Wind, rain & pain

The Scottish Highlands are surprisingly big. And also, in very many ways, rather small.  I had this underlined for me last week as I undertook yet another bimble around in my ancient Land Rover with my son William (now aged 8). Despite the remoteness of much of the Highlands, its ‘corridors of passage’ throw people together. Roads, walking paths, river valleys, cycle trails, and so on. Anywhere that people may traverse or are drawn to witness something, encounters of some sort or other will occur.

 

 

 

 

 

This post may give you a flavour of our four days of surprise interactions. It’s quite long, contains a lot of words, so if all you want is a look at the scenery, ignore the waffleprose and simply enjoy the pictures!

We’d arranged to meet up with relatives, and friends of theirs from Texas, who had hired two Land Rovers complete with roof tents, and filled to the ceilings with all manner of other equipment to enable the two couples and their children to be self-sufficient for a week as they explored the Highlands, and to then head over to the Western Isles. The Texans had flown straight into Edinburgh, and jumped into the Land Rover still suffering jet-lag. Unfortunately, Scotland was winding itself up for a storm.

We met up late Sunday afternoon on the road west towards Kyle of Lochalsh. The rain was pelting down, it was cold, and the wind was steadily rising. The group explained where they intended stopping for the night, on Loch Torridon a stunning sea loch just north of Kyle.

“I’d not if I were you” I suggested “…it’s very exposed to the south-westerly gale that’s forecast to wind itself up overnight, before supposedly swinging round to the north-west in the small hours of tomorrow. The Met Office have issued a severe weather warning. You’ll get a trashing, trust me, there’s 60mph gusts forecast, it will not be fun.”. They digested this and then asked what I suggested as an alternative. “We can go up the glen to Achnashellach, then Achnasheen and over to Loch Maree, there’s a sheltered area on the lochside that will be reasonably protected from the wind, although it will still be windy but we should escape the worst of it.” It sounded like a sensible plan to them, so off we went.

 

 

A brief break shortly before Eilean Donan Castle provided our first ‘intimate’ moment as the Texans, still not tuned into the the driving-on-the-other-side-of-the-road thing, almost rear-ended the other Land Rover, creating a right old kerfuffle on the road, sufficiently dramatic to bring the woman owner of an adjacent building out to remark how skilfully the Texan’s swerve had been executed and how impressed she was. Sweat poured off everyone’s brows. The car driver who had been right behind the two Land Rovers, apparently also had to swerve sharply, then shot past them relieved to be free of these maniacs, only to roar round the corner and find me on the wrong side of the road executing a u-turn in order to go back and see where my two companion vehicles had gone. At least his brakes worked ok.

Eilean Donan Castle however, was suitably surreal. An endless stream of tourists, cameras clutched tightly, confronted the baronial splendour with a mixture of awe and disbelief . However a plethora of ‘Photography Forbidden’ signs and keen-eyed staff frustrated their creative efforts, as they wandered around in the over-warm interior, panting in their rain gear. Everyone looked utterly bemused, lines of people going in all directions, whilst amongst them various small children, separated from their parents, dashed about in various states of distress or joy. Great fun!

 

 

 

We reached Loch Maree. The gale was now in full roar. Trees were down, more trees were trying to come down, but we looked on the bright side, at least the midges were being kept away (they hate breezes). On the other side of the loch a huge waterfall thundered over the cliff and was swept vertical in the howling gale, to explode into spray that slow-motioned off into murky grey nothingness.

Our second drama occurred fairly quickly, as the tents were being erected. My relative John approached looking vexed: “You don’t have a metal coathanger in your Land Rover by any chance?”  I lifted the floor mat and produced one, asking “What’s the problem?”

John replied with surprise “Why have you got a coathanger under the mat?”

I smiled “So that when people ask for one I can give them it! Why do you need it?”

“Bloody Land Rover has just auto-locked itself, with the key inside in the ignition, and all the food! And the beer! And the cooking kit and matches!” John was into the vehicle in less than 30 seconds, with the deft use of the wire and a wooden spoon. I wont (for obvious reasons) explain how the sophisticated electronic immobilization system of the Land Rover was defeated, but it was a piece of artistry to witness. The wind howled, the rain fell, we ate, drunk and then we slept.

 

 

 

 

Dawn arrived, the wind had swung round and diminished somewhat, and so we were even more sheltered. But the midges descended. The Texans realized shorts were  a bad idea, and the midge hoods I’d suggested they all obtain were quickly put on. To balance this, in front of us, Loch Maree put on a splendid spectacle as the dawn light spilled across Letterewe and danced gloriously around the imposing bulk of Slioch. If a child was asked to draw a mountain, they’d draw Slioch. It was magnificent.

The plan was to head for Ullapool, where the two Land Rovers would catch the ferry for the Western Isles and William and I would head on north to meet up with friends in a remote cottage near Durness.

All went to plan.

Well almost.

 

 

 

I’ll spare the culprit the embarrassment, but with only an hour to go until ferry departure at 5pm a ‘situation’ unfolded which required a lot of running about, phone calls to knowledgeable people, me towing a dead Land Rover to the nearest garage, some remarkably skilled remedial work, and a great blether with the garage owner whose knowledge of US politics and the state of the Trump/Clinton tussle was extensive. It was also time-consuming. In fact so much time was eaten that the ferry left without them. The next ferry was 3am. Crisis mostly over I left the group deciding what to do, and headed north.

 

 

 

William and I stopped for the evening near a loch north of Ullapool, breezy and midge free. It was glorious. William thought it was sort-of ‘Lord-of-The-Ringsy’ and he was pretty accurate. The horizon line of impossibly steep peaks rose from the bog on the east side to touch the sky, before plunging sharply towards the west into the loch. The eerie sound of Red-throated divers echoed around us, their calls part celebration, part lament, but always evocative.

 

 

 

 

Next day we intended an easy amble along the coast to Lochinver, then on north-west for a picnic lunch at Stoer Point, a splendid spit of land that dominates the coast with a lighthouse perched on top.

William wanted to play in the children’s play area in Lochinver, so we pulled over. As I shoved him on a swing I told him about how I’d been there with my parents in the 60’s when I was his age, in this very play park, and that it was closed on Sundays for religious reasons so we couldn’t actually play in it. I was so angry I stole the large lump of lead that was tied to a wire that made the gate auto-close and took it home with me to make fishing weights. The subversive bit was that minus the weight of the lead, the gate swung open, inviting all to enter despite the forbidding sign. William appreciated this, and remarked that play is good for you. A man walked past, and called over “I like your old Land Rover. But for some reason that number plate is familiar!” I grinned  “Plate used to be on an old Renault belonging to Carmichael the vet in Fort William, and I got it transferred  after he scrapped it because I wanted a local registration!” And then of course we had ‘the conversation’ which revealed he was also from Fort William, and was related to a school friend of mine as well as several other Fort William worthies of my acquaintance.

 

 

 

We parted, William was getting hungry, and Stoer beckoned, so we drove on to Clachtoll where I stopped to take a few photos of the mobile library.

A car pulled up and a man clutching a book got out, walked to the library and peered in the closed door. “Ach there’s nobody in” he muttered.

“Try that house there, the driver will probably be in there drinking tea I expect. I know I would be if I was doing that job!” I suggested. Off he went behind the van, the doorbell rang and he reappeared with the librarian and his teamaker, both wiping their mouths (I think there may have been cake involved too). Good deed done we nipped on out to Stoer.

 

 

 

 

 

The picnic was simple, a sandwich on the clifftop, with a splendid view of the ocean. “Take care on the damp grass” I warned William “It’s really easy to slip on these grassy slopes when its damp like this” as another shower passed through. Behind it a larger blacker-looking cloud loomed, heading our way. “I’m just climbing down to have a look in this burbling stream to photograph the bubbles.” I said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we walked back to the Land Rover I overheard a lady talking to a foreign-sounding fellow who seemed very anxious “I’ll see if I can get a signal up at the lighthouse, mobile phone reception is rubbish here, but it’ll take more than half and hour to get a helicopter here, is it a sprain or a break?”  He replied “I don’t know, break I think” And the woman ran off up the hill leaving him with his thoughts.

“Have you a problem?” I asked “Can I help?” 

“We are Dutch on holiday, my wife has fallen up on the cliff, she’s lying up there, her leg is bad!”

I introduced myself, and asked if they had any safety equipment. No. So I grabbed an emergency blanket, sleeping bag, yellow high-viz vest and First Aid kit from the Land Rover. When offered the choice, William decided a post-lunch reading session out of the rain was preferable so wisely elected to stay dry and warm in his front seat in the Land Rover. He’s smart, and had realized he’d got a great view of the cliffs, lighthouse, and of course the casualty. Hans and I ran off up the hill.

 

 

The leg was bad. With her permission, I did a quick assessment higher up, nothing else seemed damaged, but under her sock her tibia was sticking out through the skin above her boot, badly broken and jagged. There was blood. Not a good sign. The priority was dryness and warmth, so with her husband’s help we lifted her out of the bog and slipped the emergency blanket under her, and wrapped her in the sleeping bag. The rain had started, the wind was blowing and neither seemed to have any awareness or experience of the serious risks from exposure and hypothermia, and the added complications of medical shock.

My main concern was the damage to her leg. If the boot filled with blood it meant serious vascular damage and possibly the need for compression which would cause even more acute pain. It would also inevitably cause other complications I was aware of but really did not care to think about given that we were about 100 road miles from the nearest main hospital, in a bog on a cliff, in the rain and wind. Even with an air evacuation under way it would still take a couple of hours of sitting, in pain, possibly bleeding severely, before she was safe.  Thankfully the bleeding seemed minor and the casualty, Angeline, was able to stay warm and alert. Then the shower passed through and the sun came out which helped the mood immensely. The views (this being the Highlands) were utterly splendid. Even the casualty remarked on how glorious it was, and asked her partner to take a picture of the scene. But she was anxious and scared, so I decided to cheer her up.

“The problem is you’re from Holland!” I proclaimed. “Pardon?” they replied in unison. “Problem is you’re from Holland!” I repeated. They looked puzzled, looked to each other and then to me again. “Too flat Holland, waaay too flat. No slopes there, so I believe. That’s the problem! Put you folks on a slope and you all fall over. It’s a well-known fact in Scotland. The Dutch ALWAYS fall over when they’re not on flat ground!” Angeline’s face wrinkled as a smile fought its way through the pain, and she managed a fit of subdued giggles.

 

 

After an hour the paramedics and coastguard arrived and we were informed the rescue helicopter would be coming too, as soon as possible. We chatted to the emergency services people, turns out I’d met a couple of them before on various courses I’d run or been involved in around the area, and we had several mutual acquaintances. Forty five minutes later the helicopter arrived and after assessing the terrain the winchman decided that if we carried her to the top of the hill where the helicopter could land they’d put the casualty in manually rather than winch her in. So we did, and off she went to hospital in Inverness. Lots of noise and exhaust fumes from the huge helicopter assaulted all our senses, our bodies thrumming to the beat of its massive rotors, as it lifted off. Leaving Hans on the hillside, to drive their car to join his partner over on the east coast at the hospital.

 

 

 

Then, as the helicopter slid out of sight, there was silence.

Utter silence, save for the crashing of waves and the raucous calls of seabirds.

We stared out to sea, Hans was by now coming down off the surge of adrenaline and stress, so I made him eat a Tunnocks Teacake from the packet I’d fished out of the Land Rover, to keep his blood sugar up. The Coastguard Officers and Paramedics joined us , and very surprisingly had to be vigorously coerced into having a Teacake, before we headed down the hill to go our separate ways.

William and I carried on north to meet our friends and by 7pm were sitting on a rock by a loch waiting for the burgers to cook whilst the children fished. A light breeze kept the worst of the midges at bay. The topic of conversation was the bizarre politics and human geography of the Highlands. My friends had enjoyed some lunch in a small cafe nearby. Their conversation with the young woman owner had revealed the problems of rural homelessness, due to the exorbitant cost of land and housing, and the reality of living in your home area of the Highlands only for the summer and having to relocate to the central belt of Scotland, Glasgow or Edinburgh, for the winter to earn a decent wage. Across the loch a couple of empty second homes sat, eyes closed in the growing dusk, no life within.

Confronted by the magically lit scene of water and mountain my friends broached the topic of the ‘highland wilderness’. “I hate it” I said “..this is no more a wilderness than Richmond Park. It’s wild land all right, but its managed tightly, highly regulated and what you see is a consequence of that, it’s not a virgin scene untouched by the hand of man.”

The complex issues of land ownership, rural deprivation, community land management and crofting were woven into a frustrating exploration of Highland politics and the rise of nationalism, north and south of the border. “Can you explain what crofting is” they asked “..because it seems confusing..?”

“It’s a small parcel of land surrounded by a big piece of legislation..” I offered in response. They smiled knowingly.

We decided the midges had started to gain the upper hand so we retreated.

 

 

Next day dawned clear and bright, but high cloud streaming in from the west foretold weather approaching. Another Atlantic front was sweeping in, more wind and rain. The glorious light was swallowed by wisping cloud that wreathed the high tops across Loch Laxford.

 

 

 

We decided to walk to Sandwood Bay, a glorious curve of beach 5 miles from the road. It was rather surreal I have to confess. Early-start walkers were returning, freezing and soaked as their woefully inadequate clothing clung to their skin. The wind was rising, the rain was persistent and it was shaping up to be miserable. We passed two young women hauling a two-wheeled barrow laden with a mountain of gear. They were red-faced, soaked and panting as the effort of managing this lumbering contraption slowed their progress. We stopped later to have a snack and they caught up, near a small ford consisting of several large boulders spanning a stream.

“Here we’ll help you!” I called.

“No, we’re fine, we’ll manage!” one woman called back.

My friend and I leaped over the rocks anyway and grabbed a corner, and even with four of us it was an utter pig to get it across. We left them to their penance and headed onwards to the beach. We reached the 4 mile mark, anyone coming back from here would have walked around 6 miles. Out of the murk appeared  a lone figure. I thought he had an ironing board under his arm, and to be honest I would not have been at all surprised. However on closer inspection I realized  it was a surfboard. He was wet and cold, blue-lipped, hair plastered to his face, fingers white and far from the tanned, tousle-haired handsome devil he might have looked had this been Hawaii, California or Australia.

 

 

To my astonishment he was followed out of the greywet by a young man and woman in summer clothes, she with a shopping bag and he a trendy shirt and thin jacket. But what set them apart from several other similarly dressed couples was the 2 year old girl in the push chair he was wrestling with. The sort of push chair you see people using about town, a pair of wheels on each corner, each on a swivel, so its very maneuverable. But going uphill, on a boulder-strewn bog track 4 miles from the nearest remote cottage? Maneuverable? Nah. Not a bit of it. Forward motion was nigh on impossible as the wheels jammed on any little stone and spun around. But the pusher, despite the extreme frustration, though red-faced and panting, was doing his best. The small child was wearing next to nothing, facing forwards into the worst of the wind and drizzle, and looked utterly miserable.

Call me an old fusspot if you want, but I have my limits.

“Excuse me folks, far be it from me to offer you any advice, but can I offer you some?”

He looked startled “Eh? What?” roused from his misery.

“That chair, its a complete pig to push isn’t it?” He nodded in agreement. “So why don’t you turn it round, tilt it like this and pull it instead?” and showed him. “I used to do this with wheelchairs in Social Work”. I said to make it sound ‘official’ and as if I knew what I was on about.

He tried, turned, tilted and pulled. “Hey that works!” he gasped, realizing that the 6 miles of utter hell he’d just endured could have been made much much easier.

“And can you wrap your daughter up a bit, she’s really going to suffer if you leave her exposed. It’s really important.” I added. “I don’t want to see the rescue helicopter again this week. Once is enough!”

His eyes widened, as the penny dropped.

“She was fussing because she wanted to see where she was going, so we took off the clear rain cover!” said the child’s mum reaching into her bag to retrieve it.

“I think I’d ignore what she prefers given the wind and cold rain; and trust me its even colder and windier up there…” pointing to the top of slope “..we’re sheltered here and the weather is deteriorating. Promise her an ice-cream or hot chocolate and get the cover back over her! And enjoy the rest of your day!”

 

 

 

We left them to it, and walked onto the beach. And suddenly the close confines of other people dissolved. The hundreds of footprints converging onto the sand from the path were swallowed by the vastness of the beach. We were on a huge beach, massive surf pounding in from the Atlantic driven by a mountainous swell. It was glorious. Lunch devoured, our return journey was head-on into the wind, and rain. But we were happy.

 

 

 

 

Next day William and I bade our friends farewell and meandered south, on deserted rainpuddled roads, with only swirling mist for company.

Travel is a funny thing, even in a place you know. The arc of your day may be mundane and insignificant until its intersection with the orbit of another’s, and then anything may happen. Sometimes its funny, sometimes its sad, and sometimes it makes a difference, only small, but a difference all the same, to all of you. But the foundation for all of this, is simply talking to people.

And up here, more often than not, that happens. That’s why I like the Highlands so much.