I'm on Top of the World

[Unfortunately, I am back home. Thankfully, I get to remember the fun I had as I go through the back posts I was unable to publish earlier because I lacked internet access. The entry below was written on 1 June 2009.]

Literally and figuratively. I love it here. So few people and stunningly beautiful scenery. We took a walk tonight around Ardnave Point and from the high dunes there were able to see many of the surrounding islands, including a couple with ruined buildings (no one lives there now; I wonder if we could buy it? A running joke of the trip has become that we can of course buy whatever we want because "we're Americans." We're going to march up to anyone whose property we want and -- preferably while chewing on cigars -- demand, "We're Americans, how much do you want?") In any case, from high up on the dunes, where we were able to see far off into the distance to other islands: Jura, Oronsay, and Colonsay, and also the Kintyre peninsula on the mainland, I really do feel like I'm at the top of the world. So I'm moving here. Forward my mail. Tell my cats that I love them... (just kidding, of course).

But seriously (no, not really), Robin and I are working on a business case for making a Thermo satellite office here. Or, we're going to open our own distillery. Unfortunately we'll need to wait at least 10 years until we can think about turning a profit.

We had another late-ish start today. It's nice when we don't have to be up for breakfast like we did when we were staying at B&Bs. The freedom of having our own space is very nice. We don't have to worry about waking up too late or staying out too late; we can eat when we want and what we want. We didn't have a plan on waking so we lingered over breakfast. I hung some laundry out on the line outside. We needed to stop into the estate office as the fees and the exchange rate of the bank transfer left them 14 pounds 12p short. The two women working in the Islay Estates Office are in a space that can't be bigger than 10x10 feet. I'd go completely mad.

We had more gorgeous weather today. First stop after paying our balance to Jane at Islay Estates was to the community centre in Port Charlotte where we had the first internet access in days. I was so excited to see what my friends had been up to on Facebook and had a quick chat with Anne, and posted one back entry on the blog (here I am blogging about blogging). Hopefully we'll be able to get back soon, but there's so much to do here, I'm not sure when that will be. The view from our outside table was of the vast Loch Indaal (which is really a bay). The sky was so clear today we're pretty sure it was Ireland we saw off in the distance.

Next we visited our second distillery of the trip, Bruichladdich (this is pronounced "brook-laddie" with the "oo" like in "loo." We're having great fun learning the pronunciation of these names; even with my experience with Scots and Gaelic, I often (mmm, always) get it wrong and am amused to find how different my pronunciation is from the right way to say it.)





Bruichladdich is a fine little distillery that has only been back in operation since 2001. After our visit we found the book Whisky Dream in the local Spar shop that describes how some enterprising men got the business back on its feet again. It seems that each distillery has its own character, and even though their processes are more or less the same, I think it is probably worth seeing each one. We were pleasantly surprised by the bright character of Bruichladdich (and they even gave us two free drams of tasting! One very peaty -- more peaty than Laphroaig I'll contend -- and one not so peaty). On a bulletin board in the shop were clippings of a bizarre story a few years ago where some arm of the CIA admitted to spying on them under suspicion of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction! (Read more on the story at Bruichladdich's website.)



Then back home for some food before heading out for our walk at around 6pm. We walked for almost 3 hours on the cliffs, dunes, and beach around Ardnave Point.





We still have wool fever and spent a lot of time as we started the walk gleaning stray wool that had been liberated from the sheep by the abundant thistle in the area. We didn't have a bag for it, so we ended up stuffing it all in my little backpack:



(No, I don't know what I'm going to do with all the wool.)

On the way back we passed by the ruined Kilnave Chapel that holds one of the island's famous crosses. We stopped the car to walk down and take some pictures. At 9:45pm the sun was just going down and made for some dramatic compositions. That's another fun thing about Scotland in summer: it feels like it's 7:30 in the evening for about 3 hours (the trade-off of course is that in the winter it feels like it's night pretty much all the time).







While Robin photographed the chapel and cross from many angles, I wandered amongst the stones, looking more at the oldest ones. This one in particular caught my eye:



The text is:

He lived beloved & died
Regreeted. What is said
to One, is said to all.
Watch, & be ye also READY.

We've booked ourselves on an 11am tour of Kilchoman Distillery for tomorrow: incentive to get ourselves going a little sooner. Also perhaps we'll get to Laphroaig, the granddaddy of the Islay distilleries. Maybe a crossing to Jura later in the week, but I have a feeling we won't be sailing to the island of Colonsay this trip. There's too much great stuff to see and do here on Islay.

On Islay!

This post is from 31 May:

Oops, missed yesterday! A live connection is hard to find around here. And the ones we do find are well-protected. What's that about? There's hardly anyone around.

Yesterday (30 May): We had breakfast at our B&B on the harbour in Tarbert, then shot over to Kennacraig to make our ferry. We had a lovely crossing, it was uncharacteristically sunny and warm.


I was tired! I napped in the sun for much of the trip. The fine weather made for clear skies and we could even see Ireland at one point in the journey. We arrived in Port Ellen (one of two of Islay's ports; the other is Port Askaig) which we drove through quickly and then made our way to Bowmore where we checked in at visitor information and then went on a tour of the Bowmore distillery. A fantastic tour.

Our guide, Isabael, was extremely knowledgeable and seemed to have more than a passing knowledge of the inner workings of whisky making [this is in fact true - we still don't know what her position is, but we saw a picture of her in the local paper handing over a donation check to the area high school]. The most surprising part of the tour for me was near the beginning where we went to the malting house and the malt (germinated barley) was just lying there on the cement floor. She told us about wetting the grain and then laying it out on the floors (Bowmore has three floors for this purpose). She walked right on to it and showed us how it is partially germinated when it is put down and then it is turned every four hours. [Other tours in further postings will describe other parts of this process.]

We picked up some groceries at the Co-Op in Bowmore and then went on to try to find our cottage. I never got directions. I didn't think to ask for them, and the estate office we rented from did not provide them. They must just assume we all know where it is. I wasn't too concerned since "Eallabus" is marked on my OS maps, but it is a label for a group of buildings. Which one is the cottage? In any case, I had an idea where to go, but I wasn't specifically sure. I had glimpses of fear of having to sleep in the car for two nights, not being able to find the cottage, and not being able to get to the estate office until it opened on Monday. Not to worry, Robin's navigational skills prevailed and, since we were well familiar with the pictures of the cottage from the website, we were able to find it without too much trouble. As promised, the keys were in the door.

It's a lovely place. It's just outside the small village of Brigend which is about 3 miles north of Bowmore. The cottage is part of a group of what look to be former farm buildings. It is tucked away amongst lovely plants and trees.



Today, sunday, our weather has also been good, so the cottage really does look like its promotional photographs. The road we're on sees hardly any traffic. While we've been "at home" we've seen probably less than 5 vehicles. We've also seen a mama bunny and her young one, and a fawn, as well as (what I can only guess, not being a practised birder, but having seen a picture on an information board) a blue tit (boys, insert your own joke here).

Today we slept in til after 11 and cooked ourselves a full breakfast before driving back to Bowmore to stock up properly on groceries for our week. The shop, the largest "supermarket" on the island, is pretty well stocked but has very narrow aisles; you're always in someone's way and vice versa. We have probably bought enough food to last us the week. Hopefully if we need anything else, we can pick it up at the small Spar shop in Brigend.

We went on a couple walks today, both close to home, so we could begin to get a sense of our neighbourhood. First one was to Skerolls Loch. This is only about 20 minutes away (by foot) from our cottage and has a couple row boats moored to a small dock. How nice if we could find a canoe somewhere to enjoy some time on the water! Perhaps we'll remember to ask when we stop in at the estate office tomorrow to pay our remaining balance of 14 pounds 16p.

Back home for crumpets with jam, then out again, this time in the other direction. Strange beaches around here, we haven't figured out why they're like this. The sand extends out for at least a couple hundred yards. And it's flat. As we were passing along the beach we saw in an inlet a family of swans! Mum, Dad, and 5 swanlings (help here on what baby swans are called). They are such elegant birds. We stopped and sat and watched them. Dad swam ahead and Mum stayed back with the little ones, dipping their heads in the water to eat what looked like seaweed. As we are watching this, believe it or not, a herd of cattle made their way from one end of the beach to another. It was so bizarre to see this along the beach. There were about 2 dozen cows and probably about as many (maybe a few less) calves.

And that was about all for our first day on the island. We walked home via the brewery; we'll probably go there tomorrow or the following day. We found a ruin of a watchtower and a sculptured stone nearby.



As we were making dinner we started hearing sheep noises so I went outside to investigate. Indeed several sheep had made their way (I don't know if they were herded or what) into the field about 50 feet down the road from us. As sheep do, they ran away when I approached.

We enjoyed our dinner of pasta even though the only spices we had were salt, pepper and some smoked garlic we got from tourist information in Balvaird.

The Sun Really Does Exist!

This post is from 29 May:

What a difference a day makes. The rain and cold finally broke, and we woke to clear blue skies. This was such a more welcome beginning than cold and rain. We had our brekkie, and walked down to the Eilean Donan castle. Unfortunately we were 30 minutes early for its 10am opening so we decided to skip it. Robin figured (and he's likely right) that the castle is prettier from the outside; it's probably full of mounted animal heads and portraits of old dead people. Fair enough.

Next to went to Glenelg to find the group of 3 brochs. The sun was pretty hot by now. There were lots of tufts of stray wool on the grass at the first broch and we started picking them up; some of it had poopies in though, so we skipped those. Somehow I fancy myself a wool spinner and am going to make myself some sort of garment out of the stuff (if it's not confiscated by Customs?).

One sheep had found her way inside the fence of the broch and was there when we arrived. She wasn't very happy having us show up! But she did get used to us or something after awhile; she even came close enough to me that I could pat her woolly head. That's a first!



After leaving the first broch, we walked down the road a bit and saw the 2nd one, but decided to head on to the 3rd. It turned out this was about a mile down the road and was a well-ruined ruin.

It was a good climb to get there, and it felt good to stretch the legs. After those exertions we walked back and explored the 2nd one.



Despite ourselves we keep photographing sheep.


The road to Glenelg is mostly single track and goes up some steep hills. Even though the 1st broch is 11 miles down the road, it takes at least 30 minutes to reach it.

We spent a good few hours in Glenelg. Once back on the main road, I started to get sleepy after not too long. The walk in the sun probably helped with that. I needed a nap! So we stopped off at one of the forest walk sites and had a rest under a pine tree near a stream. Robin decided to stay in the car where ticks were less likely to appear.

Refreshed, we got back on the road and soon stopped for lunch at the very nice Invergarry Hotel. We had a great lunch of leek and potato soup, grilled steak sandwich (NOT a cheesesteak), and a brie sandwich. Super yum!

From here I thought the rest of the trip to Tarbert would be quick because it was on green A roads. Not so. The going was still windy and slow. We got to Oban at about 6pm and got some gas. Then we stopped at Kilmartin at 7pm or so and saw a few ancient ruins. It was very nice to have an evening walk and to see some of these sites again. The last time I was here the area was crowded with tourists.

Now one the home stretch to Tarbert: only a half hour further. We're staying at a very nice B&B on the harbour; I've just had the best shower I've had all week.

Unfortunately we got here too late to have a cooked meal so we've had snacks in the room. Another cooked breakfast in the morning though and then -- hooray!! -- on to Islay!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

From 28 May:

Well, it is Scotland after all. But it was rainy most of the day. This got to be drag after awhile.

Today was meant to be a scenery day since we didn't have any historical or other remarkable sites to see. We took the roads closest to the coast; these are also slow roads. Many of them are single track with passing places. This means if you see someone coming towards you, either you or they need to stop at the nearest passing place. (The road resembles a snake that's digesting several rodents.) Even though everyone is generally very polite and each party gives a wave after passing, this charm wears off after stopping a few dozen times.

As it has been, the scenery was exceptionally striking for its vast and often barren beauty (barren of human evidence; often barren of trees). We took special care as we were driving through the area of Loch Laxford to find the roadcuts that contain Lewisian gneiss. We learned about the roadcuts here from the TV show How the Earth Was Made; Lewisian gneiss is folded into and appears above some sedimentary layers that are younger than the gneiss. Unraveling this geological mystery was the subject of the HtEWM episode. And indeed there are some very interesting examples of this type of folding.



We did see one castle: Castle Ardvreck on Loch Assynt. This is a small and minor structure, though it does have some interesting stonework. As with Dun Dornaigil the previous day, the center of the structure is filled with earth. Again I had to scramble up the wall and investigate. Thankfully getting up and down was not too treacherous this time, in comparison with yesterday's scaling of Dun Dornaigil. Since it was raining when we got out of the car, and I didn't want to get soaked through as I did yesterday at Urquhart Castle, I decided to don my rain trousers. What a great feeling to be covered from head to toe in water-resistant nylon! Nothing could stop me! Let's go! Even though we spent much of the day in the car I kept the rain trousers on the whole time. Just in case. And the day was cold enough that I did not overheat.

Pictures of Ardvreck Castle. The ruin from a distance:



A closer look:



Me, in full rain gear, looking out one of the upstairs windows:



By the time we arrived in Ullapool it had warmed up quite a bit. The highlight of this city was its yarn shop (there are surprisingly few of these to be seen in Scotland, one would think there would be more with all of the sheep). The shopkeeper is a lovely and eccentric woman who commanded me: don't knit with metal needles!! (Think Joan Crawford as a knitter.) One must always use wood! I spent way too much money on some beautiful yarn from Wales made from wood pulp, and a pattern for a casual jacket. But hey, lemme alone, I'M ON VACATION.

The weather was frustrating and I was feeling some frustration that we were spending so much time in the car when there were such gorgeous hills and trails to be walked, but Robin and I were endlessly cheered by seeing the sheep, and particularly their lambs near the side of the road. The lambs are probably a couple months old and they are still very attached to their mothers, always keeping by their side. Yesterday we saw a lamb that was on the other side of the road from his mum. We slowed down to take a closer look at him and he panicked when he saw our shiny metal box separating him from mom. I stopped then and seeing the opportunity he bolted across the road to be with her:



This was an incredibly endearing sight. The lambs have a mischievous look about them that reminds me of kittens. And we all know I can't resist kittens.



We finally arrived at our B&B for the night (our room is in view of a loch) at around 6:45pm, not long after the proprietoress phoned us to find out what was the hold up. (Thankfully Robin got himself a UK T-Mobile SIM card, so we have a local number.) We are a short walk from the Eilean Donan castle. This site has become a Scottish icon; its photograph is the subject of countless postcards, adorns the cover of many Scottish guidebooks, and is even the backdrop for the balloon in one of the BBC America spots.



We rewarded ourselves with another hearty dinner at a local hotel restaurant tonight, again including a pint of McEwan's 80/- and even a dessert of sticky toffee pudding.

Hoping for better weather (there are rumours of a mini heat wave) for tomorrow...

It's Smoo-licious!

[Wow! Two posts in two days! We're at the community centre in Port Charlotte again. Another sunny day, but a cool front is making its way down from the north, so we have some high cloud and slightly lower temperatures than yesterday. And some mist on the ocean. Can't see Ireland as clearly from our outside table today. Just back from an interesting tour at Kilchoman (kil-HOME-an) Distillery; more on that later. Belly (and head) still a bit warm from the dram... The post is from 27 May.]

Road fatigue. Starting to get tired. Especially after a pint with dinner at the pub, I'm feeling particularly tired.

We started the day at Urquhart Castle; first thing. We got there before all the coaches started arriving with their loads of foreign tourists. Rainy! We watched the clouds roll through the loch (Urquhart Castle is on Loch Ness and gets a lot of its tourism from the fact that some sort of monster was allegedly once seen in the vicinity). The setting is very peaceful and soothing, but we got well-soaked and a bit of a chill from all the rain. I didn't put on my rain trousers for the visit which I should've done. I didn't get as wet as I did during the hail storm yesterday, but we were out in it for a longer time. The castle, though, was lovely as ever (this was my third visit):



There was a guy wandering around the castle grounds in period attire (I'm not sure what period; Robert the Bruce period? Mel Gibson and Braveheart?). I gave him a perplexed "Hello" hoping he would tell me what he was up to, but no dice. Too early in the day for me to be amusing and take it any further, so I walked on. Robin couldn't think of an opener either. Another missed opportunity to show off our clever wits.

Hardly anyone was speaking English in the visitor's centre (lots of German, also Japanese). For some reason I really wanted some tacky Nessie souvenirs, particularly the ceramic thing I'd seen years ago -- Nessie in the water (how to describe this?) -- it's four ceramic pieces that when laid out on a flat surface look like a serpent half in/half out of the water (maybe a picture would do better here --- ha! got one:)



Everything at the Urquhart Castle shop is so posh now, so no fun for us (at least not in the mood I was in today). I did get Olivia a plastic knight's mask and sword. Every girl should have these things. I figured since she's worked that walking around with a blanket over your head is a giggle, she should enjoy tormenting her doggies with a plastic sword (sorry Jess!)

Thankfully we found some cheesy souvenirs in a shop in a nearby village. Now I'm all set for tacky Nessie stuff.

Next stop was Corrimony Chambered Cairn. Lots of cows with their calves in the field next door. Lots of mooing. This made Robin (aka 'City Boy') nervous even though there was a fence. Cows can't jump fences Robin. He settled in soon enough and enjoyed playing with his camera. I took pictures of cows, but after a little while decided that photographing livestock isn't very satisfying.

Here are a couple of my pictures of the cairn:





Livestock photography:




Lots of slow roads today. Single tracks with passing places. After the cairn we started to make our way north, on our way to Durness by way of Dun Dornaigil Broch. This is a remote site that I never made it to before: a long sought-after Historic Scotland site for me.

On the way a sign for a falls caught my eye, so I cajoled my navigator into taking a detour. It was not a long detour, and it was over narrow roads with hardly any traffic. I figured this would be a quaint stop-off with few or no other people around. Imagine our surprise when we arrived to find a sprawling complex that included mini golf, bbq pits, a cafe and an extensive shop that included a surfeit of Harrod's merchandise (Harrod's???). The falls were surprisingly small, nowhere near large enough to warrant their adjacent activity farm. Take a look for yourself:



Who are we to judge? We used their well-appointed toilets for a wee break, and I bought a sock for my phone in the shop (yeah, you have to see this. I think it's a Japanese thing. And it has my name on it! Hey! I'm on vacation!)

The road to Dun Dornaigil was slow, but it had some of the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen in my life. Hills and vistas and clouds and light and NO OTHER PEOPLE to crowd us or spoil the view. This is why I come here. My only regret is
that we haven't been out more exploring on foot. As usual I have bitten off more than I can chew in terms of distances to travel (yes Mahinda, you were right, I've tried to pack in too many miles into too short a time). My hope is that we will have more time for walking next week on Islay. I'm already planning our next trip here: walking the Western Higland Way, and climbing Ben Hope are two items on the list.



At Dun Dornaigil the entrance was blocked up, but my inner imp emerged and I managed to scale the wall to find that the interior was filled with earth and grass was growing on top (so we weren't shut out for safety reasons or other nonsense). Brochs are interesting to visit because they have a double wall structure. I was hoping to find this, and show it to Robin. While it was fun to climb the wall and imagine myself queen of all I surveyed, I didn't think through how I was going to get down. Thankfully my gallant companion again rose to the occasion and guided my feet a few steps until it was safer to jump down. He helped to break my fall and prevented me from falling into the ditch alongside the broch.

The broch from the outside:




Me, in repose, after satisfying my curiosity:



Robin took this picture of Loch Eriboll while we were in transit:



We finally arrived at our B&B a little after 6pm. Tired and hungry we went to the Smoo Cave Hotel for dinner. I had a sustaining meal of steak pie and chips (yummm) and a nice hearty pint of McEwan's 80/-, our new favourite ale. Feeling much better, but a little tipsy, we went to Smoo Cave. Making every bit of word-play on the name that we could think of (it works like "Smurf" did), the cave stunned us. It was unexpectedly vast and beautiful, with a falls hidden inside. Here are some views from in and around the cave:






Wondering where the hell that water was coming from, had to scale back up to find the source. A stream flowing down from the hills feeds the falls:



Thankfully the large hole in the cave that the falls, um, fall into is safely fenced off, though we are advised to not throw rocks down the hole, to avoid clocking visitors below on the head:



At 11:15 pm it was still twilight and didn't seem like it was going to get much darker. Ever.

Chasing Rainbows

[Hello Evereebodeee! Even though we've not been able to get internet connections very frequently of late, I have been writing every night ('cept Saturday May 30) so that my entries aren't coloured by hindsight. This entry is from 26 May. When I have some more time I will add the other days and add photos for what's already been posted.]

All day the weather has been so changeable. We'll have clouds and rain and then beaming sun. We started the day in Fort William, running a few errands first: getting phone cards and arranging accommodation for the night, as well as a trip to Boots where they always have so many nice things to buy that I can't seem to find at home.

On then to Inverlochy Castle. I'd been here before, in 2001. To me, it's not one of the more impressive castles because it's pretty well crumbled away, but since we were in the area I wanted Robin to see it. I couldn't get him out of there! He took dozens of photos. (I took the one below.)



And here's one of me: happy to be in Scotland, happy to be at a castle:



After awhile I decided to wait at the entrance and watch the clouds pass around the bens, notably Ben Nevis. There is something, I thought, about viewing this scenery that is good for the soul. So awesome, and so peaceful.

A fun thing about the changeable weather is that we're able to see the scenery (and take photos) in a variety of lighting conditions.

Once I was finally able to extricate Robin from Inverlochy we went to the Ben Nevis Distillery (this is a whisky trip too; wait 'til we get to Islay). Outside of the distillery, for whatever reason, were three Highland Cattle (phonetically: "heilan' coos"); the first we'd seen on this trip:



After a few obligatory photographs we went inside to find that the next (and last) tour was to be in more than an hour, at 2:15. They weren't very welcoming, and didn't even have toilet paper in their loo, so we decided to give this one a miss and move on to the town of Caol, rumoured to have a nice yarn shop.

Another bust. It was more of a second-hand shop with some yarn scattered here and there. Nothing you could really do anything with. Very disappointing.

On to lunch. Finally things started looking up. We had a nice pub lunch of salmon and chips and a nice slice of lemon meringue pie to finish. Then on to Neptune's Staircase and the Caledonian Canal for a long walk. Here's part of the path along the canal:




Unfortunately, my pint at lunch made me a little less than energetic for a walk. Then we took a detour -- very strange, there was water running under the water: An aqueduct. We took the path down and walked under the canal.



Once we'd crossed the canal from underneath we decided to walk back to the car along the canal path on the other side. We had a much better view of the bens on the way back and took more pictures. Then only minutes from the car, the skies opened up and we were pelted with hail!

Soaked through, we got back on the road, driving up along Loch Ness. We stopped at the Bridge of Oich (another Historic Scotland site). On approach Robin said it was crap, but he changed his mind once he had a closer look. (Here he is on the bridge.)



During much of the drive the weather was literally a mix of rain and sun (Scotland is the only place I've been where you can need your sunglasses on and your windshield wipers going at the same time) so a few times we got lovely views of full-arced rainbows. Robin took some pictures out of the car window:



Then we were able to get some better pictures at a parking place (there aren't that many of these) along the road.





After our long day of traveling we finally arrived at our B&B. For dinner we walked down to the local shop and got cheddar cheese and biscuits and wine, after which (since it was still light out at 8:30pm) we took the nearby Woodland Walk which goes close to Loch Ness, but not close enough to get good views.

We even got some wireless access at the B&B [where I posted the previous days' adventures]. Now time for sleep to ready ourselves for tomorrow!