ADVENTURES IN SCOTLAND - 2001

Alicia McClelland

PART 2

Saturday, 6 October 2001

Although I was tired & the room was quiet, I was unable to fall asleep. I dozed some during the night, but didn't get any quality sleep. I'd set my alarm for 7a so we could get on the road by 8a, but when I looked at my clock and saw that it was 6:15a, I decided I might as well get up and take my shower before a line formed for the shower room. (Getting up before the alarm is something I never do at home!)

My roommates were still in bed when I returned from the showers, so I tried to quietly finish getting ready in the dark. I heard snoring coming from my corner of the room but was confused, since Beth doesn't snore (she had the bunk above me). Finally, I figured out that the sound was coming from the room next door (other side of us from the previous night's noisy neighbors). Talk about thin walls and no soundproofing! The hostel is only a couple of years old. Obviously, the people who designed it and ordered the materials don't sleep in them.

After catching breakfast at the hostel, we headed out. Since the weather wasn't cooperative Friday afternoon when we'd arrived in Inverness, we hadn't been able to do any sightseeing. Backtracking and heading east for a few miles, our first stop was Culloden Moor, the battlefield where Bonnie Prince Charlie and his men were soundly defeated by the English in a 68-minute rout (thus ending Charlie's designs on restoring the Stewart monarchy to the throne). We watched a short movie about Culloden's history, then headed out to explore. They use sheep to keep the trees and brush from getting out of hand on the moor, and to my surprise (thinking of the recent hoof & mouth problems in the U.K.), we were allowed to wander through the same fields as the sheep. A flock of black sheep was resting by the side of the trail we were walking, and we passed them by from mere feet away.

Clava Cairns, just down the road from Culloden, was our next stop. These are 3 cairns close together. The sites were free and we were able to walk into the centers of the round cairns. The cairns gave Beth and I an idea for what my dad could do on his land on the side of a mountain in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. The land seems to "grow rocks", so this would be an interesting use for them. It also might give archaelogists a puzzle in a thousand years.

One of the places I was interested in seeing was Cawdor Castle (the 14th century home that was the setting of a book I read as a teenager), near Nairn. It is also reputedly MacBeth's castle. Since we were so close, we decided to drive by and at least see it from the outside. We stopped at a Tourist Information Center on the way and were told that there weren't separate tickets available for the grounds only (we weren't sure if we could spend enough time to justify the ?.10, but we stopped anyway). For once, we were in the right place at the right time . . . they were letting everyone in for free that day. Cawdor Castle was the only castle we saw that had a moat (a dry moat, in this case).

Passing back by Inverness, we proceeded north up the coast, stopping in the Dornoch Firth area. Beth wanted to check out the Dornoch Cathedral. , originally built in the 13th century and rebuilt between 1835-37.

Our next destination was Dunrobin Castle, 1 mile north of Golspie. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to tour the inside, but we did wander around part of the grounds. It was quite windy (and the castle is located right on the coast of the North Sea), so we didn't wander around the gardens, which were quite grand.

The afternoon was waning, so it was time to make a run up the coast to our destination for the night: Wick. All went well until we got to the intersection with the A9 near Latheron. The road was blocked with signs saying "Police Accident." Now what?!

We had 2 options . . . (1) Take the long way on the dual carriageways (one lane each direction) by going up the A9 2/3 of the way to Thurso, then back down the A882 to Wick. (This is basically a triangle with our planned route encompassing one side of the triangle and the detour being to take the other two sides.) Or, (2) We could gamble on two accounts: First, hope that if we took the first road (a single carriageway -- a one lane road with several wider "passing places" per mile) that it would bring us out north or the accident (the road intersects the A99 at Lybster) and second that we wouldn't meet anyone at a spot where we couldn't pass.

We crossed our fingers and took the shorter (and riskier) of the two options. Although it was getting dark, luck was with us . . . we didn't meet anyone we couldn't pass and we did come out north of the accident. Whew!

Our destination was the guest house (B&B) in Wick recently purchased by my friend, Donna, and her husband. Donna and I met in fifth grade in Virginia and became best friends. We lost track of each other after high school and didn't meet up again until she found me on classmates.com twenty years later. I'd been looking for her, but she wasn't registered on classmates.com when I'd looked, and with a maiden name of Smith, I didn't have much hope of finding her elsewhere. Donna had married John, a Scotsman from Ayr, and they were living in Manchester, England with their six kids (four girls and two boys). Last year she'd informed me that they were trying to buy a guest house in the Highlands, and in early August she sent word they'd got it and would be moving the last weekend of the month.

Beth and I had been talking of a trip to the U.K. for a decade or more, and had gotten as far as me getting my passport in '94 (she'd had hers for years). Unfortunately (for the trip) and fortunately (that we hadn't yet spent any money on the trip besides my passport) I was laid off from my job that year. The job I accepted was working on a large, week-long charity event that was scheduled for about six weeks after our proposed trip, so there was no way they would let me have a week or so off that close to the event. I worked for the charity for two years, so couldn't afford a trip abroad. In the years since, it's been a matter of money, work schedule, or mom's health, so 2001 arrived and we still hadn't made our trip. So, when Donna shared her news, we decided to "go for it" and in late August with Beth on her computer in Virginia and me on mine in Los Angeles, we coordinated our timing and purchased tickets online. (The challenge was making sure that we both got on the same flight, since I was flying from LAX to Dulles, where we hoped to fly together to the U.K.) We got our tickets and continued making our plans. The tragic events of the attacks on America on 11 September took our attention away from our planning, but didn't dampen our desire to make the trip.

So, back to the events of 6 October . . . To my surprise several weeks before we left, I found that their guest house* (Harbour Guest House) was listed in the "Scotland" guide that Beth had given me (it had been a guest house for some time, although vacant for the past two years -- the guide was published in '99). There was even a map of Wick (it has maps for only a handful of the towns listed) and they were even on the map. So, we found them without too much trouble.

I knocked at the door and a teenage girl answered (it turned out to be Donna's second eldest, Rebecca). This was the first time Donna and I had seen each other in 23 years. We were welcomed like long lost family and soon had a crowd of kids around us . . . they'd anxiously been awaiting our arrival.

Donna had told me they'd have company (friends in town for the Wick Heritage Festival) if we arrived early evening. After dinner, we spent time with the family before it was bedtime for the kids. Once they were in bed (not an easy endeavor with six kids ranging in age from six to 15 years), we chatted with Donna and John. John headed for bed by 11p and Beth shortly after midnight. Donna and I played "catch up" until after 2a (and me having had virtually no sleep the night before).

*Harbour Guest House is open for business and can be contacted by phone at +44 01955 603276.

Sunday, 7 October 2001
Wick, Caithness, Scotland

Since I hadn't crawled into bed until 2:30a, it was all too soon when the alarm went off at 7:30a. I had hit snooze a couple of times when there was a knock at my door. To my response of, "Come in," in bounded 6-year-old Connor, who promptly crawled into bed with me (cold feet and all). We chatted and snuggled for a few minutes, then I decided it was time to start the day.

While I got ready, Connor joined Beth in her room. He crawled into her bed, tho she wasn't in it. Finally, we were ready to head downstairs.

After breakfast, Beth and I went sightseeing while the Loughlins prepared for day two of the Wick Heritage Festival, which their church was participating in.

Donna kindly led us out to Old Wick Castle and provided directions to two other castles nearby. All three castles were right on the rocky coast of the North Sea. At Wick Castle, we parked in the car park and headed for the castle. The ground was a mire in places, and at one point Beth and I thought we were going to lose our shoes when we each started sinking where we stood. Finally, we took to the rocks and made our way to the ruins of the castle, which took up the entire spit of land it was situated on; cliffs were on three sides.

Leaving Castle Wick (which is south of town), we headed north of town to Castles Sinclair and Girnigoe, stopping on the way to look down on the picturesque little harbor of Staxigoe.

The castle ruins were right at the edge of the cliff. The eastern wall of Castle Sinclair forms one continuous surface with the cliff face below. After a long walk from the car park (along a gravel path this time, thankfully), we scrambled among the ruins. In fact, we were able to wander through most of it.

We kept looking up the coast to try and figure out where Castle Girnigoe was. We later found out that the single tower on the site was Castle Girnigoe and the larger ruin adjacent was Sinclair. They're literally built only a few feet apart.

Unfortunately for me, I had camera trouble 2/3 of the way through the roll I was shooting at the castles. It rewound itself automatically so I forfeited eight or more potential photos. Changing rolls, the problem worsened. It sounded as if the camera was eating the film, and that roll rewound itself after only about eight photos (out of 24).

Crossing my fingers, I put in another roll. Again, the camera sounded as if it were eating the film, but the numbers were advancing, so only time will tell if the pictures turn out. It did make it all the way to #24 before it rewound, so hopefully all my photos of the castles and Donna's family will turn out.

Since there was conveniently a picnic table by the car park near the castles, we spread out the food we were carrying with us for that purpose and enjoyed a picnic in the sunshine.

Mid afternoon we turned our car back towards Wick to join Donna and family at the Heritage Festival. Our first thought was to drive to it so we could head from there directly to Safeway to pick up supplies. But, since we were unable to find it, we returned to Donna's. She was home starting dinner, but kindly took a break and walked us the several blocks to its location, where Beth and I met up with John and the kids.

One display showed quite a variety of books (which included many photos, some over 100 years old) on the history of the area. I can only hope that I can find a similar wealth of history on our family's ancestral areas of Paisley (near Glasgow) and Kirkcudbright in southwestern Scotland.

Beth and I were both fascinated by the glassblowing demonstration. It was amazing to watch the glassblower turn several tubes of glass into a lovely dolphin.

So far, the only traditional Scottish music Beth and I have found was a group playing two or three tunes at the Heritage Festival.

A grocery run was next on our list. We picked up the car at Donna's and set out for Safeway . . . a familiar name with some unfamiliar products. Once we'd stocked up with the essentials, we returned to Donna's for dinner.

Thinking about replacing my camera, and searching for more slide film for Beth, I asked Donna if she'd check in their yellow pages to see if there was a camera store in town. Beth and I got a chuckle out of the inch-thick book . . . which covered not just Wick but the entire Highlands and Islands!

We enjoyed a couple of hours with Donna, John and the kids before it was the kids' bedtime. While most of the kids enjoyed mugging for our cameras, Rebecca was the camera-shy one of the group, so we ended up with no photos of her. After the kids were in bed, we shared some quality adult time with Donna and John. Donna and I went to bed "early" this time; just after midnight instead of 2am.

CONTINUED