Highland Road Trip

Took a few days off last week and drove my son William (7) and nephew Adam (23, who is hitch-hiking around from his home in Norway) on a short trip around the west coast and top of Scotland. We were following a portion of what has recently been designated the NC500 – a 500 mile circular route from Inverness encompassing the west, north and east coasts of the Highlands.

 

 

 

It was ‘interesting’ to say the least. The sun shone from time to time, just before the gale hit us for example. But it was mostly wet. It rained. Then it was misty and lightly rainy. Then just really wet, proper rain. Mostly it was just dreich, which is a sort-of-all-enveloping-grey in a way that leaves a wet taste in your mouth. And the early Easter meant it was quiet. We drove one stretch of drizzly road for over an hour without seeing another car. Or any people. In fact we saw very few  people, and the ones we did see at close range, all of whom appeared to be visitors,  seemed to have glazed expressions and said very little. Adam, an avid conversationalist, was quite vexed at their apparent inability to engage in any form of verbal communication.

 

 

 

 

 

I stopped at Durness so Adam could see the John Lennon Memorial. “The what..?” said Adam as I slowed. It’s not much, not really, but its heart is in the right place and it has an ‘epic’ quality to it when encountered on a dripping sort of day. Adam was most taken by it and even took a panoramic shot to give the full 240 degree experience. I think its great – a little gem of memory in a corner of a carpark, surrounded by bogs, mountains and sea. I like to think JL would be thrilled at the majesty of the location and the understatement of the memorial.

It was still raining.

 

 

As it was raining William decided to stay in the Land Rover to read. He read a lot. It was two days in and he was on his second book. It was about dragons. So we thought he might like to see Smoo Cave, just down the hill from the Lennon Memorial. There were a few people at the cave. Adam spoke to some foreign tourists, but they ignored him, turning their heads in the other direction in unison in what Adam was convinced was a well-rehearsed move. William didn’t like the cave very much and decided to go to the toilet. It was rather well looked after, but the gents lavatory was blocked so William retrieved his book from the van  and headed into the Ladies toilet instead which he thought looked much healthier, and settled down for another chapter.

 

 

Durness is pretty much where the road turns right, you stop heading north and go east. We went east. Into more rain, and very big puddles, the tyres singing a constant hiss of wet. The landscape changed, open moorland swallowed by mist. This is the Flow Country, the largest expanse of blanket bog in Europe, covering around 1500 square miles.

Adam was fascinated.

I was perplexed: I was trying to explain to him the peculiarities of Highland land politics, the complexity of Estate ownership & tax evasion via offshore companies (the ‘Panama Papers’ had just broken on the news), whilst we stared at a monolithic block of forest that had loomed out of the murk, planted smack in the middle of a bog as a ‘tax break’. “So let me get this straight, these trees were planted not for timber but to harvest….er…tax profits?” queried Adam.

“Ah…um..well yes…” I replied, feeling peculiarly guilty for some inexplicable reason.

 

 

Adam, with his youth spent in Norway, is more accustomed to transparency in land ownership and a far more enlightened attitude towards social and economic uses of woodlands. And so he asked the obvious question: “So what is going to happen to these trees now?” and my answer covered the possibility of woodland walks whilst they are still standing, or if practical used as biomass for wood burners and chipped to heat buildings, but perhaps more likely simply felled and used to block drainage ditches dug in the peat when they were planted thus helping to retain moisture in the bogs (a good thing), or left to decay and nourish the soil.

I pointed him to a good read when he has a chance:  The Tree Farm by Cal Flyn, a beautifully written exploration of what has been wrought on the area and how it is being slowly ‘remedied’.

Adam shook his head. The rain continued.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found a spot to camp the night. The rain eased, the wind died and we had a peaceful if cold night. The day dawned temporarily bright, the looming clouds making quite clear their intent to dump more rain on us. William and Adam went rockpooling and found a small crab which crawled up William’s sleeve. It was carefully returned to the water where William was thrilled to see it burrow safely into the sand. We packed up and left. Just as the rain started.

The view out over the Kyle of Tongue was rather splendid, even if the rain was starting in earnest.

 

 

We took a lunch break at Portskerra. The gentle thrum of rain made us dozy, but the views were rather nice, if somewhat diffused.

 

 

 

 

 

We reached Dounreay and visited Sandside Beach. In the background through the drizzle the nuclear reactor dome was just visible. Two trailer-towing 4×4’s departed the carpark as we arrived. “They were odd-looking things” said Adam quizzically. I explained: “Those were doing the regular radiation monitoring – they scan the beach for particles that have escaped from the nuclear facility and wash up, and no, before you ask, we’re not going paddling”.

Adam shook his head again. “This place is seriously weird.” William looked out the window and helpfully remarked that it was still raining.

 

 

 

 

We saw a beautifully doctored road sign as we passed the nuclear facility, “…that’ll be the mythical ‘nuclear family’ then… “ I suggested.

 

We dropped Adam in Thurso so he could get the ferry to Orkney the next day. Trying to find a hostel for him for the night was seriously challenging, involving a hunt for a Tourist Office we couldn’t locate, then following directions to a hostel offered in good faith by a butcher, but which we could not find. Finally we asked a man hanging out of the window of what was clearly signposted as a ‘HOSTEL’ if this was in fact the local hostel, but who cheerily replied “No, no idea what this is, not a hostel I don’t think though. Sorry pal.”.

We drove to the other side of the building where there appeared to be more life, several parked buses and cars and an open door signed ‘Reception – Open’ with a hearse parked in front of it. It looked promising. “Oh well looks like there’s at least one bed available if the hearse is any indication” I offered cheerily. Adam grimaced and got out to check, but was intercepted by a man wearing funeral attire who said “Sorry son the hostel is closed for renovation” but who smiled when I remarked that at least it wasn’t as bad as we thought at first, that we feared the plague had struck and the hearse was hauling off the victims. “I keep asking the boys to park it round the back out of sight” he added gaily. But offered no further explanation for its presence.

Adam offered him the helpful advice that someone was hanging out of the back window of the Hostel, but who appeared to have no idea where he was. “Aye that’ll be the contractors doing the renovation, I’m not sure they’re all as clued up as they could be…”  then gave us accurate directions to the other hostel where Adam might get a bed “Down the road there,  past the big church and opposite the fish & chip shop with a Chinese restaurant this side of it.”

And indeed it was.

 

We left Adam to his fate – he had to ring a phone number pasted to the door to get someone to let him in, who arrived in less than 5 seconds, and who had obviously been lurking just inside the door, and it all looked as if it was getting even weirder as I eavesdropped on Adam’s ‘induction’ to his accommodation, before we departed south.

I’ve not heard from Adam yet, but I’m sure he’ll be fine, at 6′ 3″ with hands like shovels, several facial piercings and the physique of a viking I’m quite confident he can cope.

His only looming sense of unease concerned the forecast for the next week on Orkney. Rain. Rain. And probably more rain. But cold too. And maybe some wind.

William was glad we were going home, he was running out of books and, as he helpfully observed as I accelerated out of Thurso, “I think the rain is getting heavier Daddy”.