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Published: October 12th 2022
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Adele and Me
Coincidence has thrown Adele and me together in so many far-flung corners of the world that we decided to make it an annual event. This is a continuation of my previous post
From Style to Soul.
Several months ago Adele, my travel buddy, and I hatched a plan to recreate last year's road trip around Iceland, but this time around the highlands of Scotland. Coming from Tucson, Adele is attracted to cool climates. In two months, she'll be spending the night on an Antarctic ice shelf (without me, thankfully). But there was another reason. After the war, Adele's father spent time in Inverness. He was so enchanted by it that he named his farm back home Inverness. It became a long-standing ambition for Adele to visit the place that inspired her father. (We did end up spending a few nights in Inverness. It had its charms, but in 2022 it's just another mid-size city filled with cars and kebob stands.)
The day after she arrived in Edinburgh we rented a Ford Focus and drove to the tiny town of Ullapool on the northwest coast. We were now far, far away from England. News of the Queen's death was a back-page story. Signs in the grocery store were in Gaelic with English translations below. It's not that the people were anti-English, like many of their
countrymen further south, it's just that England was too remote for them to even care. (We did hear a story of a woman in the next village who was shunned for celebrating the Queen's death.) From now on, every meal would be accompanied by black pudding, which to my ears sounded like pudding made out of dark chocolate but in fact is congealed sheep's blood that tastes like organ meat mixed with sawdust.
Driving
For the next week our little car would take us zigzagging back and forth across the Scottish Highlands. Sometimes we would be on single-lane roads with pullouts every half mile to let oncoming cars (also trucks, busses, tractors, etc.) pass. Other times we were on two-lane roads, but the lanes were incredibly narrow, and although more courteous than American drivers, the Scots drive fast. Every time a car whizzed past us I'd wince, pull to the left, and wait for our side-view mirrors to snap off. To make matters worse our car had a manual transmission, which meant that I had to shift gears with my left hand. On several occasions I accidentally shifted into reverse thinking I was shifting into fourth. Also, the
Coastal Mountain
View along the northern coast roads were usually wet, if not flooded, and there was always a flock of sheep around the next bend. Adele tried her hand at driving. The first time she became so stressed out that she stopped the car in the middle of the road, wandered into a field, and sat down on a rock to brood. Concerned, I called after her. "Adele? Are you okay?" No answer.
But our little car took us through beautiful country. The coastal road north of Ullapool followed rivers and stone fences. It took us past farmhouses, pastures, mountains, lakes, and waterfalls. Beyond the shore we could see the Summer Islands surrounded by sparkling ocean.
On the drive back to Ullapool, I noticed an unusual rock formation. It was jutting up from an island in a lake. It was dusk, so it was hard to make out. But then I realized that I was looking at the ruins of an old castle. I pulled off the road and we walked along a muddy sand bridge to the castle. There was a sign that read "Ardvreck Castle. It is an historic building, NOT a toilet. Thank you." But that was it. No fence, no
Ardvreck Castle
Built by Clan MacLeod in the 1400s, destroyed by Clan Mackenzie in the 1600s. ticket booth, no tourists, just the ruins of an old castle in the middle of nowhere. I could touch it, sit in it, climb it, anything, as long as I didn't pee on it.
There were many other roadside attractions. The road from Inverness to Glencoe hugged the shore of Loch Ness. We stopped at a "museum" where we were forced to watch educational videos. Apparently, not only is there no monster, there's barely enough food in the lake to feed more than a dozen salmon!
Many famous whiskey distilleries can be found along back roads, hidden away from 19
th Century tax collectors. We stopped at Glen Grant distillery for a tour and a taste. Since I was driving I had to take my samples in little bottles and promise that I wouldn't drink them until I got to my destination.
We made a point of stopping at roadside cafes for a coffee or a bowl of soup. The Hillbillie Cafe, Bookstore, and Trading Post recreated the ambiance of a Santa Cruz hippie coffee house. It featured Bob Marley Coffee and an impressive collection of books on mountaineering and feminism.
At an Indian restaurant in Ullapool,
Loch Ness
Loch Ness with Castle Urquhart in the foreground. Adele asked the waiter for hot tea. "Sorry Madam, no tea because of the Covid". He assured us that they served everything else on the menu. When we told him that it made no sense he just bobbed his head in circles and smiled.
We occasionally splurged. At a fancy restaurant in Inverness Adele ordered mussel pate and I ordered lamb rump (with a side of mashed peas). I could barely chew the meat. On the walk home, Adele doubled over with food poisoning-- details redacted.
At a cafe that stood next to an abandoned railroad tunnel, the waitress said she loved our accents. "We don't have accents," I said. "You have an accent!"
Glencoe
We spent most of our time in Glencoe, the mountaineering mecca of the UK. The area is dominated by the Three Sisters, three 3600' mountains that rise up sharply from the valley floor. By this time fall was getting more serious. There was some rain almost every day, but the low clouds hanging over the mountains made them look bigger. In a light drizzle, Adele and I hiked on the West Highlands Way, a 96-mile trail favored by serious trekkers. We
made it about three miles when we came across the Kings House Inn. We stopped for tomato soup and hard cider. The rain was beginning to fall harder so with only 93 more miles to go we decided to turn back.
Scotland's history is the history of fiercely independent clans that continuously battled each other when there weren't outsiders to battle. The Romans didn't want to have anything to do with them, so they built a wall and called it a day. Centuries later William Wallace (aka Braveheart), would defeat English interlopers and pave the way for the Stuarts, a Scottish dynasty that would rule Scotland and England for three centuries. A hiccup in the Stuart chain of succession resulted in the Jacobite Rebellion. Although the uprising was ultimately defeated by the English, there were still pockets of Jacobite resistance in the Scottish Uplands. In 1692 the king decided to make an example of Clan MacDonald of Glencoe resulting in the Massacre of Glencoe. Today there are monuments around Glencoe to the MacDonalds. There are other reminders, too. The Kings House Inn, where Adele and I slurped our soup, was built as a bunkhouse for the English troops pursuing
Turf House in Glencoe
This turf house was recreated by the historical trust the MacDonalds.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Highland roads...
I just returned from a couple of weeks touring 30 castles in Scotland. It was sunny every day! The only bad part was the narrow roads and driving a stick shift...just as you experienced it. Except I had a bad knee and every time I used the clutch I was in great pain...and I had to use the clutch every time I approached a blind hill of curve. Could I please add your picture of the Oncoming Vehicles sign to my blog? I had the same question you did...what should I do.