Scottish Adventurrres 5 - On Why I'm Glad My Name's Not Campbell

[jamesq]

Day 2 – Today we head deeper into the magical Highlands through some spectacular north west coast scenery with amazing stops and weather permitting walks in magnificent Glencoe (hear the tragic tale of the MacDonald’s Massacre) and/or Glen Nevis. Then we head to Eilean Donan Castle before making our way to scenic Strome Ferry (near Plockton & Skye) our home for the next two nights.

What WIS doesn't tell you is that they also take you to another world!

We stopped along one Glen (possible Glen Coe - it was certainly in its vicinity). There was no hike for this, we simply parked and piled out of the van. The vista was wonderful, but then our tour guide F, laid down and hung her head back over the bluff we were on. From this angle she could see the whole expanse of the glen (as well as the approaching highway and its cars) upside down! Now that may not sound like much, but the subtly alien (to this Canadian) landscape combined with the unusual perspective really did make one think you were viewing another world. I would repeat this procedure several more times, just because.

This was the first of several encounters with the fairy dimensions. Let it not be said that Wild in Scotland does not deliver!

Our stop at Glen Coe included a wonderful walk through the valley and up the other side. On the other side we heard all about Campbell trechery against Clan MacDonald at the Glencoe Massacre. This was also our first encounter with F's passion for Scottish history. She can make anyone a believer in Scot's nationalism.

She mentioned Campbells several times during the tour and never in a positive light. I asked her if she had ever had any Campbell on her tours, and how they had reacted. Yes, there had been Campbells on the tour and she would tease them. "Don't take food from him, he's a Campbell - it's probably poisoned!"

The hike also underlined something that had been in the back of my mind for awhile. It took some time to put it into words: Depth perception is broken in Scotland. You can look at the landscape and have no idea how near or far something is. Picturesque rolling hills covered with stones are everywhere, but how far/high is that hill? How big are those stones. Looking at the valley were going to climb through, it looked like we were going to go about five kilometres. In fact we went about half that. This was underlined when I actually spotted some people on our trail - suddenly the actual scale jumped out at me now that I had a reference.

It was a fun hike and quite beautiful. I have pictures, and they will be posted once my Flickr account is set up. (or I would if my camera wasn't a cheap piece of shit)

Coming back, F decided to cross rocks on the river, rather then the bridge. Several others with her had already done this but she was feeling slightly less confident then MT or RZ. And she went ass-over-teakettle into the river. This led to a standing ovation from numerous tourists watching - and not just from our own group.

We also saw The Green Wellie Stop, which seems to be famous as a tourist attraction for being famous as a tourist attraction. It was basically an excuse to buy tourist crap in the middle of nowhere. There was also about a million motorcyclists there. Unlike North America where that means muggers on wheels, these where simply motorcycle enthusiasts out for a weekend ride. They were of all ages and I didn't see a single Harley Davidson.

We did a lot of driving in the afternoon. I've found that the WIS tour tended to be days of light riding/heavy activities alternating with days of heavy riding/light activities. This was a heavy riding day. We did stop off in Fort Williams and see (barely) Ben Nevis - Scotland's (and the UK's) highest mountain.

We found our way to Eilean Donan Castle and it was quite striking. Also not that old - it was rebuilt back in the 1930s.

Finally we made the short trip from Eilean Donan to Strome Ferry, where we stayed the night in the home of the owner of WIS.

Comments

[conejita-diabla.livejournal.com]

Fort William was where we stayed when we were there, and hiked around Ben Nevis for a while. S dragged me into the cross back over rocks thing as well, after a very long and difficult (for me, at least) hike. This (http://www.allisonroth.com/images/Europe_trip/me_ben_nevis.jpg) is the photo after that - the one I like to mentally caption "I'm going to kick your ass when I'm even slightly less exhausted". *g*

Glad you're having such a good time! :-)