Adventures in the Wild North

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Traumatised by the words up and hill and long walk, (things you don't want to hear mixed in amongst directions to your hostel, especially when you've been awake since 5am and have already had one long hike and a never-ending bus ride,) I was relieved to discover the predicted twenty minute slog up a ridge was actually nothing more than a slightly inclining five minute trot through the Inverness town centre. Thank goodness, because otherwise I may just have lain down in the centre of the road and called it home!

It was the 21st of October and the end of the road for the National Express Pass, but I was far from feeling adrift. Rather than making plans, I was ready to relax, and I soon knew I'd landed in exactly the right place. The strangely named Inverness Student Hotel felt like home immediately. The staff were like rowdy flatmates who just happened to be in charge of a hostel. My early start had delivered me at lunchtime and the rooms were not yet ready, but for the first time in a month there was no pressure to get moving, and I was more than happy to plonk myself into an armchair in the cosy lounge. I curled up with my pick of books from the well stocked bookshelf - a position which I left only to explore dinner options in the town centre, and to which I returned most evenings of my stay in Inverness.

Elgin

The following day I went on pilgrimage to the cathedral town of Elgin, which lies about a third of the way between Inverness and Aberdeen. Feeling oddly like I should be dressed in green, (ah, those fond school memories!) I glued myself to the bus window as we sped along the coast, past haymakers working the golden fields.

Elgin is a small town, with a large Tescos and a long history. The Cathedral sits in green fields at the eastern end of the town centre. Even partly collapsed it’s a beautiful building, and it would have been stunning once upon a time. Many of the window arches are still complete, vaults of delicate stone tracery.

The surrounding (and in some places, enroaching) graveyard is so crammed with ornate markers and monuments that it's necessary to step on some of the graves in order to walk through it, but I couldn't stay away. The lion's share of the gravestones were marked with fascinatingly morbid memento mori icons, and as I wandered I wondered what the people under them had been like, and what they would think of their modern visitors. I felt mean enough walking on them, but other explorers had no such consideration, and I'm still not sure the game of hide and seek which raged unchecked was wholly appropriate behaviour...

Loch Ness

Inver meaning "mouth" in Scotch Gaelic, Inverness literally means "estuary of the Ness", and one of the most famous bodies of water in the world needs little introduction. Having perused the hostel's wonderful display wall of newspaper articles, research and scientific evidence, I was primed and ready for a monster hunt.

We hadn't gone far south of the town when the view over the water opened out on the left. The loch is narrow, and to eyes still used to the ebb and flow of an ocean tide, it appears very full. Trees grow right down to the water line, and when we drew alongside there was hardly any wind ruffling the water's smooth, black surface. It certainly looked like a lake with secrets.

Many of the tourist operations on the loch are operated out of Drumnadrochit, a tiny village halfway down the western shore. I booked my place on a loch cruise as soon as I jumped off the bus, then attended the much vaunted exhibition, Loch Ness 2000. It’s a visual show which progresses on screens through a series of themed rooms, covering the history of the loch and Nessie sightings dating back to 550 AD. Although a wee bit clunky, the show did a fairly good job of presenting the scientific measurements and studies which have been carried out, but the conclusion it draws - that it's impossible for monster to exist in the loch - doesn't tally with the number of monster hunters who continue to visit the lake, and in some cases carry out their own research.

Musing over belief in monsters, I boarded the Nessie Hunter with several other curious tourists. We were skippered by George Edwards, a monster hunter of some renown who captured a picture of the monster nearly thirty years ago. A local who was skeptical of Nessie's existence until his own first sighting, Edwards has served on the Loch Ness coastguard (it is the only inland body of water in Britain with its own coastguard), assisted in several surveys of the Loch, and in 1989 discovered the deepest point, now known as Edwards Deep. He believes wholeheartedly that there is a Nessie family, for as he says, if you believe in the monster, you must believe there is more than one of them. How could one creature have lived for the full 1,500 years of recorded sightings?

The Nessie Hunter is the only tourist boat which carries sonar, and as we swung around a short circuit of the lake, we could see its amazing shape on the sonar display screen. It's incredibly deep, but has an almost perfectly flat bottom. The sides are so steep that the boat got within ten metres of shore before it got even as shallow as 298 feet - which is still amazingly deep! But however interesting the information they showed, the screens remained stubbornly free of any mysterious monster-shapes, and very shortly we were back on shore.

Having seen Urquhart Castle from the water, I decided to walk around by road and go over the ruins. A half hour walk from Drumnadrochit, the castle is under the protection of Scotland’s National Trust, who have played Scrooge with the view, covering the bank above the castle with tightly planted trees and fences so the ruin is not visible from the road. However opposed one is to their treatment of the hillside, it has to be admitted that the Trust have done a lovely job with the new visitor's centre. An excellent display gives the history of the castle and the rebellion which caused its destruction (the army blew it up as they retreated during the Jacobite Wars, so their enemy could not use it.)

While I was in the castle the sun came out, and the loch was transformed. The still, brooding lake certain to hold any number of monsters morphed instantly into a scenic idyll, a place to picnic and play. I felt the belief fading, even as I looked out from the battlements, in one last fruitless scan for Nessie.

The Northernmost Point

One of the curious characteristics of the traveller is the desire to collect experiences, and sitting in Inverness I was no different. I was the furthest north I had ever been in my life - but wouldn't it be nice to go as far as I could? I'd been to the southernmost tip of mainland Britain on this trip, (see Off to see the Lizard!) and now within reach of the northernmost point, I felt almost honour bound to go there, too. The problem was organising it - there were no hostels up that way, so an overnight trip was out of the question, but with the onset of winter, public transport was much reduced. After much comparing of timetables, I found that it was possible to take a seven am train north, catch a bus to John O'Groat's and spend fifteen minutes there before reversing the journey and arriving back in Inverness well after dark.

So I hired a car. It was the first time I had driven since the dear Corollamatic of Jenny & Ju fame, and as that was a year and a half previously I was a little nervous driving out of the hire place in the little silver Renault. A few circuits of an industrial area while trying to find the route north set me right, and buzzing north along the coast, reliant on no one but myself, felt like I was on holiday!

John O'Groats is not actually the northernmost point of Scotland - Dunnet Head, slightly to the west, has the honour, but it's accessible only on foot, and although my gas guzzling personal transport had bought me more time, it would not be enough to hare off on a hike before darkness fell. I fell in line and made the traditional stop my target.

The scenery on the way up was spectacular. Blue sky above stark cliffs, rolling hills of heather and the sparkle of the sea - all very magical, all so very Scottish. Unfortunately John O’Groats was rather a letdown after such scenic feasts. A bare, windswept tourist spot, with shabby, mostly vacant stalls, it reminded me strongly of Four Corners in the US. Of course, it may have a completely different atmosphere in summer, when the ferries to the Orkney Islands are running and the guesthouses are open, but it was a sorry looking spot the day I visited.

Stepping through the museum and the giftshops, I soon come to the conclusion that this is the mythical place that time forgot. In the days of the dutchman who gave the settlement his (scotsified) name, it was a small but bustling trade centre, and headquarters of the string of lighthouses along the coast. Now the lights are automated and the trade is only in tourists - but it's struggling even with that: even the largest gift shop was displaying souvenir video cassettes of the area - narry a DVD in sight.

A walk on the jetty and along the beach a way intensified the remoteness. The wind whipped the sulky grey water, and I could just see the hazy lumps of the rugged, isolated Orkney Islands. I drove the two miles further east to gain a better view from Dunscansby Head. From the viewpoint by the Duncansby Head Light, a lighthouse on an outlying Orkney Island can be seen. Following the track from the Light southwards, a twenty minute walk brought me to the incredible Duncansby Stacks, like huge teeth thrusting out of the water.

Setting off in the gathering dim, my day was completed with a hairy coo sighting, and I drove back to Inverness singing joyful duets with the car radio.

The Black Isle and Inverness

The return point for my little car was so close to The Black Isle (actually a peninsula, not an island, but hey) that I decided I may as well explore while in the vicinity. Until the Kessock Bridge was opened in 1982, access was by ferry, and I counted myself lucky to be able to walk there, scoring two days in a row not controlled by transport timetables! It was still quite early in the morning, but the sun was rising as I crossed, and the water looked very cold and hard swirling under the high bridge.

The Black Isle is known locally as a nature reserve, but I had too little information and was visiting at entirely the wrong time of year to get the best of it. The dolphin visitor centre, where I'd hoped to find out more, was closed for the winter - but nobody told the dolphins, for there were two of them splashing about just off the beach below.

I spent some time trying to gain a photo, but dolphins can move amazingly fast! No sooner had I seen a splash and focused on the area than another splash would come from a completely different direction. After a few minutes the pair zoomed off towards the bridge, far faster than I could run along the shore. A local who had been following their progress with an extremely impressive camera (my father would have been salivating over the lens!) told me the pair are mother and calf, and come up the river most days for quiet feeding before rejoining the rest of their family in wilder waters.

I tried to follow one of the trails posted on the visitor centre info board, but it seems that a circular walk in Britain literally means walking in circles. When the path ended in someone's back garden I voted the walk unsuccessful, but I walked back to the bridge along the water, conquering a rope swing along the way.

To get back to town I had to brave the bridge once more, and I don’t know what the difference was, but this time I was absolutely terrified. I had a strong conviction that I would be blown off, or one of the speeding trucks blasting meters away would knock me off, or that I would go mad and jump. I actually felt sick and dizzy, and found myself clenching my fists and willing myself to keep walking. This was my first experience of vertigo, and since I had been happily leaning over the rail of that same bridge only a few hours before, it was all the more confusing.

Safely back in town, I wandered the banks of the Ness, looking at local buildings. Inverness is a friendly town, and it was already beginning to feel like home - but my traveller's spirit was refreshed, and a bus trip to the Isle of Skye beckoned!

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Photos

On the road
My favourite entertainment on a bus trip (apart from just watching the scenery go by) is taking pictures and seeing what the camera catches.

Mighty towers
Elgin Cathedral

Promontory
Urquhart Castle. From Drumnadrochit Bay, Loch Ness.

To the ends of the loch
In the centre of Loch Ness, directly out from Drumnadrochit.

On the sonar
The flat line is the bottom of the lake, and the wiggly line running steeply upwards on the right of the screen is the bank, which Skipper Edwards is steering us towards.

Strong defenses
Approaching Urquhart Castle from the visitor's centre.

Duncansby Stacks
Jagged rock teeth and sheer cliffs against the sunset. (Looking south west.)

Don't mind if I do!
Everyone knows what rope swings are for...

Kessock Bridge from the Inverness Shore
Back on solid ground after my first experience of vertigo - not something I'm in a hurry to repeat.

Haymaking
Along the road between Inverness and Elgin. Bales of all different shapes - rolled, bricked, and some elongated parcels that looked like nothing so much as giant's weet-bix!

Skeletal frame
Elgin Cathedral

Charming reminder
Just one example of the many somber grave markers at Elgin Cathedral.

When skies are blue
Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle in the afternoon sunsine, from the highest part of the castle.

John O'Groats Hotel
Seen from the jetty.

Roiling waters
The Firth of Beauly, as seen from the Kessock bridge, at eight thirty in the monring in winter.

There be dolphins!
I managed to snap one fin rising out of the water (slightly right of centre.) Inverness is in the background, across the firth.

Kessock Bridge
Inverness is to the left, the photo is taken from the Black Isle (on the right.)

Inverness underwater
The Ness was so full it was swallowing its banks!