Monday dawned beautiful and nearly warm in North Yorkshire. We had our church picnic the day prior and were now looking at a long drive somewhere on the wrong side of 8 hours. Two restless girls, two excited adults, a boot full of food & clothes and a carrier full of scooters, wetsuits & hiking gear all pulled out of Darley in our spacious Volvo Estate to start the pilgrimage.
We planned a couple of sanity stops on the way:
Rheged Center in Cumbria for a mid morning romp and
Dalwhinnie for a wee dram of 'uisge beatha (the water of life).
The Wrong Side of 8 Hours ended in "The Bridge Inn" hunting lodge... a gorgeous lodge on the North Sea coastal town of Helmsdale. Or, as Sam kept calling it, much to the consternation of the locals, Helmsdeep (from the Lord of the Rings...). It was run by a fantastic and friendly French woman. It was a great rest although, the girls weren't too convinced about all the stuffed animals about the place. Especially Molly and the Boar.
There was a beautiful river coursing through Helmsdeep.
The Helmsdale River. Absolutely magical in the morning light.
After a great night's sleep, we were off to find the end of mainland Scotland. We found it and the Queen's summer Castle, where we stopped for a 'proper cream tea'. No royalty though, just some excited travelers.
After tea, we headed on to our first port, Gills Bay, for our first of four ferry crossings of the trip. While waiting for the ferry, we took some time to climb on the diggers and watch the seals.
The ferry!
The ferry ride to the Orkney Islands was absolutely beautiful. We passed uninhabited islands and whirlpools, all under a flawless azure sky. We sat on the top deck the whole way. The only thing that could go wrong was a sunburn -- in Scotland, a sunburn?!?!
St Margaret's Hope!
We were very excited when we pulled into St Margaret's Hope on South Ronaldsay. What would the Orkneys hold in store for us? Much like the first Picts and later Vikings to see this land, we were taken from the first glimpse. Gentle fields, golden beaches, numerous birds, some big hills on Hoy, beckoning slick waters. The sun even seemed different; it was silver.
We had a magnificent apartment at the Sands Hotel on Burray Island. Right on the Scapa Flow with its own beach at low tide. With just two days on Orkney, we realized we couldn't see everything the Orkneys had to offer but, we could get a taste of life there. What a memorable taste! 5000 year old Pictish settlements, a Viking constructed cathedral - St Magnus Cathedral, Highland Park whisky, Orkney ales, and seafood. The scallops were the size of a dinner plate. HUGE!
We even met a Hemingway Cat (6 toes on each foot)
on our private pebble beach. She nearly came home with us...
We played on the beaches and pretended to be vikings and valkyries.
They look pretty fierce to me!
Sam and Sandy seeking the call.
There was nothing between them and Iceland.
If there had been a long boat on shore,
they might have set sail for new lands!
There were scads of neolithic remains on the islands. Remember the post from Cork Ireland and the stone house from the 18th century? Compare it with these at Skara Brae from 3000 BC. I think I would prefer to live in these Pict houses!
This is a very nice, dramatic stone circle: the Ring of Brodgar. It has 27 of its original 62 stones still standing! There were a string of standing stones between Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar and some of the burial mounds. Some, like the Stones of Stenness were over 16 ft tall!
Another beautiful Orkney sunrise. After a couple amazing days, were sad to say goodbye. But, we were excited to be on our way to the Outer Hebrides. Which meant another ferry ride: #2 of 4!
Hey look! Puffins!
We were going to catch our next ferry, #3 of 4, from Ullapool. That was about 3 hours away and we had 6 hours to get there. That gave us plenty of time to check out a few places on the way. Our first stop after getting back on to Scottish soil was Thurso, translated to Thor's River. It was a very nice town on the north coast of Scotland.
This was Sam, Sandy and Molly with their fiercest pose on the banks of Thor's River.
This is a shot of the sub-arctic landscape of North Scotland. It has a very different feel than the lands to the south. Starkly beautiful.
We made a couple stops on the way to Ullapool. This one happened to be the Glen Ord distillery, just to the east of Inverness. We had a nice picnic while the girls got in some good scooter time.
After our break, we were off to Ullapool for the ferry. Ullapool is busy little port town in the northwest of Scotland. It even had an ice cream parlour for the children and An Teallach ale for the adults!
Ferry #3 was much bigger than the one that took us to Orkney.
It even had an indoor play room for the kids! That made the 2.5 hour crossing fly by. Even in the massive swells... (there were a couple of sick kids, not ours thank goodness). The girls quickly made friends with the Scottish lassies and had a blast!
While the girls played, we took turns above deck admiring the spectacular Scottish scenery. There islands, seals, birds and porpoise everywhere. It was one of the most beautiful coast lines we've seen.
At last, we spotted the Outer Hebides.
We arrived at Steornabhagh, Leodhas, just at dusk in a light rain. The main language spoken on the islands is Scottish Gaelic. All the road signs are in Gaelic, the maps are in Gaelic, the menus... So, we've spelled them in Gaelic too! (here's the key: Leodhas = Lewis; Steornabhagh = Stornoway; Timsgearraidh = Timsgarry; Calanais = Callanish; na Hearadh = Harris; An Tairbeart = Tarbert).
We had another hour of travel through some extremely remote and wet country to get to our B&B on Leodhas's west coast in Timsgearraidh.
Baile na Cille was a fabulous B&B run by an extremely fun and fascinating couple. They've collected various rocket and missile debris from the nearby RAF station and spend their winters on Sanibel Island in Florida. After all, this was just their Summer hobby! It was a fantastic place. They even had a grass tennis court and a cemetary to explore!
Timsgearraidh was also the location where the Leodhas chessmen were discovered. The chessmen were discovered after a cow rubbed some sand off a dune back in 1831. It revealed 78 12th century chess pieces made by vikings from walrus ivory. Here are the girls in period costume next to a rather large replica.
We split up the next day. Sam went for a hike on Suainaval while the girls hit the Traigh Uuige (Uig sands) for a beach day! And what a day it was. The hills were beautiful, the sands and the water gorgeous and, to top it all, it was sunny. By the way, what exactly is Sam wearing???
We had a good family hike that afternoon. It was a beautiful day and we saw Golden Eagles and met a fantastic dog that loved to chase his tennis ball!
On our walk, we found a stash of the primary heating fuel for the island: peat. Islanders cut the peat on the local moors and then dry it to get ready for winter.
We set off the next day for An Tairbeart on na Hearadh to catch our 4th and final ferry ride of our trip. On the way, we stopped by the Calanais standing stones. These are some of the most evocative stones in Scotland. Tall, mostly upright and about 4500 years old, they occupied a nice spot overlooking parts of Leodhas and are aligned to the 4 major directions (North, South, East, West). We spent the morning there pondering the origins and meaning of the stones.
An Tairbeart was a picturesque little port nestled between the sea and the largest mountains on the Hebrides. It was also home to Harris Tweed, one of the more famous exports from na Hearadh. We strolled around an Tairbeart for a bit and then boarded our ferry for the trip to the Isle of Skye, where we would make our way to the Great Glen and Fort Augustus.
Our next port of call was Uig on the Isle of Skye. We hadn't been at sea long before we spotted the silhouette of Skye. Skye takes its name from the Old Norse for cloud: skuy.
However, as we got closer, the Skye-line brightened and the water glistened like a field of diamonds. It was captivating watching the mountains grow.
Once off the ferry, we made our way over the high flat lands of the Trotternish peninsula on North Skye to the Quiraing. The Quiraing is strange uplifted portion of land. If you've seen the movie Stardust, you'll recognize parts of it. No fallen stars or witches this time though.
We had a little walk out on to one of the shelfs to take in the view and stretch our legs a bit. Beautiful.
After our quick jaunt, we settled back in the car to shoot over to the Talisker distillery for a small dram. Very nice.
We made a pit stop at the Sligachan (pronounced Sleegan) hotel for our evening meal and some exercise. This was a fantastic place right in the middle of Skye and at the feet of both the Red and Black Cuillin (Coolin) Mountains. They had a brilliant playground and the girls worked out all the kinks on the climbing towers and the zip-line. They even deigned to share their new kingdom with a couple of Scottish lads...
These are the Cuillins. Red and Black respectively. Magnificent and some of the toughest mountaineering routes in the UK.
After our meal we hit the road again towards Fort Augustus, where we would be staying for a week in a restored abbey! The excitement was palpable.
Fort Augustus lies on the SouthWest end of Loch Ness. Almost dead in the middle of the highlands between Inverness and Fort William. We were staying in an Abbey built in the 1800s, which was recently (and is still being) converted to holiday flats. The facility was unbeatable. There were loads of things to do in the Abbey alone: gameroom complete with snooker table, foozeball, boardgames and books; a cemetary of monks and abbots; the shore of Loch Ness; lonely halls and stairways. We didn't find any ghouls or secret rooms though. And no quidditch field...
In addition to the inside stuff, there was a lawn chess set. The girls loved trying to move the solid wood pieces - they were actually heavier than the girls. The locals were tough critics.
Fort Augustus, itself, was a charming town on the Caledonian canal. The Caledonian canal connects the east and west coasts of Scotland through a series of locks and lochs (couldn't resist). Most of the pubs had tables outside right on the locks. This was fun, especially when the big boats came through. We managed to catch a nice rainbow after one of the rare rains we had. This was also the traditional music season and the pubs had quite a bit going on. We hit one good session in this little pub, the Lock Inn. Sandy was really impressed with the fiddles and accordions.
We spent a good bit of time on the shore of Loch Ness looking for Nessie. The girls had a good time tossing rocks in the water.
Wait, what was that??? Nessie?!?!
We took off one morning for Inverness, the capital of the Highlands. It was a city. Not horrible, not great. They did have a fantastic used book store: Leaky's Second Hand Books. Wow. Thousands of books to browse through and a nice cafe upstairs.
Years ago, we saw a little known movie called Local Hero. The plot centered on a Texas Oil company trying to develop a small fishing village on the west coast of Scotland. We remembered the movie for its visually stunning scenes of white sands and blue waters backed with mountains. Turns out, that movie was filmed in Morar, about an hour and a half away. What better to do for a day than to head over to the coast and pick up some seafood in the port of Mallaig and, then hit the beach for some fun.
We reviewed the local Mallaig fishing fleet and picked up some fresh Monkfish (really nice!) from one of the local fishing companies.
Then, it was off in search of the Silver Sands of Morar! We found a parking spot and hit the trail to the beach, not sure what we would find. The girls were excited to get moving towards the beach but, a hundred meters into the walk, Molly wasn't so sure anymore.
After we crested the dunes and got our first glimpse, we were not disappointed! Absolutely beautiful! The girls were at it straight away.
They played in the water, on the rocks, in the sand.
They even caught a flounder! It must run in the family.
The dunes were a perfect launching pad and we did a bit of running and jumping on them. We caught this one on video. Kelly was filming and had a good laugh. Poor sandy Sandy.
We did learn one very valuable lesson: if you laugh at your kid, Karma will strike back.
Razor clams. One nearly took Kelly's big toe as a souvenir. Luckily a family of Scots on holiday were there to rescue her.
Our excursion to the West Coast had another motive, apart from the beach and seafood. Harry Potter. Much of the outdoor scenes in the Potter franchise were filmed in Scotland. Two of the famous scenes are the steam train and the bridge used to get young wizards and witches to Hogwart's School of Magic. It just so happens that the train used in the films was this one, the West Highland Express. The viaduct in the films is also here: the Glenfinnan Viaduct.
Our brush with famous settings wasn't over with the steam train and the viaduct. Very near the viaduct (actually across the street) was Loch Shiel. For the casual movie viewers out there, this is Hogwart's Lake from Harry Potter. But for the real connoisseurs, this is the home of Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod from the Highlander. History buffs might also recognize this as the site where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his banner to start the Jacobite revolution in 1745.
One of the more poignant glens we visited was Glen Coe, the location of the 1692 Massacre of Glen Coe. The massacre was a brutal attack on the Clan MacDonald by William and Mary's army, who were staying as guests of the MacDonalds at the time. It also had a fabulous shellfish farm where we bought a few kilos of scallops and razor clams (by now Kelly's personal fav type of shellfish). This was also the setting for some of the scenes in Braveheart!
Scotland is a land made for walking, or so goes the official tagline. It's not far off. The mountains are strikingly beautiful and always atmospheric, regardless of weather. Sam got in a few good hikes on mountains with names that either he could pronounce through some genetic memory fluke or, he was good at pretending... Meall na Teanga, Sron a' Choire Ghairbh, Sail Chaorainn, Sgurr nan Conbhairean, Carn Chuillin. And, yes, he is wearing a kilt...
On Sam's last walk, he went out above Fort Augustus to Carn Chuillin. Pretty, wild country. Look carefully and see if you can find the Red Stags.
This is the view of the Abbey from the descent of Carn Chuillin. We can't believe we stayed there!
On our last night in Fort Augustus, we heard of a ceilidh being put on at the Aonach Mor ski resort (We use that term loosely for all who have been to Colorado). To get there, we had to take a gondola up to ~1800 ft. The wind was so strong that they nearly shut the operation down as the gondola cars were swinging all over the place. But we made it and the girls loved the ride.
Once up at the resort, the ceilidh started slow. Until Sandy and Molly got the urge to dance. It picked up soon thereafter.
After some good dancing at the ceilidh, we made our way back to the abbey. It was the end of our trip. We woke to a beautiful morning and said Good Bye to the Abbey. It was back to Jolly ole England for us.
We spent two weeks in the far north of Scotland and had 5 days of rain, 1 midge, 1 ceilidh, 5 distilleries, 7 mountains, 1 sea monster, 2 viking hats, 2 viking battle axes, loads of seafood and a half dozen movie encounters. Amazing. A very special part of the Earth!
Mar sin leat, Alba!
(Thank you, Scotland!)
