Saturday 9th August – Tuesday 9th October
Now we were off to Caledonia for two months! Our first sunset at the campsite at East Fortune Farm, an old military airfield on the outskirts of Edinburgh, was flaming red and yellow, boding well for our forthcoming adventure in to the famous Edinburgh Festival and the Fringe, starting the next day. The next three weeks were filled with history, concerts, the Tattoo, comedy, black drama, opera and street theatre. It was a wonderful festival and the weather was very kind to us, too. We dined with Clare & Tom Mitchell, and on another night Lisa & Roger; we stumbled across a great Tassie guitarist who knows Mike, Sally etc…small place, Edinburgh! We walked up and down the Royal Mile and steep cobbled streets past Greyfriar’s Bobby and streets named Fleshmarket and Grassmarket. Sightseeing atop the hop on and hop off double decker buses was fun between showers. They took us to all the main sights including Britannia, Holyrood House Palace, the National Museum and the once seedy areas of Edinburgh.
At East Fortune a visit to the local air museum gave us the chance to tour one of only a few Concordes on display in the world, so we had a play with dressing-up in flight crew gear…fun!
Nearby Athelstaneford gave us a glimpse into the history of the Scottish flag, the Saltire, the flag first raised as a result of a Scottish battle there in 832AD.
Everywhere you look there’s history…brutal history! Hadrian’s Wall and Bamburgh Castle just over the border in England, a crannog, Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, Lindisfarne Castle, Stirling Bridge…we were totally immersed in it and loving it, yet the locals just got on with their daily lives, seemingly oblivious to the brutality we heard about.
We spent a day at the Scottish Highland Games in Braemar...Queen Lizzie was there so we got up close and personal with her as we did with Phil, Charles, Camilla and Anne. We got to see all those weird and wonderful Scottish competitions like tug o’ war, sword dancing, sack races, stone pitching, even a race up the nearby hill. A highlight of the day was that Jimbo was spotted by the officials early on and invited to enter the caber tossing competition during the afternoon!...can you believe it?...we asked why?...was it his muscular build, the chiselled jaw, a lack of underwear under that Davidson kilt?...but all they said was that he looked like a natural born tossa! We are convinced that this is the way of the future for the Olympics – no need for drug testing, familycentric, putting fun before winning and a crowded, boisterous pub at the end of the event - it’s got a lot going for it.
We packed up and headed west, inching steadily closer to single-malt nirvana, to stop for a week at Killin alongside the river near a loch. Killin in itself is a pretty village with its river raging through the middle of town. We visited Stirling Castle, nearby Argyll Lodgings (home of Archibald Campbell), and had a distant look at the William Wallace Monument but decided that because it's not original (and Jim thinks he's become a somewhat pseudo hero, having been done in by his own nobles) we simply travelled to the site and looked upwards at it “from without”.
The Falkirk Wheel is a clever and interesting engineering feat designed to lift or lower barges from one canal height to another without the need for countless loch gates. Doune Castle has a great audio commentary by former Python, Terry Jones, who put a Monty (Python and the Holy Grail) slant on this one time home and then hunting lodge of the Stuarts, the early rulers of Scotland. We drove alongside Loch Lomond and remembered the tune we once learnt at school, and picked up a couple of hitch hikers from Belgium there, delivering them to Glasgow. This was the night of the UK Finale to the BBC Proms which was also synchronised with the Albert Hall, Belfast, Hyde Park and Wales. So when it was our turn to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" we were heard across the continent...maybe! This will be televised at Christmas (including Down Under as it seems to be every year).
We then moved Kevin to North Ledaig near Oban, with a great view from our van –over the sea to…..hmmm not to Skye but to the isle of Mull. The weather ranged from intermittent showers to gale force winds with high seas hitting the "beach". It wasn’t a problem, just exhilarating and cobweb removing, with amazing sunsets between the cloud and rainbursts!
From this home we made several visits to Easdale Island: a highlight was entering the World Stone Skimming Championships, held on a blustery Sunday in mid September. Janet threw her small piece of slate found on the beach and scored a commendable 24m distance, not far behind the ladies record of the day at 32m. It’s a highly recommended day out and is gaining in popularity. Competitors numbered 400 and spectators numbered 500. We liked the casual atmosphere with no seating and no room for formal seating so spectators have to nestle on the rocks and quarry ridges to get a geezer at it. Food was aplenty with scallops on sewers being our preference instead of the haggis burgers. We also took a rubber inflatable trip out to Corryvreckan (the world's third largest whirlpool) to see wildlife including a white-tailed sea eagle.
Whilst on the west coast we went by ferry across to Islay via Colonsay....it'd been Jim's dream for decades to see the home of Laphroaig. It turned out to be the friendliest of all the distilleries we visited, including a lovely tour of its old-fashioned processes, downing a few drams, planting an Aussie flag on his plot (1sq. foot) and generally paying homage. The only downside was the blustery, rainy weather over at Kintra Farm, such that we spent the second night in the car after the tent collapsed. I guess we were faced straight across to the Irish Sea…..
Friend Emma joined us from England for a few days - we headed on another ferry over to Mull and then to nearby Iona, cramming in all the touristy things before we scooted back to Oban on the afternoon’s last ferry: Columba’s Abbey, the Tobermory Distillery, the glacier-worn landscapes. Then it was up to Glencoe, yet another scene of Scots brutality towards fellow Scot (that famed clash between the Campbells and the MacDonalds)…och, a cruel and brutal bunch that lot….then a brief walk up Ben Nevis and a drive home through beautiful, wild scenery. Jim’s birthday dinner in Oban, our last evening with Em, was a delicious seafood extravaganza.
The next pitch was at Culloden Moor near Inverness, which we arrived at by driving up the west side of Loch Ness (it holds more water than all the other lakes and rivers of the UK combined!) Nessie must have been snoozing for we saw not a glimpse of her…so far…the next 10 days was a deep dive into more brutal Scots history – Culloden Moor battleground, the wreck of Ruthven Castle, Fort George, ancient Ardvreck Castle in the western highlands…the place is replete with “collateral damage” as the yanks like to call it!
Across England the weather was turning really nasty…floods, high winds and heavy rain….Scotland was to cop it next, so we decided to head to the far north coast to see the famous rugged coastline and the wild North Sea smashing into the cliffs near Wick. In the far north west, John O’Groats was really wild. The ferries to the Orkney Islands were cancelled and the waves were crashing over the jetty. There wasn’t a lot to see at the famous John O’Groats…just a pub serving beer but no food, a shop, a lighthouse and the famous souvenir shop with the famous “last stop” bottle openers and tea towels. We decided to keep going and see more of the north. A little oasis of a pub called “The Craggan Hotel” at Mellness was the best find of our two day trek to the far north. Fresh seafood, scallops, langoustine and lobster were on offer! This was such a treat considering we were about to spend the night sans tent and en voiture just down the road at Tongue Bay….wind the car window down a fraction, put the gear on the front seats, fold down the rear seats, roll out the air mattress and doona across the back and Bob’s your uncle! Comfort without being blown away!
After a restful night in the car, despite the raging wind howling outside, we skirted around Cape Wrath and back to Inverness via the northwest coast. Lovely glacial landscapes again, but ever so wild. How do the locals cope with the rain, the wind and the sleet of winter? How did they cope throughout the centuries?
Whilst there we spent a lovely couple of days with Malcolm’s Dad, Robert who lives down at Carrbridge…the last time we saw him was at a dinner in Split in May with a few rowdy Tasmanians, so we had lots of reminiscing and catching up to do. We asked Robert for further enlightenment as to why the Scots spent years doing each other in…but he didn’t have the answers either, so we bade him farewell and set off to Culloden Moor to see for ourselves why Highlanders pitted against Government troops on a field only a mile away from our caravan Kevin.
We decided to head back to the west coast to check out more about the roots of these famed Highlanders….the guys from the islands and highlands whose names start with Mc or Mac…..the rebels who stood up for the exiled Catholic kings of Scotland and wanted Bonnie Prince Charlie installed on the Unified throne after decades in exile. We’re talking about the Highlanders and Clansmen who charged the Hanoverian forces, Scots and Poms alike, at Culloden, wearing kilts and plaids, with a dirk (dagger) tucked down in the socks, the targ (round shield) held close to the chest and with raging shouts and angry faces storming towards the enemy with trusty sword ready to butcher their opponents. A frightening thought…but in the event it all came to nothing – swords and cries count for nowt against the might of coordinated British gunfire.
On the island of Skye, way up north, are the MacLeods and down south there are the MacDonalds, each with beautiful grounds and castles next to the Irish Sea….well the MacDonalds rebuilt their castle (Armadale) after the English navy used the original one for target practice, but then that one was burned down in 1855, so the façade remains next to a small white building. Dunvegan Castle on the north of the island remains the home of clan MacLeod. It, too, is restored, having also received - a bit of a hammering a few centuries ago from the supporters of the English crown, the Hanoverians.
To cap off this world full of castles, back over the bridge from Skye is Castle Eilean Donan, home of clan MacRae. This castle also had a rebuild after a mash from a few Naval ships. The family is in residence on occasions so it has more of a homely feel if a castle can ever be called homely - with the portraits of the family resplendent in their kilts and a few family photos around.
No trip to Skye would be complete without a pilgrimage to Talisker. We had a very informative tour and Jim votes this distillery just behind Laphroaig as the spiritual hub of his retirement universe. Our final days were spent languishing by the Lochs on the west coast, looking at the Autumn hues on the distant hills and the wonderful west coast sunsets.
