinning, “let’s just GO” because at this point our flight was delayed. Over an AirPods case. There wouldn’t have been this much drama had someone had left a baby behind. THIS IS HOW VITAL THEY ARE.

Finally another woman raised her hand. The flight attendant quite understandably shrugged and said, “The airplane’s door is now closed,” and we all know come hell or high water, it will not be opening until Seattle.

But dear reader, the story didn’t end there. The flight attendant said one of the ground crew was going to try to throw the case up to the pilot who would try and catch it out of his side window.

I looked at my two pilots and asked, “Would you guys do this?” And they both nodded like “oh of course yeah,” being men I guess, and also HOW VITAL AIRPODS ARE.

Well, voila, the pilot caught the case and it was restored to the woman who cared so little that she couldn’t be bothered to check her things and decidedly broke the rule that you always have to assume it’s you.

A few hours later I wandered around the Seattle airport for hours in a daze after spending nearly $50 on lunch. Bought a lipstick from the Mac store that I don’t need. I know you feel me. I parked myself in the main terminal and glumly studied the floor. But then an official airport lady came up, handed me a little sticker and said, “May the Fourth Be With You.”

Suddenly my mood brightened considerably. May the 4th is also heavily celebrated in Scotland, as it turns out.

Did you all see Mark Hamill at the White House on this day of days? He visited the press room where 99% of the journalists were thrilled to be in the unexpected and thrilling presence of Luke Skywalker. And then the CBS White House reporter asked why Mark Hamill was there. The Press Secretary, the fabulous Karine Jean-Pierre, gave the sort of off-the-cuff answer you do when someone asks an odd question, at which point the reporter made the mistake of revealing she didn’t know Mark Hamill was in Star Wars and indeed had not seen the films. Our democracy is indeed doomed.

The long leg to London was fine, I was next to an older lady heading to Madrid whose voice was largely sub-audible which meant I could simply nod and smile most of the time. She also very sweetly asked if I minded if she tucked into her dinner “before it gets cold” before mine arrived. She scored hers early as it was a special gluten-free order. I mean really how beyond polite! I didn’t think that particular rule applied on airplanes, unlike the always-assume-it’s- you rule which applies everywhere.

A quick note to whine about the combat zone that is Heathrow when you are making a connection. Holy crap dear reader. You walk for miles even though your connecting flight is in the same terminal. It’s hot. It’s confusing. You have no idea what is happening. You just keep walking, passing through these checkpoints, following the purple “connecting flights” signs. Is this one of my recurring anxiety travel dreams? Am I still walking? Is this purgatory? Will I ever get out of here?

That’s nothing compared to the security screening. Listen, I know they don’t care that you are TSA pre-check or Global Entry or the Queen of Sheba. But don’t yell orders to a bunch of jet lagged people. Don’t aggressively challenge me on clothing categorization. “It’s a sweater.” “No it’s a coat, take it off, what you have on underneath is a sweater.” Then a guy walks over and tells me also to take off the sweater, which he categorized as a hoodie. I mean I legitimately could have had only a bra going on underneath. Also had to remove my boots. Put my phone inside a pocket of something that is in a bin. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR BIN you have to push it onto the belt personally. You CANNOT take anything out of your bag while it’s in a bin. Am I being checked into a prison?

I guess I’m used to Amsterdam with the bland but efficient indifference. Or Charles de Gaul with the barely concealed condescension. All way better than yelling arbitrary bossiness even with an English accent.

It all worked out, I found my flight to Inverness. Pro-tip – to avoid the crazy way the Brits load planes, agree to gate-check your carry-on. By this point you are happy to be rid of it anyway. And they let you board first. Hahahaha first class people, byeeee.

And one final transportation thing. I finally decided to pull the trigger on renting a standard transmission car. Automatics are more rare in the UK and thus more expensive. I learned to drive using a stick on a VW Fastback. (Am old). I was dizzy with the control it offered! But – this being the UK, the shift is on the left, I’m jet-lagged, it’s been 30 years, driving on the left….was it all a bridge too far? As it turns out, no. Driving a stick is apparently hardwired. I only stalled my shiny Blue Captur (a sporty car made by Renault) once, after I had been on a highway and just forgot completely I was driving a stick. The car juddered to a halt and by the time I clocked what was happening – it took a minute – McRaggie had turned himself back on like a boss! If only that had been a thing when I learned to drive, my dad would have been much less irritated with me.

McRaggie you ask? My car’s name is Ragnar, Raggie for short, and his spirit inhabits every vehicle I drive. In Scotland he is known by a slightly different name.

And at last, Glencoe where I am staying for three nights at my usual spot, the Kingshouse, which is marvelous. Had a lovely dinner, a wee walk from the hotel up the West Highland Way and reveled in the glorious (aka not raining) weather. Yes indeed, happy to be back.

The following day I was finally able to complete a hike that I had started my last three trips. It’s a relatively level trail that runs down the glen between the two great ridges, the Buachaille Etive Mor and Etive Beag. It’s a magical path with a tantalizing notch in the hills ahead that seems to get further away the longer you walk toward it. I’ve always wanted to see what was there, but once all the streams you must cross along the way were in spate, and there simply wasn’t enough time the other two excursions. The trail is part of a nine-mile loop hike.

See how enticing? What is there, between them thar hills? (From 2022)

This miraculous day it hadn’t rained and there was all the time in the world. And it surpassed my imagination. At the end of the glen is a gorgeous cairn – and just beyond lies the neighboring valley of Glen Etive which is surprisingly far below like a doorway to freaking Narnia. I couldn’t believe it.

When Narnia is just there you don’t need a stinking wardrobe.

Looking back down the glen, adding a stone to the cairn.

The loop hike takes you around the base of Buachaille Etive Beag and – I am happy to announce – it is done. At last.

After a quick visit to the Glencoe Visitor Center (best gift shop ever) and a meal at the Boots Bar at the Clachaig Inn as per usual, I drove to the Glencoe Ski Area specifically to see a wee white house known as Black Rock Cottage because of Scottish landscape photographers on Instagram. There’s another heavily photographed white house in Glencoe called the Lagangarbh Hut (see blog from May) and another infamous white house, not as photographed because it’s falling down and covered with graffiti, known as Allt-na-Reigh. The latter was sold to famous mountaineer Hamish MacInnes in 1961 for $1,000 and later bought by dreadful serial sex offender Jimmy Savile in 1998, although the The National newspaper said he was seldom there and “there is no evidence that any of his offending took place [there].” It is now owned by a global convenience store company (sigh) and, sidebar, they plan to knock it down and build a “modernist luxury villa” which was well and thoroughly protested but hashtag private property.

Anyway, back to Black Rock. It is owned by the Ladies’ Scottish Mountain Club which I must try to join if I ever move here. The bottom of the driveway is blocked with a bar (not the fun kind) and a woman was just leaving the house as I arrived. If you feel like staying in a place that people are photographing quite a lot, it’s available as a holiday let. It sounds a little rustic – if you want drinking water you need to get it from the shower as there’s no running water in the kitchen. One also must bring all of one’s linens although mattresses are thoughtfully provided.

All in all, a quite excellent first day.

Backroads and The Royal Deeside

December 24, 2023April 28, 2024 by weedramofscotland, posted in Scotland Travel

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.

An island built by humans 2,500 years ago.

Secret hiding place where an ancestor might have hidden after participating or instigating nefarious activities. Known as Burn O’Vat.

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.

Not that it’s a competition but this is our little pod that made it up to the toppermost of the poppermost first.

A bothy along the way – a refuge for hikers

One of our trip leaders Josh, accurately discerning the deepest wishes and desires of his guests, pulls a full bottle of Highland Park out of his backpack and dispenses drams.

The Best Backroads Day with Highland Games, Pipes and a Certain Golf Course

December 23, 2023April 28, 2024 by weedramofscotland, posted in Scotland Travel

Kyle Randalls, Multiple Highland Games winner, and our leader Josh, the wiry one (in Kyle’s words)

My favorite day of the Backroads trip was this one. The hike was a grand, wide open hill climb (see photos in previous entry), plus Backroads does a fabulous job bringing the most interesting, excellent and well-known locals to their trips. The highlight was 31 year-old Kyle Randalls, who has won the Braemar Highland Games five times and who appeared on Men In Kilts, teaching Sam Heughan (Jamie Frasier of Outlander fame) and Graham McTavish (Dougal McKenzie, ditto) how to throw various things at the Braemar Highland Games Centre. And so this morning our group found ourselves at the very same field (although not being famous ourselves, we were off to the side) with Kyle, who was delightful, sweet and insanely strong and graceful. He can throw all kinds of objects a very, very long way.

This post has a lot of videos, do turn the sound on if you’d like to hear Kyle’s voice, which I would recommend.

This almost ended up in the stadium seats. (Sound on!). This is Kyle’s best event, and he recently broke his own record with a 152’7” shot.

The hammer throw is also my best event and thus was my favorite. I have to say I threw it straight and a satisfactorily long way. On my first try.

Kyle made me turn my baseball cap around so the bill wouldn’t get caught. Inadvertent badassery right there.

The shot put – competitors throw either a weighted ball or stone.

Kyle threw the largest stone obviously.

Everyone in our group did this one. We all took a turn, and then Kyle announced that a woman had never thrown either of the stones on a Backroads tour. I don’t know about you, but I find nothing more inspirational than that sort of comment. My intrepid compatriot Margot, a former rugby player, threw the first stone, and I was right behind her.

Challenge accepted.

And that brings us to my absolute worst event which I think falls into the frisbee category because I can’t throw that either. It’s called a weight throw, and you can toss it for height and/or for distance.

Kyle demonstrated the “weight for height” event where you pick up this giant kettlebell thing and throw it over a bar with one hand. Again, it’s fifty six pounds.

Kyle casually flips the huge weight over his head, dispenses kilt-wearing advice for the Games, and admits to not being a yoga instructor.

And here he is at the age of 23 to give you an idea of what throwing it over a bar looks like.

As for me, on the other hand, my first attempt (with the small one) resulted in the weight skittering over the ground like a bowling ball. It was so very sad that Kyle granted me a mulligan. However, the second one (and mind, I was doing weight for distance, not height) I released way too late so it went sailing up into the air pretty as you please. Our leader Fiona said later she almost had a heart attack because from her angle it looked like its trajectory would have brought it crashing down on my head.

Embarrassing, yes, but also some comic relief for everyone. You’re welcome.

And of course we ended with the caber toss!!! This one we weren’t allowed to try and I think you’ll see why.

This visit with Kyle was everyone’s favorite non-hiking activity of the entire trip. It’s hard to believe this, but the leaders told us that former Backroads groups were, for lack of a better word, totally lame. Many folks didn’t try anything and also didn’t seem that interested in the entire situation. Fiona said Kyle was pleased as could be with our group and way more animated than she had seen him, and shared some things she didn’t even know, like juicy stories about his main rival in the sport.

Not only did every single guest in our group try at least one event, we all took photos with Kyle and stood with him to hold up the caber – don’t have that photo yet.

The Braemar Highland Games Centre, the Royal Box on the left.

We then drove to the Cateran Trail and hiked a six-mile section. The first bit was steep as we crested the hill, and then we dropped down into an expansive moor complete with a bothy to shelter hikers. (See last spring’s blog for an overly-detailed explanation of Scotland’s bothy system). I posted a few pictures in the last blog entry and totally forgot about it so for those who receive this blog via email, apologies. Yeesh.

And as I said, Josh unveiled a Highland Park 10 from his pack at lunch, which almost everyone sampled, even folks who were reluctant earlier in the trip. Something about the Scottish air, and perhaps due to the fact that the night before we had enjoyed a whisky tasting with Frasier at a local cafe, followed by a scrumptious private dinner for our group.

That afternoon we moved from our lovely B&B in Ballater to the Old Course Hotel in St. Andrews. While not a huge golfer, I appreciated the Holy Grail status of the birthplace of golf. Had I been unaware, the rapt, nay, ecstatic expressions on the faces of all the men wandering around the hotel in a daze would have made it pretty clear.

We ended the best day with a bagpipe demonstration from Finn Moore, who is considered one of the best pipers in Scotland and also builds pipes with his dad (if you want a set of small pipes, it’ll set you back a few grand and there’s a 3-4 year waiting list). We sat in a snug above a restaurant (with a whisky) while he walked us through all the different types of pipes, played a few tunes and answered questions. He was lovely. His wife plays the fiddle and their 3-year old daughter is already showing some musical talent. We reluctantly left the snug and walked down to the Old Course where Finn busted out the Highland Pipes (eardrum-blowing if played indoors) and played a tune written by his dad called Farewell to Decorum.

I might note that Finn recently played the pipes (onscreen) in an upcoming episode of Outlander. Just to bring it back around.

A perfect end to a perfect day.

In Which We Mark The End Of Our Backroads Trip With A Coastal Walk, Loch Lomond, A Boat Ride And A Party Van

December 22, 2023April 28, 2024 by weedramofscotland, posted in Scotland Travel

In which we arrive at the Cameron House on Loch Lomond after having killed an entire bottle of whisky. Our good sport, long suffering non-drinking leader Stephen (back left) carried us through.

After our night on the hallowed grounds of St Andrews we enjoyed a morning guided tour of nearby Kellie Castle, which was built in the 14th century. I largely forgot the details and so will spare you, but they make no claim that the Bruce, William Wallace or the Bonnie Prince stayed there – although past owners were Jacobites. James VI, son of Mary Queen of Scots, did visit once though and in preparation they painted crowns on the wallpaper. (Ok I didn’t completely spare you).

Our walk of the day was along the Fife Coastal Path, starting at St Monans Church and continuing north.

We stopped for lunch at Pittenweem (I know!) and while we didn’t really mind, it took the restaurant staff an hour or so to deliver our meals, and they knew we were coming and had had our specific orders in hand for 24 hours. We watched Fiona become more and more stressed even while being unfailingly polite to the staff. As much planning as the leaders do to make trips run seamlessly, some things are out of their control and we were all feeling it for Fiona. The guys were more (outwardly at least) lackadaisical about it because after all, white dudes are used to things somehow working themselves out around them thanks largely to the efforts of women.

Here are a few snaps along the way.

Coast is lovely but missing the mountains at this point.

Why Peggy was one of my faves on our trip. Menopause + mermaids and displayed in a town park.

Even the graffiti is translated into Gaelic. Also 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿✊🏼

And then the most fun part of the day ensued. Our van from the hike to our next hotel was serendipitously populated by my favorite people on the trip – Peggy and Graham, Margot and Jim. Despite having two leaders and two of the vans with us at this point, somehow Fiona had absconded with both of our trail whiskies as she led a group heading a bit further up the coast. And we had the longest shuttle of the trip facing us – 2.5 hours to the Cameron House on Loch Lomond. Catastrophe!!!!

So, bless him, Stephen had the idea of stopping at a store on the way out of town to acquire a wee bit of the spirit. We were already quite a jolly group in an un-inebriated state but as we slowly had one wee dram after another we grew way more brilliantly entertaining and I know this because Stephen was laughing pretty hard at everything and obviously he wasn’t drinking. It was hilarious and bonding and awesome.

And we accidentally killed the bottle.

At which point Margot sang a rude rugby song (parental discretion advised) that Stephen surreptitiously recorded, a completely brilliant move. You can only see Stephen in the video and it perfectly illustrates what an awesome dude he is. He’s a self-described recovering Mormon and I think we helped him recover a little bit more during that van ride.

The next morning (with everyone feeling dandy because it’s impossible to be hungover on vacation), our last full day, we boarded a boat and headed across Loch Lomond, crossing the Highland Boundary Fault which traverses Scotland and separates the lowlands from the highlands – although there’s a little fudging along the way because identifying as being in the Highlands is good for business. In Loch Lomond you can see the fault in the form of a string of islands that cuts across the Loch in a straight line. The fault was born when two land masses crashed into one another a bazillion years ago, creating a massive mountain range. Over time this resulted in a lot of interesting historical and cultural differences between the two areas but my favorite has to do with squirrels. The boundary’s natural barrier prevented the northward movement of the large bossy grey squirrels which protected the population of wee shy red squirrels in the Highlands.

This being Scotland, on the crossing there were rainbows and also pre-recorded history lessons, with music, played over the speaker as we passed the inevitable historical landmarks along the way.

Literally the land of rainbows and unicorns (it’s the country’s national insignia and animal)

After lunch we continued onward, steadily climbing until we had killer views of Loch Lomond which we obviously celebrated with, yes, trail whisky.

Two of my party van partners in crime and Fiona.

That evening we sadly met for our farewell dinner, a Backroads tradition. Fiona and Josh made lovely toasts to the group. They led trips in Scotland all summer and this was their last one of the year.

The next morning we did a very short last walk which was along the famous Speyside Way. However, in truth this short bit is probably its lamest section because it’s full of “faeries” aka weird carvings and things hanging on trees and clearly made for kids. But I got a last great shot of the Loch.

Before we reluctantly boarded the bus that would take us back to Edinburgh, the party van alumni could not resist a reunion in the hotel lobby. Peggy and Graham were off to Dublin and Margot and Jim were headed south to visit an ancestral castle.

Sláinte mhath to new friends.

Onward, Solo – Aviemore, Glencoe and a Few Memories In Which Things Come Full Circle

December 21, 2023December 25, 2023 by weedramofscotland, posted in Scotland Travel

View of the Buachaille from my balcony at the KingsHouse Hotel in Glencoe. Insanity.

While I truly loved the Backroads tour, I was very much looking forward to a week or so on my own plus yay driving! Being an extroverted introvert and a Gemini, a bit of both is just the ticket. If there were three or four additional personality types in this category I’d for sure want a teensy bit of each.

I headed toward lovely Aviemore in the northern Cairngorms to stay at one of my favorite B&Bs in all the world, with two of my favorite B&B owners, Kirsty and Kev. Along the way, I stopped at Scone Palace, the former home of the Coronation Stone, which you may be familiar with since we just coronated King Charles as he perched on top of it just to make it clear he was also King of Scotland. The stone was tucked away under an 725 year-old wooden high-backed and undoubtedly uncomfortable “Coronation Chair.”

Scone Abbey, coronation site for early Scottish Kings

The oblong block atop the bench above is a replica of the Stone of Scone (pronounced “skoon” in this instance), or the Stone of Destiny, depending on how dramatic you might be feeling. The real one (maybe) normally resides in Edinburgh Castle along with the Scottish Crown Jewels which is kind of hilarious because it’s just a block of old red sandstone. It is, however, a block of sandstone that has led the most interesting life of any other existing sandstone in the history of the world. It’s literally the symbol of Scottish sovereignty.

In this very spot, the Abbey at Scone Palace (it’s since been rebuilt), the stone witnessed the crowning of early Scottish Kings Kenneth McAlpin in 843 (!!), Constantine II in 900, Macbeth (the real one) in 1040 and David I in 1124. In 1296 the little asshole known as the Hammer of the Scots, Edward I, swiped it from Scone during the First Scottish (failed) War of Independence and built the aforementioned Coronation Chair in Westminster with the under-ass shelf for the stone upon which later monarchs of England and Scotland were crowned.

There’s a rumor, though, that wily monks at Scone Palace hid the real stone and the English troops took a substitute. Real or no, the English deigned to finally return it in 1996, seven hundred years after it was stolen, with the proviso that they could have it back whenever they crowned someone, which lately has been hardly ever.

Before the official return, though, there was an exciting unofficial one. Fabulously, in 1950 some Glasgow students nicked it RIGHT OUT OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY and took it back to Scotland, leaving it at Abroath Abbey. The thing is so heavy they dropped it at one point, breaking it in half, necessitating a hasty repair by a Scottish stonemason. One can only imagine what he thought when the stone was presented for repair. When the theft was discovered, the English government literally closed the border with Scotland for the first time in 400 years.

Here is a photo of the unlikely ringleader of the Stone of Scone thieves.

And here is the stone “safely” back in English hands.

James Wiseheart, what a name! Of course, there are also rumors that the English got a replica back, not the real one.

Now that you know everything you’ve ever wanted to know about it, here’s a photo of Scone Palace, which is quite lovely.

It’s the kind of place where the guy who runs the gift shop feeds the resident peacocks.

Also I’m not sure whether anyone realizes but the Sword in the Stone is also on the grounds.

Visiting Scone Palace was a little bit of a full circle that started last fall, when I traveled to Scotland with my pal Trish. We spent some time in Kilmartin Glen, which I would 100% recommend if you’d like to see Neolithic burial sites similar to those on Orkney, standing stones, photogenic highland cattle….

…and another, more ancient, coronation site of Scottish Kings, Dunaad Fort. The ruins are atop a hill in Kilmartin glen and we had the place to ourselves if you don’t count the (black) sheep. The fort was occupied 2,000 years ago and, as the capital city of the ancient kingdom of Dal Riata, was a royal power center of Gaelic kings in the 500s to 800s, and an international trade hub.

In the Fort’s ruins is a stone with a footprint carved into it (it’s actually a replica installed over the actual stone to protect it but I swear you would never know) and was thought to have been a part of Dal Riata’s coronation ritual whereby ancient kings knelt to declare that they were married to the land and would protect it against all enemies.

We also felt as though we were married to the land and so knelt to pledge our respective troths.

While we spent our days exploring the Glen, traveling to Oban and the Isle of Mull, visiting ruined castles, and driving up to Glencoe, we stayed at Kilmartin Castle. Built in 1550, it was restored by a fabulous couple we loved who took great care to make it look and feel like a castle inside as well as outside. Many inhabited castles in Scotland seem like a normal sort of mansion once you get inside, so I appreciated their aesthetic goals. There was a winding staircase, stone walls and floors, and I had to duck a LOT to avoid braining myself in low doorways. In short, completely brilliant.

Anyway, bringing us back to the present, I was very happy to arrive at the Ardlogie Guest House in Aviemore, staying in my old room, and seeing Kirstie and Kev who are as lovable, kind and crazy as ever.

Their chickens waiting at the patio doors for Kev to feed them. Thanks for the yummy breakfast eggs, ladies!!!

Unfortunately the northern Cairngorms, boasting the coldest climate in the UK, was experiencing high winds and thus the mountains were too unhospitable to climb. Kev ascends Munros on the regular and was like, no, this would be miserable, do not do it. So I saved those hikes for another time and stuck to some gorgeous glens, visited the Dalwhinnie Distillery and enjoyed a few meals at the Old Bridge Inn where you can reserve a table in the main restaurant where children are allowed or in the “lounge with dogs,” which has a fireplace. No-brainer.

Here are some snaps from Glen Tilt:

And some from a walk through a glen between Kingussie and Newtonmore, which featured that walking-across-moors vibe I love. And I did not run into one single other human.

One morning I visited the Ruthven Barracks, a gorgeous ruin of a fort that was built by George II (not personally) on a hilltop visible for miles around. He ordered that it be constructed after the failed Jacobite uprising of 1715. The soldiers stationed there were to maintain law and order in the Highlands and squelch any further unsavory Jacobite activity. In perhaps another full circle moment, after the Battle of Culloden, the remnants of the Jacobite army met there, awaiting word from Prince Charles Edward Stuart about their next move. Not knowing that the Bonnie Prince had scarpered, they finally received word that the Fat Lady had sung and they should go home.

Here are a few photos.

I also booked a tour and tasting at Dalwhinnie Distillery, which is perched on a moor in the Grampian Mountains in Cairngorm National Park – in the middle of nowhere but also entirely visible from the A9. I wanted to visit as this was the first whisky I had ever ordered in a restaurant. I was just beginning to learn about the golden liquid at the time, so I asked the waiter to make a recommendation for a drinkable, smooth and gentle dram. It was my birthday dinner in Bend at one of our finest restaurants and my parents were in town to help celebrate (my Mom and I share a birthday), so Dad had to pay an exorbitant price, which I know he heartily disapproved of but he managed to hold his tongue. Now that he is gone, it seemed like a yet another full circle thing to do.

Compared to other distillery tours I’ve done, this one was pretty performative and corporate. Dalwhinnie is owned by London-based mega-company Diagio, there was a huge visitor center and shop that can accommodate loads of bus tourists – and much of the whisky-making process is no longer done on-site. For example, unlike earlier in its history, they now get their barley already sprouted and dried from elsewhere in Scotland. Interestingly, all Diagio distilleries in Scotland (there are 28 out of 140’ish) store barrels all around the country at other distilleries to hedge against fires – which are not as isolated or rare instances as one might assume. In fact the Dalwhinnie distillery burned down in 1934 and it was more than 100 years until they were in production again. All that alcohol and everything. Boom.

And speaking of the climate in the Cairngorms (Dalwhinnie holds the distinction of being the highest in Scotland, elevation-wise), there’s a tree on the grounds that has been impacted by the wind over time thusly:

Our very animated tour guide, a Scot who told a lot of extraneous personal stories that sometimes were interesting.

And I’ll leave you in the Cairngorms at the Old Bridge Inn. I first visited five years ago, along with a guide who was squiring me to all the sights in the area. We had lunch there, but I wasn’t really clocking where we were, as we drove around quite a bit and it was my first time in the country. So when I walked in last May, upon Kirsty and Kev’s recommendation, it was like having a happy encounter with an unexpected friend. Oh it’s YOU!!! The place is a true community gathering zone filled with locals, and there’s a stand-up only bar ringing with jovial hilarity that can get quite loud in the best possible way. There is often live music outside, too. I just love it.

As I bid a fond farewell to Kirsty and Kev, I remembered another very different sort of couple who run a bed and breakfast of a particular sort near Glasgow. Trish and I stayed with them for one night last year. They are a legit Lord and Lady who possibly have come on hard times as it must be challenging and crazy expensive to run an olden times estate these days. They let out two of their bedrooms and also hold an outdoor rock festival on their grounds every summer. I feel sure they hate every minute of both things.

Their home is still quite beautiful although if you look too closely, you see a little fringe around the edges, a little dog-gnawing damage perhaps. The original shabby chic vibe.

They have several dogs, one of which is a Jack Russell who stole Trish’s glasses from her upstairs bedroom and carried them downstairs, placing them carefully on the worn Oriental rug in front of the wood stove. We were kind of afraid to mention this suspected theft to the Lord and Lady. Luckily, I had taken a random photo of the dogs downstairs and we spotted Trish’s glasses in the photo, blending perfectly into the oriental carpet, and were able to retrieve them without incident and, most importantly, without casting aspersions on their dog.

The sweet little glasses-stealing culprit.

That evening we joined the Lord and Lady for drinks before dinner, where I spotted an invitation on their mantle from the Queen to join her at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh for a garden party. I mentioned it to our hosts, and the Lady said she couldn’t recall what it was exactly, but that they had other plans for that evening.

We met them for dinner in the huge dining room. They appeared, wheeling a serving trolley into the room and serving up what was a very nice dinner and we engaged in a lovely if somewhat stilted conversation. It was a little bit like Downton Abbey in the Upside Down. And they really were charming, the Lord was very very sweet and kind, the Lady a little more prickly, tending to snappily over-correct the Lord who remained pretty jovial in spite of it.

The rooms we saw in the house were generally quite lovely, although we wondered if much of the place had been closed off, as they only seemed to use a few. We continued to wonder whether they truly enjoyed having random guests in their home and so endeavored to be as low maintenance and well-behaved as possible, although I’m sure we used the wrong fork and committed other dreadful etiquette faux pas.

They bid us farewell the following morning and we took our leave. I will never forget this experience and again – travel is the best.

So back to the present, on the way to Glencoe, I stopped in the pouring rain at a nature reserve called Creag Meagaidh (roughly pronounced Creg Meggie). It’s one of Scotland’s many rewilding efforts, and includes a simply gorgeous hike up through planted trees, ferns and other foliage, up into another moors situation along a river with stunning views and as usual all the weathers, before finally dropping down to a gorgeous hidden lochan rimmed with dramatic cliffs. Had the place to myself (I know I keep saying that – I do really like people but not, like “people” if you know what I mean) and would highly recommend!

This being Scotland, of course there were coos.

And now we are off to Glencoe.

This glen is one of my very favorite spots in Scotland. It’s objectively wild and spectacular to be sure, and so attracts loads of visitors. Most of them pull off and snap photos and don’t step foot on the trails. Even though this is annoying, there’s something about the place that is more than its beauty – and overcomes the touristas. Scotland magic is strong here and not to be weird but I feel a physical reaction when I’m here. It has a deep and bloody history which I swear I won’t go into (google the Massacre of Glencoe because it is something), and some of the best and most dramatic hiking in the world. The iconic West Highland Way runs through, along with famous climbs, the most famous of them all being the Buachaillie Etive Mor, which is also the most photographed mountain in the UK, although not sure how we know this. The UK’s highest peak, Ben Nevis, is just one valley over.

The mountains are steep, dramatic, green and gaspingly spectacular. The weather is often sketchy so they can also be moody, looming and dangerous. Mountain rescue is busy, and recently three folks fell from a ridge in the glen, one of the most narrow in the UK . They had an experienced guide, but the weather was foggy and slippery.

I have made my way to Glencoe on every trip I’ve taken.

One of my favorite walks is along the River Coupal which cuts through the valley between Glencoe’s two mighty ridges, the Buachaille Etive Mor and the Buachaille Etive Beag. It looks wildly different every time.

Last May it was bright and sunshiny and green.

Last September it was misty, moody, and red deer bugled across the glen at one another.

My friend Trish and I had a crazy experience on this one. Trish was walking ahead of me when suddenly she turned around and said something about a Highlander approaching us. I peeked around her and swear to God saw a man approaching in full Highland dress, including a kilt and a sword. We both totally saw it. And then – as he got closer he turned into a hiking dude with a jacket tied around his waist. But we know what we saw.

Raising a flask to the mystical Highlander

This year – not too terrible but it had been raining like mad and so rivers and streams were in spate

Made it further down the trail but finally came to a stream that was a no-go.

Road to Nowhere, General Wade’s Military Roads (Damn Those Jacobites) and Rainbows

December 19, 2023January 7, 2024 by weedramofscotland, posted in Hiking in UK, Scotland Travel, Solo Travel

For ages I’ve wanted to drive down the so-called “Road to Nowhere,” a twelve mile single track road with crumbly edges which heads south off the A82, the scenic road traversing Glencoe west to Fort William, taking a hard right turn and heading east toward Inverness. (Scottish roads do not head in just one direction.) The RTN runs along Glen Etive, following the River Etive and perhaps not surprisingly comes to an abrupt end at Loch Etive.

Hollywood-wise, Glen Etive is probably most well-known for starring in Skyfall, the 2012 James Bond movie. Many scenes were shot here, although the fabulous lodge in the film is elsewhere if not entirely CGI.

Daniel Craig (incredibly well-tailored suit my man) and Dame Judi Dench (legendary goddess) taking in the view. This location is literally marked on Google Maps as “James Bond Skyfall Road” which has resulted in ten billion instagram photos of people in this spot and stance, and an unfortunate litter problem, at least for a while, according to The Guardian. Nappies, really people?

I hit the RTN early and so the glen, river and loch were mine all mine, except for my first red deer encounter of the trip and the inevitable professional photographer. He was setting up a tripod on the loch shore and settling in for the day due to Scotland’s constantly shifting light and weather conditions. (You could shoot a photo each minute and no two would look the same.)

Before we go, it would be an oversight not to mention that Loch Etive starred in its own film as one of the (many) spots Harry, Ron and Hermione camped in Deathly Hallows Part 1 while they were looking for horcruxes. This looking for horcruxes business went on for quite some time but luckily the scenery was amazing every time they disapparated because Scotland.

Since the rather relentless rain made a mincemeat out of my hiking plans due to rivers being in spate and conditions being too muddy and slippery for any sort of ascent, I decided to explore part way up a couple of iconic trails. Just to do a little recon.

One is the Devil’s Staircase, part of the West Highland Way and not as scary as it sounds. It’s an uphill jaunt up and over a ridge into Kinlochleven, a town in the neighboring glen.

Here it might be interesting to talk a little bit about a dude named General Wade and why he was directed by King George I to build about 250 miles of road and 40 bridges throughout the Highlands in the early eighteenth century. Of course, the answer is, why, the Jacobites of course. There were three risings before the ’45, and the English were forever trying to clamp down on that untidy situation and sought to figure out how best to deploy troops quickly in the event of the next inevitable uprising. The roads were meant to be 16 feet wide, although at many points they were narrower and were constructed of layers of progressively smaller stones covered with a layer of gravel. They connected military forts or barracks, including Fort William, Fort Augustus, Inverness and the Ruthven Barracks that we discussed earlier. The forts were often built or upgraded by Wade.

The roads were constructed by hundreds of soldiers, fondly dubbed “highwaymen” by Wade. They were beset by a plethora of obstacles – terrain, weather, Highlanders and midges. This extremely tough duty necessitated many many drams and pints, and so camps were established every ten miles, known as “kingshouses” as they were along the king’s highway. The Kinghouse Hotel in Glencoe, my humble lodging, still retains this name.

Many of the bridges he constructed still exist today, including the Garva Bridge over the River Spey, Wade’s Bridge at Aberfeldy (which still carries traffic), Highbridge at Spean and Wade’s Bridge at Etteridge.

Wade’s Bridge at Aberfeldy – still in use after all these years.

General Wade himself. Honestly portraiture during this period didn’t do men any favors.

Irony being what it is, by the time the ’45 came around the roads probably served Jacobite troops better than government troops. That’s the impartiality of roads for you. Tragically, this final attempt was decisively crushed at Culloden and subsequent attempts to eliminate Highland culture . Afterwards, in addition to the roads helping the Hanoverians continue to exert control over Scotland, they also opened up routes for trade, travel and tourism. While miles of the military roads were abandoned over time, many were incorporated into the country’s civilian road network. It’s pretty remarkable that by and large General Wade’s military roads were the first major system built since the Romans.

As an aside, General Wade is the only person mentioned by name in an obscure verse of the British National Anthem and was also responsible for raising a Highland militia called the Highland Watches. The militia morphed into the Black Watch Regiment and this became the genesis of the British army’s crack highland regiments that continues today.

So the Devil’s Staircase was given its name by some of General Wade’s highwaymen who were charged with lugging stones and equipment up that hill path to turn it into a paved military road. Those who decided to stay for a dram at a pub in Kinlochleven and then stagger back over the ridge to Glencoe had a sketchy time of it apparently, more due to wobbly legs and impaired judgment rather than the path itself. And with the old saying about the devil coming to claim his own – the route was thusly named.

There you have it. And so we next cross the A82 to the start of another iconic Glencoe walk, the trail up the Buachaille Etive Mor. Before the ascent begins in earnest, you cross a bridge and stroll past the much-photographed “wee white house,” officially Lagangarbh Hut, now owned by the National Trust of Scotland. The trail runs close alongside the house and then stretches into the distance, aimed directly at the very same mountain I can see from my hotel balcony. My mountain, everyone’s mountain, that mountain. Another day perhaps. When it isn’t dumping buckets.

And so my last full day in Glencoe drew to a close. As excited as I was to embark on my Wilderness Scotland trip, I’m always sort of gutted to leave this place. And before I tell you the final thing – I will offer a preface admitting that there is literally almost always a rainbow situation happening in Scotland. And yet I still think it’s meaningful magic and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Last time I was here with my pal Trish, a rainbow opened up an archway for our exit. Also one of the things best friends do is take your photo while you are walking under a rainbow.

On this trip, as I was packing to leave, I glanced out my window to see this:

It does cushion the blow.

Over the Sea To Skye and Across the Minch to the Outer Hebrides – Wilderness Scotland

December 18, 2023December 25, 2023 by weedramofscotland, posted in Scotland Travel

When Storm Agnes hits the UK and you hike the Quiraing anyhoo.

This was my first trip with Wilderness Scotland, a UK travel company based in Aviemore. They do a bazillion active trips all over Scotland (there’s also a Wilderness Ireland and Wilderness England) generally with one guide and group of eight guests. My conclusion is that it’s an awesome company and 10/10 would recommend.

I booked a trip focused on the Outer Hebrides with a couple of days in Skye. Everyone met at the Inverness train station, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that our group was all women. Two friends from Alaska, a mother and daughter from Canada, and a mother, daughter and aunt from Vermont and Arizona. Our guide was Liam, originally from Glasgow and now living in Ft. William. After a round of introductions, we hopped in an unmarked black van (Wilderness Scotland isn’t into excessive branding) and headed west toward Skye. The weather was complete dreich and Liam was worried our planned walk on Skye could be a miserable blend of inhospitable conditions (he wasn’t wrong). He opted for an interim stop for coffee and a lovely, more sheltered walk on the mainland at Dundreggan Rewilding Centre, one of the many, many rewilding efforts taking place across Scotland and indeed the entire UK.

The stop was a perfect way to loosen up and begin the process of getting to know one another. Sufficiently caffeinated, we continued on toward Skye, driving down beautiful Glen Shiel (where Liam told us about the Battle of Glen Shiel during the 1719 Jacobite Rising which was attended by the freaking Spanish Armada) and stopping briefly at the unavoidable Eilean Donan Castle. I probably made enough snarky comments about this tourist honeypot in my last blog but in fairness it is gorgeous and so here’s the equally unavoidable photograph.

So this van was in the parking lot. And seriously so many style points for the protective tinfoil, the Queen incongruously smiling from the window and the stenciled flamingo. Unfortunately I don’t know where its hubcaps are, any inside information about the Endtime or why Eilean Donan Castle would be of any possible interest.

Having ticked that box, we set off over the gorgeous Skye Bridge to Glen Sligichan, where there’s a long trail down the glen between the Black Cuillin and the Red Cuillin, two very different mountain ranges a stone’s throw from one another. The Red Cuillin is composed of reddish-tinged granite, which is less resistant to glacial activity and so its hills are quite rounded and friendly-looking whereas the Black Cuillin (composed of basalt and gabbro) features the highest peaks on Skye and has a forbidding rocky, jagged profile with all the Mordor vibes. Considered to be the most challenging and spectacular range in Britain, twelve of Skye’s Munros are here, and it’s the location of the famous “Inaccessible Pinnacle,” known locally as the “In Pinn” (because, as Liam explained, Scots aren’t that interested in articulating a bunch of unnecessary syllables). And it’s not entirely inaccessible because of course it’s a top mountain-climbing goal for those who partake but it’s definitely a technical climb and looks completely yikes.

The history of these hills began a mere 61 million years ago with volcanic activity during the initial opening stages of the North Atlantic. As North America and Europe ripped apart (!!) large volumes of basalt lava erupted from long narrow fissures on what is now Scotland’s west coast. As time went on, this volcanic activity became focused at several specific locations, creating large, central volcanoes, and ultimately the Cuillin ranges.

Framing the entrance to the glen is the iconic Sligichan Bridge, built in the early 1800s. The story goes that if you dip your face in the chilly waters of the Sligichan river, you will enjoy eternal youth. I cannot tell you whether this is true because I most assuredly did not do it. I also most assuredly did not take the photo below – a gorgeous shot of Sligichan Bridge flanked by the Red Cuillin on the left and the Black Cuillin on the right.

Just beyond the bridge is a recently commissioned and installed bronze sculpture, all thanks to the fundraising efforts of a local historical society. The sculpture pays tribute to two renowned mountaineers, Norman Collie and John Mackenzie. John, born in 1856, grew up in a nearby crofting village and started climbing the Cuillin at the age of 10. He became the first native-born Scot to be a professional mountaineering guide. He met Professor Collie, an internationally renowned scientist and mountain expert, and they formed a friendship that endured for half a century.

Collie and Mackenzie, gazing toward the Black Cuillin.

Back to our planned stroll down the glen, Liam’s weather concerns were valid – it was spitting rain, foggy and windy but as always in Scotland, who cares. And on that topic a quick sidebar – Scots have a lot of fun words for bad weather and you can peruse a sampling here: https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/15-words-which-can-only-be-used-to-describe-scottish-weather-1478371

We walked into the mist for about a mile or so and even though the Black Cuillin were shrouded, the views were stunningly beautiful. Before we turned around, Liam told us the geological origin story of the glen, and then the inevitable folktale about how things REALLY happened which involved a romantic misunderstanding, anger and revenge, culminating in the sun throwing her spear into the ground etcetera. The trail winds south through the Cuillin all the way to the west coast of Skye and it’s on my bucket list. Not today, though. Not today.

As we were leaving the glen, the top of the Black Cuillin ridge teased us with a shy momentary appearance:

Hooded crows hanging out in the parking lot.

After a lovely evening at the Uig Hotel perched over Uig Bay and the ferry that would take us over the Minch, the next day dawned wet and rainy as Storm Agnes bore down on the UK. Our plan was to hike the Quiraing and so we braved the elements swathed in our waterproofs and enjoyed the lack of crowds. I did this walk last spring in basically the same conditions and Liam expressed some concern about my interest in doing it again which I thought was sweet but bonkers, I mean have you SEEN this place Liam? I’d do it every morning if I lived nearby.

I’ll just share a few photos of the otherworldly Quiraing below.

As we approached the top of the walk, a young couple happily walked by who randomly happened to be from Oregon so we had a funny shouted conversation about being from Portland and Bend and what a small world.

During a rainy snack break near an extremely picturesque stone wall, we had another story from Liam, this time about the Bonnie Prince’s escape from Scotland after Culloden, featuring Flora MacDonald, whose grave is nearby (see my post from last spring’s trip).

And at last, I found the lone tree that is very very famous on Instagram.

As Storm Agnes slowly moved across the country, I was stunned to see photos posted by Kev and Kirsty of their lovely backyard, usually filled with birds and deer. Yikes. They downplayed the situation, characterizing it as a “wee update,” and they did not have to turn away any guests, but geez. Wilderness Scotland is based in Aviemore, and Liam assured me that this happens more often than one might wish and it is all actually fine.

After the Quiraing, we stopped at a very lovely and fancy hotel called the Flodigarry Inn. Amazingly, they didn’t mind that we brought in food from the outside, sat in their lobby and ordered coffees. We were soaking wet and left pools of water everywhere. Nobody said, “You can’t bring that food in here unless you are a hotel guest.” Very kind and civilized.

We ended the day with a circular walk around Portree, the largest town and capital of Skye.

Conde Nast travel named Portree one of the twenty most beautiful towns in the UK and Ireland. As with everywhere it seems, it’s been inhabited probably since Mesolithic times. In the 1700s, Portree was a popular point of departure for Scots sailing to America to escape poverty. And in 1946, The Royal Hotel, the site of MacNab’s Inn, was the last meeting place of Flora MacDonald and the Bonnie Prince after Culloden.

In Agnes’s wake, the next day’s weather actually looked pretty stunning, involving the sun and everything, which was excellent timing for our early afternoon crossing to the Outer Hebrides.

We took advantage of the beautiful morning to drive to the northernmost tip of the Trotternish peninsula for a lovely coastal walk called Rubha Hunish. The trail featured gorgeous views across to the Outer Hebrides, a Coast Guard lookout on a cliff which is now a bothy refuge for hikers, the ruins of Duntulm Castle and the remains of Erisco, a clearance village, which is this day ironically filled with grazing sheep, perhaps descended from the original sheep that displaced the less remunerative crofters who were shipped off to North America and Australia in the years after Culloden.

Beautiful morning light to welcome us to the walk.

A wonderful way to bid farewell to Skye – before sailing over the Minch to Harris and Lewis. I know I keep mentioning the crossing -the thing is I passionately love ferries and so become inordinately excited about the prospect of boarding one and sailing away.

After a delightful crossing (enough already!), we disembarked in Tarbert, the largest town on Harris. I should mention that the Isle of Harris and the Isle of Lewis are actually a single island, the main island of the Outer Hebrides. The northern 2/3 is Lewis, the southern 1/3 is Harris, and there are many cultural and linguistic differences between the two. Also, Harris is quite mountainous, boasting 30 peaks, whereas Lewis is much flatter.

Our first order of business was visiting one of the many, many beaches on Harris, Luskentyre Beach. On the short drive from the ferry, we were awestruck by the island’s striking, otherworldly geography. I’ve never seen anything like it. Very hilly, lots of water and exposed bedrock everywhere.

And in fact the geology of the Outer Hebrides is quite unique. The most remarkable rock found there is 300 million year old Lewisian gneiss, which some of the oldest rock in the world. On South Harris, where we were, it is mostly anorthosite, which is similar in composition to rocks found on the freaking moon.

The unfortunate thing is that this bedrock prevents electrical wires and cables from being buried so telephone poles dot this sparse and gorgeous landscape which is slightly jarring. People need power I guess. Also the bedrock is so exposed and the soil so sparse on the east side of Harris that they couldn’t bury anyone there and so the dead had to be hauled over to the west side via the aptly named “Coffin Road.”

Like much of the country, especially the islands, the Outer Hebrides have a Norwegian background, and by that I mean they were invaded by Vikings in the 9th century. Once on a podcast I heard a historian describe being a Viking as more of a job description than a people which is an excellent characterization. At any rate they ended up living there for 450 years.

In 1098 Edgar, a Scottish king, officially signed the islands over to King Magnus III. In the 1200s King Alexander II tried to reverse engineer a return policy and pestered King Haakon IV of Norway to buy them back, alas to no avail.

In the face of the Vikings’ steadfast refusal, these efforts died away until King Alexander III came on the scene. Alex was hell bent on realizing his father’s dream. As with many dysfunctional father-son relationships in powerful families, when Alex made moves to fulfill his father’s legacy, it immediately resulted in armed conflict.

Alex sent a letter to Haakon saying that if he didn’t allow Scotland to buy back the islands he’d just come over there and take them back for free. In response, Haakon gathered a fleet together which ended up getting stranded at Largs (near Glasgow) and Alex took advantage of this by launching a surprise attack. The fleet scarpered all the way back to Orkney where Haakon died unexpectedly in Kirkwall.

Haakon’s successor, Magnus, frankly exhausted by the thought of starting that whole thing over again, agreed to sell the islands back to Scotland in 1266. Alex/Scotland paid 4,000 marks and agreed that Norway could keep Orkney and Shetland (for now). This marked the end of the perhaps unnecessary Scottish-Norwegian War.

As a counterbalance to this rousing tale of war, daddy issues and derring-do, I will leave you with some photos from Luskentyre Beach and a Moment of Zen video, for which you may wish to turn up the volume.

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