Gairloch to Glasgow

Gairloch was our northernmost city in Scotland, almost as far north as Iceland and, farther to the west, Greenland.  The water out in the bay looked very cold!  So Martha had been surprised to see the previous evening a man skinny-dipping; he emerged from the water, walked stark naked across the pebbly beach, wrapped a towel around himself, and then climbed up the steep path to the road near that picturesque church in the previous post, the Free Church of Scotland.

When I went outside in the morning, it was still a little dark, and after sheltering from the wind to do my Tai Chi, I ran down the road toward the village just a little, perhaps a half-mile or so.  It was an early departure again.  Each day, Steve would post a little sign of the day's itinerary near the main lift (in this case a claustrophically tiny chamber holding perhaps four passengers), e.g. "Breakfast at 7:00, cases in the hallway at 7:00, departure at 8:00.!"  Or, on some days, an hour earlier.  There had been some grumbling early in the trip about these early hours, which Steve had laughed off - "You didn't come here to go on holiday and lie in the sun!" he said.  "We have a lot of things to see today!"  Now everyone had gotten accustomed to the pre-dawn ritual, even we jet-lagged Americans for whom 6:00 a.m. was 1:00 a.m. American time.

We drove south toward Glasgow, spotting another remarkable breed of cattle, the Belted Galloways; there are actually some of these cows near Saluda and Chapel Hill, NC.

Steve played us some more of his Scottish songs:

• The Village Green at Gretna
• Blue Bonnets
• Red is the Rose
• Dark Lochnagar
• Lugton Dug
• Rob Roy MacGregor 

And even a haunting version of The Monster of Loch Ness.

We stopped at Fort Augustus to view the lock gates in the Caledonian Canal, which were very impressive.  A small boat was moving up through the locks as we watched, and we had time to stroll the streets nearby, too.
 

I thought these locks looked dangerous; a little stumble, and it would have been easy to fall in.  I should confess at this point that Martha and I have read and watched far more British mysteries than is probably good for us, so many that we know it is hazardous to walk outside after dark in the country, especially when owls are hooting ominously and there are cloaked figures flitting about in the garden (do not chase that intruder!).  Early in the trip, we thought we would have the makings of a good murder mystery, with passengers on the coach being eliminated one at a time as in the Agatha Christy book, And Then There Were None.  At this point in the story, surely a body would have been found floating face-down in this lock.  It looks like Carol!  But wait, it’s Robyn, who had asked to borrow Carol's coat this morning!  Was she the intended victim?   Nothing personal, Carol (or Robyn), if you ever read this blog.

It was in Fort Augustus, I think, where Martha took a photo of this traditional recipe for shortbread; we had picked up a couple of boxes to bring back home with us.  That mutchkin of good yeast is so essential!

We stopped in Fort Williams for lunch, and I spotted this sandwich board sign outside a cafe.  We have kept up with the news only sporadically on this trip, so I did not know about our Donald trying to purchase Greenland.  And by the way, if I have not mentioned it before now, our President is (as expected) an object of absolute ridicule on the part of most of the folks over here.  (Of course, they have their Boris Johnson to live with, too.)

From here, we drove through some of the most stunning scenery we had seen, high desolate moors, with silver ribbons of streams cascading their way downward.  We stepped outside for photos here and there, and any hint of drowsiness from riding in the coach instantly vanished.

Then we came through Glencoe, called "The Glen of the Weeping" because of the 1692 massacre of the MacDonalds by the Campbells - the Hatfields and McCoys of Scotland?  It began to rain a little, and then a few minutes later the sun broke through, as is frequently the case in Scotland.  This rainbow followed alongside our coach.

We made our way farther south and our next adventure, a cruise on fabled Loch Lomond.  The rain had cleared by then, but the lake was misty, ghostly islands appearing here and there as we cruised down the loch and back again.

Oh! ye'll take the high road and I'll take 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 of Loch Lomond.

We were impressed by Glasgow, with its pretty Victorian architecture; it is a cultural hub in Scotland, with ballet, theater, and opera.  We stopped for dinner at Brown's, on Regent Square, right in the heart of the city.