Bonny Scotland

27 May 2007

We left York and headed north on the A road through the Yorkshire Dales and Moors National Parks. Driving along the A or B roads is like taking the back roads through the countryside rather than the motorways (freeways in our lingo) the views are spectacular - when you can see them, that is! All along the roads are either hedgerows or rock walls obscuring your vision down to a green-lined, grey ribbon along the roads. As we drive through the Moors and the Dales we catch glimpses across oceans of green or bright yellow fields with zephyrs gently playing across the crops. White sheep with black faces and playful lambs dot emerald quilts, patch worked with stone fences. The parks are certainly different to our own but still very beautiful.

I forgot to tell you when we drove to York from Cambridge we stopped at Sherwood Forest near Nottingham. It's an amazing forest of senescing oak trees. Not surprising that they are nearing the end of their life really -they are so old! Some are over 1000! The oldest of them all was this tree named The Major Oak - it's giant spreading limbs held up by steel struts and supports that somehow manage to steal it's dignity. This tree was said to have hidden Robin Hood at some time or another - maybe when he was evading the Sheriff of Nottingham.

We arrived in Edinburgh in peak hour so it was complete chaos driving into the city, particularly as we didn't have a map. We soon worked out where we were, using all our tracking skills, and made our way across the cobbled streets to our apartment. We stayed 3 days - spent the first exploring Edinburgh, including walking up the high hill from the river to the castle. The Scots of old were a warring lot and all the interpretation at the castle is devoted to battles, wars, war heroes and weapons. A bit confronting - no wonder Hadrian built a wall to keep the Scots out of Britain in Roman times. Edinburgh itself is an amazing city if not a bit drab. The buildings are very beautiful but all soot covered. I guess it gets cold and coal fires are absolutely necessary.

The second day we took a drive up north to the highlands. First we fang across the Firth of Forth to Fife - that is we drove across the harbour bridge to Fife. The harbour is named the Firth of Forth! In fact there's a few forths around Scotland.

The scenery was spectacular and uniquely Scottish. Amazing leafy forests then on to huge heather covered mountains. Ric and I practice our Scottish accents on all the road signs but manage to sound Irish or even Italian - we are both easily amused. Our first stop was at Pit Lockry where we checked out a fish ladder for the salmon that need to swim upstream beyond the power station to spawn. Somehow they work out they have to swim through a maze of tunnels and ponds to get upstream. There was a glass wall on one of the ponds and a counter - none were in there though. I saw a huge salmon jump below the weir wall.
We drove on to Blair Athol - and then down a lime green, ancient tree lined avenue which revealed the beautifully white washed, fairy story Blair Castle. The entrance hall is terrifyingly completely bedecked with hundreds of weapons of every type in every space on the 4m high walls. Muskets, crossbows, knives and spears are all arranged in geometric patterns. I asked the man if was a new exhibit and he assures me all entrance halls of castles and halls (huge houses) are similarly fitted out from their inception. It's meant as a show of strength to visitors and I guess easy to grab a gun if you need to quickly respond to trouble. And it seems there was a lot of trouble in Scotland over the years! The rest of the castle is crammed with artefacts and furniture and ancient family portraits that put our piddling, short lived history to shame.

We continue on to Bruar's - the Harrods of Scotland. It's quite unexpected to find a David Jones-esque food hall in the countryside of northern Scotland. Lunch is Haggis and neaps - a mince of who knows what and mashed turnips. Very tasty! From here the landscape changes markedly to soaring mountains covered with low shrubs - heather to be accurate and on the very tops little remnant drifts of snow. We stop near a tiny stream and taste the water that has run down from the heavens. There is water everywhere, the vegetation is all peatish and waterfalls cascade from on high every few minutes along the road. The amazing thing is you can smell the heather - the tiny white flowers subtly perfume the air all around with a faint honey and baby powder fragrance. Amazingly there are walkers everywhere. They brave the elements (it was showering) and walk up hills that rival even Kosciusko. We are suitably impressed.
I guess that's all for now - finding a computer is harder than I imagined hence the space between correspondence!