Chapter 14: The Highlands of Scotland

Ceud Mile Failte´

We leave our farmhouse B & B about a mile from the famous Victorian engineering marvel, the Firth of Forth Railway Bridge, and head north on the Motorway towards Perth and Blair Atholl. We are retracing the steps my travel companion, Cindy, took in the 1990s when she came to the UK with a group of Boy Scouts. As well, amongst the Scots in her heritage are the Murrays.

Our first stop is the town on Pitlochry, for some shopping, before touring the nearby Blair Castle.

Blair Atholl is the location of Blair Castle, the ancestral home for nineteen generations of the Stewarts and Murrays, first earls and then dukes. Blair Castle has evolved from draughty medieval castle to stately Georgian mansion to Victorian family home, and retains elements of these changes over the centuries. The 10th Duke Atholl was a life-long supporter of the Boy Scout Movement, and always opened the grounds to Scout Jamborees. Cindy wants Gary to see the place she has raved about for years. It is a wonderful location.

The castle is one part of the Atholl Estates, a 145,000-acre (58,725-hectare) tract including farmland, hill land, forestry, housing, industrial development and walking trails. There is opportunity for deer stalking, grouse shooting, and salmon fishing. There are five sporting and hunting lodges, plus a caravan park.





We cannot take photos inside and there is far too much to describe. But I particularly like several sights: the weaponry and Victorian baronial display is similar to what we saw at Edinburgh Castle. The Entrance Hall (redesigned in 1872) features beautiful ornamental armoury, not to mention the stuffed stag, "Tilt," who was kept on the castle grounds for 13 years. He died in 1850, and every year his annual antlers were mounted and hung in the hallway. (In fact, there are hundreds of antlers in Blair Castle.)

Another fabulous room is the Tapestry Room with the William & Mary State Bed, a gorgeously ornate bed with Spitalfields silk hangings and ostrich plumes. The reds are breathtaking in vibrancy. The bed was brought here from Holyrood House in Edinburgh by the first duke. The Atholl family's great fortune was to be able to afford to buy Charles Ist's Mortlake Tapestries when Cromwell ordered them sold following the king's execution.

The great Picture Staircase, hung with dozens of historic portraits, also features old narwhal tusks. There are 1700 pieces of china in the China Room, a remarkable display of embroidery created by Lady Evelyn Stewart-Murray, and hundreds of items collected by the family on display in the Treasure Room. The Ballroom, added to Blair Castle in 1876, is wonderful also, with displays of armour, stag's horns, the famous portrait by Edwin Landseer, Death of a Hart in Glen Tilt, and the portrait of musician Niel Gow by Sir Henry Raeburn. Gow's fiddling chair and fiddle are also here and the fiddle is brought out on special occasions. The Ballroom is still used for major clan and community events. In fact, Blair Castle is still in use. Sarah Troughton, half-sister of the 10th duke, lives here with her family, as she runs the castle and the estate as Trustee of the Blair Charitable Trust, created before he died in 1996. At that time the title fell to South African John Murray, but the Castle is now held in trust to be preserved and open to the public. The Atholl Highlanders, the only private army in Europe, marches annually in parade and is highly respected and admired. They were first raised in 1778 as a regular military regiment intended for fighting in the American War of Independence. That never happened. The current regiment dates from 1839, and was revived in 1966 by the 10th Duke of Atholl.

But the grounds around the castle are equally worth seeing, and we enjoy trekking about, admiring especially the beautiful trees, including giant larches and Douglas Firs and Sequoias.

The family motto: "Furth Fortune and Fill the Fetters."

Adjacent to Diana's Grove is St. Bride's Kirk. There has been a chapel here since the 12th century. The ruined building is the final resting place of the Scottish hero, Bonnie Dundee, who died at the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689. This is not someone famous, but I love the image of the stone encrusted in thick, green moss.

Below is the Hercules Garden, the 9-acre walled garden created in the 18th century and recently restored to its formal grandeur. It has landscaped ponds, flower beds, statues, a folly, and a Chinese Bridge. And ducks! Of course, it is late September and the flowers are mostly gone for the season, but it is still impressive.

We leave Blair Atholl and drive into the Scottish Highlands. Our itinerary has been suggested by our B & B hosts and they have proven correct in their suggestions. As we drive northwest we are increasingly impressed by the beauty surrounding us.

It is growing late, so we hurry on to Inverness, where we have booked a B & B on Ness Bank. Unfortunately, we get lost several times. We even find someone who gives us step-by-step instructions using her GPS. But once we find the next-to-last road is blocked and closed, we can no longer go ahead or recalculate a new route. Eventually, we telephone the landlady and she comes out in her Mini-Cooper to have us follow her home! Turns out we had been only a few houses away several times!

Our B & B, Mccrae House, on Ness Bank.

Inverness, within a short walk of our B & B: Clockwise: St. Andrew's Cathedral, The Inverness Townhouse, Eden Court Theatre (directly opposite our B & B) and Ness Bank Church of Scotland.

Inverness Castle, and the statue of the colourful Flora Macdonald, the Jacobite famous for her daring rescue of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Once again, we face a beautiful day, having been blessed with great weather so far.

In the morning, we enter the Great Glen, to follow Loch Ness south and to watch for "Nessie," the Loch Ness Monster. Loch Ness is 20 miles long, one mile across and 700 feet deep in spots. Loch Ness holds more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined.

Loch Ness has other stories to tell. Gary and I are fascinated by the daring of John Cobb, who became the first man to travel over 200 mph on water, when, in 1952, he broke the record on the Loch. Sadly, his speedboat 'Crusader' went out of control and disintegrated, killing Cobb. Recently, a Wellington bomber that had been forced to ditch in the Loch during WWII was located and recovered, well preserved in the frigid waters. It is now on display near London.

Not quite ready to go swimming--after all, "Nessie" lives in there somewhere!--I dip my feet in the water and keep my eyes peeled for a possible sighting! We stop at the Loch Ness Centre, below, but it is too gorgeous a day for indoor films and scientific explanations of the lake's geology, so we opt to just look at its beauty, instead.

On the point is Urquhart Castle, abandoned in the 1600s. Although I never get to see "Nessie," who was reported first in 565 AD, I am satisfied with various images, such as the realistic one at Drumnadrochit.

In Port Augustus, we spend an interesting hour following a sailboat down from the Caledonian Canal, designed by Thomas Telford, into Loch Ness. The Caledonian Canal joins various lochs together from Inverness to Fort William.




After leaving the locks we stop to take a closer look at the Suspension Bridge over the River Oich, at the edge of Lochaber. This is a fascinating, innovative bridge. Because it is double-cantilevered, each half can support its own weight. At the middle of the bridge then, there is little weight to support so the builder, James Dredge, tapered the chains to almost nothing, thus reducing the overall weight. The bridge replaces one swept away by floods in 1849. Boats coming down the Caledonian Canal pass through a more modern revolving bridge that swings away to allow passage.

The Falls of Invermoriston, with first, the Telford Bridge, and next, the summer house over the gorge.

By the time we reach Fort William, rains and heavy mist have set in. We don't even see Ben Nevis, but things clear some after we have lunch at Glencoe Village and drive into the most beautiful glen in Scotland. The sights speak for themselves. Beautiful, even when covered in mists, perhaps more so! The Coire Gabhail, a secret glen, also known as The Lost Valley, was the scene of the infamous maasacre of Macdonalds by government troops in 1692. The glen is entered through a narrow defile following a tree-lined gorge. The landscape then opens into pastures where a thousand head of cattle stolen from the lowlands.

We had booked a B & B for the night in the seaside Victorian town of Oban. We drive to the west coast after leaving Glen Coe, and find our place for the night (near the Oban Distillery), have supper at a good restaurant called Cuan Mor, and poke about the town, a bit more run down than we had expected. One highlight is McCaig's Tower, built by John Stuart McCaig, a banker who saw it as a way to memorialise his family and to provide winter work for skilled workers from 1895-1902. The Romanesque monument is also known as McCaig’s Folly, but gives excellent views of the Isle of Mull.
On our way southeast in the morning we stop to photograph a herd of red deer and enjoy more mountain and glen scenes.

We now drive along Loch Lomond, and poor Gary & Cindy must cringe as I sing the famous highland song:

By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes,

Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond

Where me and my true love were ever wont to gae,

On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.
Chorus O ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road,

And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.

But me and my true love will never meet again,

On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.

We have miscalculated our travel time, and when we get lost at the end of Loch Lomond, the person who "helps" us tells us we have two more hours to go to reach the airport. That will mean we are an hour late. Cindy doesn't worry at all, Gary drives as fast as he dares, and I sit quietly and fret! The good news is that the time was simply incorrect. But we hurry past Stirling, snapping a photo of Stirling Castle, where in 1297 William Wallace directed his great victory over the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

We are near the airport when we discover a new problem. We did not gas up, and the warning light comes on 38 miles from Edinburg Airport; then it starts flashing six miles away, only ten minutes from when we should be there: suddenly we find an Esso, buy two gallons of petrol, and make it to the check-in on schedule! Whew! Tonight, Dublin, Ireland, via Aer Lingus.

"Haste Ye Back!"