So we did it. Skye in a day. We decided late last night, while we had a fire on the beach, that since the weather was so good – we would try to see as much of Scotland as we could. We decided that we would drive back down glensheil, and then along Loch Ness to Inverness, and then decide where to go from there. Driving back through glen sheil takes far longer the it seemed to coming – it's amazing how quickly the brain will get bored when it has seen something before, or overdosed on beautiful vistas the day before.
Through past Invergarry, we get down to Loch ness. We are back to civilization: you can tell by the slow tourists struggling round loch side windy roads. Even though it is still pretty nice weather, Loch ness has a thick layer of mist hovering over it. I think the Scottish tourist board get up early in the morning and put it there, cos it adds so much atmosphere, and you can see how the tourists are attracted by the stories of Loch Ness and Mysticism.
Apart from getting out at Blair Drummond and lapping up the tourist tack, the biggest attraction on Loch Ness is Castle Urquart. Castle Urquart has obviously once been quite a fortress. It is now ruins. You can see from the footprint and remains, that the castle was quite big, it also sits on loch ness so can look in both directions along a major waterway.(Now the Caledonian canal). It was destroyed, like many castles, in 16?? to prevent it becoming a Jacobite stronghold.
I'm never sure what is better as a tourist attraction – a ruined castle or an immaculately preserved castle. I always find the ones which have become country houses a bit boring. When you are a kid, ruins get your imagination running much better. You feel like a ruin has seen some real action, and you can imagine a knight falling during the last battle of the castle when it was destroyed. It probably didn't happen lik this, but I'd like to think that it did. Maybe my love of grunge, and the imperfection of slightly broken things is derived from years of running around ruined castles with a plastic sword having the opportunity to interpolate more than one possible past or reality. Ah! - The joys of ambiguity.
This castle, because of it's location, is full of tourists and costs £6, so we don't stay that long. Its strange how some castles become huge tourist attractions while others sit quietly as ruins, enjoyed by locals and people who happen to come across them by accident. I remember how annoying it must have been for my father as we always wanted to stop at every castle we saw from the car driving round scotland. I imagine him taking detours to avoid the thousands of castles around scotland in order to make it to the destination.
So we drive onwards, stopping in Blair Drummond to refuel with Diet coke, dr. pepper and water. Its onwards to Inverness now. I'm really enjoying the drive. We are in good spirits, singing along to the radio and generally enjoying a 2 day sightseeing drive of Scotland
By the time we get to Inverness – the weather is a bit grotier. We think about driving all the way up to Ullapool, so that we can see more Scotland, but we soon realise by looking at the map that it's a boring drive with not much benefit at the end. We decide instead to go the long way home through Aberdeen, as we had never been there before. Before we can go to Aberdeen, we decide to stop off at another Scottish Landmark. Culloden.
Culloden is the site where a battle took place in 1746 which once and for all took independence from Scotland and was the last battle in mainland Britain. 5000 Scots from various clans known as the Jacobites. They were the supporters of the Stuart dynasty of kings in Scotland. They were led by their best chance for the throne – a small Italian called Bonnie Prince Charlie. Culloden was the site where 5000 hairy Scotsmen met 9000 english soldiers, and were killed. It was more of a massacre than a battle, with very bad planning and preparation by the Scots. I say Scots, the correct term is Jacobites, cos there were as many Scots on the English side as there were on the Scots. As with most Scottish history its a bizarre web of catholics, protestants, unionists, nationalist, nutters, hairy people and kilted people. The French also helped out the Scots as is our age old agreement.
So we find ourselves entering Culldoen. It is full of tourists. Even just the feeling of the place sends strange chills up your spine. It's a rough moor – not the ideal place to defend your nations independence. We don't stay for long, as it's a very strange experience being somewhere, where you can almost smell ghosts of your ancestors (even if you don't believe in them), while listening to American tourists ponder why they haven't renewed the gravestones for each clan which line the path, and mark where the burial ground were separated. You kind of walk along this path, and eventually get to a cairn which looks over the centre of the battle field.
I can't really describe how this feels. Although the Scots are proud of their nation, and talk endlessly about it drunk. We don't often take the time to get this close to it's history. I've been to the monument's at Ypres as part of the school trips, and all I remember is a warm day with many many tourists, and a big list of names on a monument, but when you are standing on the field, it just hits you. We left quickly, because the compulsion to ask a group of loud English tourists for a rematch became quite strong. As we leave, we take a nice photo of an old Scottish croft.
Whether this has been recreated for the tourists or is original – I'm not sure.
After a quick stop off in Nairn for lunch, we now drove to Aberdeen, as a long scenic road home. It may be that we have now overdosed on Scotland, or it may be that this was a too long a route for a short cut, but about half way along the road to Aberdeen we start to get a bit bored. The scenery is nice enough. Rolling hills similar to Ayrshire, the odd view of the coast. The weather is deterioirating.
Finally we get to Aberdeen, where we have a quick look around. The quick look a round involves a very windy beach, and Pitodrie(Aberdeen Football club's stadium)
Its now the home leg all the way home. This is much easier as it is Motorway almost all the way. The weather gets more familiar(What a roundabout way of saying raining), before we stop off in Perth fro a wonderful fish and chips. It comes from Chinese take away, so the batter is just slightly sweet. The chips are perfection – and it is a wonderful way to round off a very long but enjoyable 2 days(well 2 and a half) on the road in Scotland.
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