After last night’s sleep that was broken by the pain of gout
(gosh, how decadent that does sound!) I awoke refreshed and ready for the day.
The day is the first day of Rabbie’s tour of the islands and distilleries. It’s
almost the case that if you do the distilleries you must do the islands so the
tour title contains superfluous verbiage.
I stumbled out of bed and straight to the iPad to find that
the Scots had voted no by what was predicted to be 55% to 45%. That’s a margin
of 400,000 votes so the effective margin is 200,000: if 200,000 people had
voted “yes” instead of “no” that would have changed the result. The turnout was
85% but I reckon that the fallout of a result this close will reverberate for a
while yet.
I saw from the BBC website that Glasgow, Scotland's largest
council area and the third largest city in Britain, voted in favour of
independence by 194,779 to 169,347, with Dundee, West Dunbartonshire and North
Lanarkshire also voting "Yes".
But Edinburgh, the nation's capital, rejected independence
by 194,638 to 123,927, while Aberdeen City voted "No" by a margin of
more than 20,000 votes. There have also been big wins for the pro-UK campaign
in many other areas. The Edinburgh result belies the projections of The G and
me. We were wrong!!
We left our accommodation by taxi to the world HQ of
Rabbie’s Tours. In fact I am not sure it's the world HQ but Rabbie’s is the
biggest tour operator in Scotland and seems to be doing fairly well. We were
eventually directed to a small 16 seater bus and told that our driver would be
Jamie.
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| A Rabbie's tour bus |
Jamie is every inch a Scot. A tall man who would make a good
front row forward, he has a mass of read curly hair and one of those Scottish
accents which sounds like a ballad. He is a fount of information much of which
seems to be reliable.
Some of my readers will be interested in the bus which is a
Mercedes. It handles remarkably well on the highland roads (probably better
than our Rover P5 and certainly with better brakes).
Our objective for the day was to reach the Kennacraig Ferry
Terminal to catch the Ferry to the Isle of Islay. We then drive to Bowmore
where we will be staying for three nights.
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| Our route |
We headed out of Edinburgh at a crawl which was actually
good because we were able to marvel (yes we did really marvel) at the
architecture. There are some substantial buildings. The Rabbie’s HQ is at
Waterloo Place which built to commemorate the battle won by the Duke of
Wellington against Napoleon. This victory is etched into the minds of all
right-thinking Brits as being the crucial point in crushing the Frogs and
getting our own back for losing Calais in 1558 in the reign of Mary I (she was
the weird one if you remember). In fact I have heard some historians recently
suggest that the victory was irrelevant and the Frogs were done for anyway. Who
knows?
The domestic architecture consists of rows of magnificent late
18th century (I guess) terraces and Victorian bow-fronted houses
built of local sandstone. Apparently someone once described it as the “Grey
Athens of the North”. The Act of Union in 1707 and the suppression of the
Jacobite rebellions in 1715 and 1745 created a suitable climate for the
expansion of Edinburgh outside the castle walls. The town council sponsored a
competition to create a new development which was won by a 23 year old called
James Craig. A first raft of development was complete by 1830. The population
nearly doubled between 1830 and the end of the century causing further growth
evidenced by the Victorian building.
We headed in the general direction of Stirling though we
skirted round it. Stirling is a city of great historical significance as it is
where the first bridge over the River Forth was built in the 13th
century. The Forth is the river that practically divides Scotland in half
anyway. The bridge at Stirling was the only road bridge over the river until
1936. A rail bridge had been opened in 1889 as part of the railways’ “great
race to the North”.
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| The Firth of Forth rail bridge |
Jamie told us that Scotland is divided in two geologically
as well. The lowlands and the highlands are two separate geological plates. Not
many people know that and because of this I checked with Mr Google where
Wikipedia told me that “there are three main geographical sub-divisions: the
Highlands and Islands is a diverse area which lies to the north and west of the
Highland Boundary Fault; the Central Lowlands is a rift valley mainly
comprising Paleozoic formations; and the Southern Uplands, which lie south of the
Southern Uplands Fault, are largely composed of Silurian deposits”.
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| The geology of Scotland |
We passed close to Linlithgow, which we had passed through
on the train two days ago. I failed to recall when I blogged then that
Linlithgow was where Mary Queen of Scots was born. I have already talked a
little about M Q of S so will say no more but I should have remembered that
fact as I pride myself on a certain – if limited – knowledge of Tudor history
(which of course intersects with the story of the Stuarts).
I learned – and this may be complete nonsense: I may simply
be in thrall of Jamie – that the Scots have 37 types of mythical creatures.
This he says is because there is nothing scary in Scotland. The clearing of the
forests in the late 17th and early 18th centuries (as a
result of the Jacobite rebellion) means that wolves and bears died out. This
left parents with nothing with which they could scare small children. As a
result they made up creatures.
One such creature is the Kelpie which you and I know as a
dog. But not in Scotland. Here the Kelpie is a sea creature that emerges from
the water to take the form of a horse. It then tempts people to touch it as it
is so incredibly beautiful. They stick to it and then the Kelpie runs back to
the sea drowning the poor unfortunate stuck to it which it then devours!!
There were two Kelpie sculptures at the Falkirk Wheel and
our hosts on the boat told us that they were models of larger ones. We drove
past the larger ones today and they are truly massive. They stand 30 metres
high and were designed as a monument to Scotland’s horse powered heritage. I
can’t quite see why they are there, however, as they are a long way from
anywhere so far as I could tell. They were designed by a man called Andy Scott.
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| The 30 metre high Kelpies designed by Andy Scott |
We stopped at Callendar a small town in the region of
Stirling, Scotland, situated on the River Teith. The town serves as a gateway
to the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park (www.lochlomond-trossachs.org - which
we were to drive through). We bought postcards and I was able to have a Steak
and Haggis pie which I have to say was succulent. The G managed to get a coffee
that came up to her exacting standards. Callendar also sports a public loo that
apparently won “Loo of the Year” at some time. Only the Brits would have a
competition like that!
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| The Callander public loo - a triumph of sanitary engineering and customer service. Your effluent is dealt with efficiently and effectively. Soft lighting enhances an interior that brings to mind images of rolling hills and heather in the afternoon sunshine while a lilting tune plays to conjure up the sound of a wee burn running through the glen. |
I should pause here and say a little of our travelling
companions. There are six Norwegians on the bus. These are a lively bunch of
three men and three women. They returned to the bus at Callendar clutching small
bottles of whiskey which – to be fair – they shared with the rest of us!! Later
on we decided that they were the Vikings here for a second go at the British
Isles. This caused them great amusement.
There are two Canadians from Vancouver and three Yanks from
Oregon. Until we reached the ferry we were two short. A final (American)
couple’s flight had been delayed and they were to make their own way to the
ferry. We couldn't quite see how they were going to do that but, sure enough,
they were at Kennagcraig when we arrived – absolutely buggered after a 40-hour
journey.
There’s also a lone Australian woman who, coincidentally,
lives in Randwick in Sydney which is where The G lived for many years (pretty
much all her life in fact!!).
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| Randwick Town Hall - this has nothing really to do with our trip |
From Callendar we drove to Oban where we return to early
next week (among other things to feast at Ee-usk the famous seafood
restaurant). Oban has been around since Mesolithic times – it’s pretty old –
and has a population of about 9,000. It sits in a bay on the Firth of Lorn.
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| Oban |
There were many points of interest on the way. We stopped at
Loch Lubnaig which was very beautiful and the only loch in Scotland with a kink
in it.
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| The G on the kinky Loch Lubnaig |
We also stopped (still on the way to Oban) at Kilchurn
Castle. Kilchurn Castle is a ruined 15th and 17th century
structure on a rocky peninsula at the north-eastern end of Loch Awe, in Argyll
and Bute, Scotland. It was the ancestral home of the Campbells of Glen Orchy,
who later became the Earls of Breadalbane also known as the Breadalbane family
branch, of the Clan Campbell. The earliest construction on the castle was the
towerhouse and Laich Hall (looks onto Loch Awe).
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| Kilchurn Castle - this is the view, perhaps, that an attacking force might have seen some 400 years ago before they were showered with arrows. |
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| The castle door after renovations in 1693. A warm welcome to all I think |
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| Some old bloke standing in from of a ruined castle somewhere in Scotland |
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| A better photographer would have been able to convey the beauty of this view from the top of the castle |
We arrived at Oban at about 1330 and The G and I made our
way to the town’s leading fish and chip emporium recommended (as we discovered)
by none other than Rick Stein.
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| The ultimate in chippies!! |
The G had lobster tails and I had hake (with
chips of course). I also noticed that they did home-made mushy peas as a side
so I ordered them. I have been trying to explain and describe to The G the joy
of proper mushy peas and these were the genuine article. They were superb.
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| The Kilmartin pub |
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| A gravestone in the Kilmartin Churchyard |
A mile or so out of town there is an array of Pictish
standing stones which we stopped to look at. No one knows why they are there.
No, that’s not true – the Picts know but they are long gone and they forgot to
keep good records!! They date back as far as 3,000 years ago.
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| The G holding up a Pictish stones - watch out for them Picts. They're in the bushes |
From Kilmartin we made a short hop to Talbert, where we
stopped again, which is a small fishing port with an attractive harbour.
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| Talbert |
We arrived at the Kennacraig Ferry ten minutes later to find
the ferry ready and waiting. Truckloads of whisky were coming off – each one
apparently worth £300,000 to the UK exchequer!! We got on. One ferry trip is
much the same as another but the weather was calm and clear.
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| The sea from the ferry - my Father says that a sea voyage is the most boring thing in the world to do |
In fact this trip was enlivened by the man at the bar. There
was a coachload of school children from the Isle of Islay returning from a trip
somewhere. They were in the café (we were in the bar where we could neither see
nor hear them). The barman at one point took the ferry PA and said “This is a
customer announcement. Would the children from Islay please shut up”. There was
much support for this action. Just before we arrived at Port Askaig he closed
the bar but the Vikings decided that they needed further fortification. This
crazy barman reopened the bar and served them!! What a man – he was very funny.
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| The Vikings' second invasion is now officially underway |
We got back on the bus and drove the 11 miles to Bowmore in
the dark. We are staying at the Bowmore distillery itself in the Maltman’s
Cottages (https://cottages.bowmore.co.uk).
We are billeted with the Canadians and the lone Australian. They had left a
welcome bottle of Bowmore 12 year old single malt from which all enjoyed a
glass – except for the The G – and then to bed.
Jamie has told us that every time someone says “I don’t like
whisky” a fairy dies. We need to work on The G’s palate I think.
Now this one really has me green with envy!!!
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