Day 55: Fort William to Glasgow

I got a text this morning at 4.45am from a German telling me Britain had voted to exit. I didn’t see it until I woke up but I was shocked. Oh dear...

Breakfast was a sombre affair. My host knew Scotland had wanted to stay in so he thought he better not say anything. Then there was me, and two German couples.

Two hours of debate and discussion later, all that remained of breakfast were crumbs and empty coffee cups and it was all sorted.

1) The EU is undemocratic as it operates now.

2) Germany did not think through how its immigration policy would impact on the other member states. My breakfast sharers actually said they thought in part it was about over compensating for past behaviours. As a numerologist I totally agree. That is the 2 balance and co-operation and understanding and the 16, a karmic debt of past lack of love. This is not about people. Even the immigration issue is just a smoke screen. It is about power, control and business and the few that control them.

3) We need a new politics. We all need to stop WAR being ALL our countries most lucrative industries, then situations where people need to flee as refugees would be less urgent and emotive. Selling weaponry should be considered a crime against mankind.

4) (My contribution) We need to immediately sack the leaders of both sides of the referendum debate for running a disgusting and immoral campaign where some voters including  Paul our host, had no idea what was true or how he was going to vote even when standing in the ballot box with his paper in his hand. None of them have my confidence to negotiate a reasonable or generous leaving on my behalf.

Any true visionaries interested in running a humanitarian country out there? If not leave it to the five of us.

Argyll and Bute are beautiful today folks.

There are excellent cycle paths running parallel with the main roads and the locks are full of small yachts bobbing about at anchor. My friend Crispin would love it here. He could pop his boat Magic onto a low loader and just get up here. They all say that it snows more in Kent in the winter than it does here, and Paul my most recent host,  lived in Tunbridge Wells for 30 years so he should know!

Yet more castles everywhere

And then Oban.

Oban was looking good in the weak sunshine. She had all her flags flying and to me they looked European! 

Oban styles herself the fish capital of Scotland and it was interesting that here were did not have the bog standard fish and chips. On no...far more Marks and Spencer advert type of fish and chips.

And it was everywhere.
On the pier where the ferries leave for the Islands there were several fish stalls doing a roaring trade in seafood: scallops, oysters, mussels, crab, langoustine and crab often all on the same sharing plate. Too much claw and shell for me I’m afraid.

Above the town is an incongruous monument that looks like a bit of a film set in Rome.

It’s McCraig's Tower started in 1897. John McCraig was a banker and wanted it built as a memorial to his family and to give work to local stone masons who had no work in the winter. Constructed of granite it wasn’t built on level ground so its walls vary in height from 30 to 47 feet. It looks like the Coliseum in Rome intentionally. Mr. McCraig admired it. He died  in 1902 before he could put in place the third tier where he planned to have a series of statues in stone or bronze created  by young Scottish sculptors to be priced at £1000 each to encourage and support the arts in Scotland. .What a shame he died before he could see that happen

I had lunch in a vegetarian cafe called the Potting Shed where unfortunately the radio was on and I heard more than I wanted to about reactions to the referendum. The owner of the cafe said the result  would negatively affect her business. She had advertised for help in the cafe for months with no takers until a Slovakian girl applied. The girl is excellent, speaks English, is clean and works hard. Now what?

Chocolate – that’s what. Oban has its own Chocolatier. It has a shop on the seafront Oban Chocolate Co.  ‘where indulgence is compulsory.’ 

They have a lounge area inside with soft leather sofas where you can relax and enjoy hot chocolate, tasting plates of chocolate, waffles with fruit and cream or ice-cream or all of the above to compensate for the referendum results. Today lots of people were probably doing just that.

The chocolate making factory is small but perfectly formed at the back of the store and has a viewing window so you can watch the staff at work.

It also has a chocoholics dream shop where you can buy what they make. They produce over 50 flavours of hand made truffles. I did think of buying some but have no self control and they would have been eaten even before I got back to my car.

Outside the chocolate factory were about 600 6x6inch wooden plagues tied to the promenade railings. Many had coloured hand-prints on them, others simple drawings. All were signed. The artists? Children under ten saying thank you for their new Play park.

The other thing I noticed about Oban were the builders. They were everywhere. Oban is redesigning their seafront and making it more pedestrian friendly.

It was causing traffic problems to ferry traffic but I imagine the sheer number of workmen about would mean the job would be speedily completed. The parts they had already completed looked very smart and well planned with space for flower beds and benches and perhaps even street performers. My town Eastbourne has something similar in mind for the town centre.

I look the coast road to Glasgow from Oban, and stopped briefly in Inverarary, another place with very white washed buildings.

I still haven’t discovered why so many Scottish buildings are all painted white. There was a team of heritage restoration builders in Inverary  working on a large tarpaulin covered building. The ideal experts to answer this pressing question I thought.

“Excuse me, I can’t help noticing that all the buildings in North and West Scotland and on Skye are just one colour. White. Why?”

“No idea. White paint’s cheap. Mebbe that’s why.”

“I doubt it. Is this building going to be white too?”

“Aye.”

I asked in Visit Scotland too and weirdly got the same answer.
 No that really can’t be why.
Anyone else know?

Inverary has lots of cafes to feed and water the tourists who come here for two reasons: the castle, a 18^th century one looking more like a French chateau, summer home to The Duke of Argyll

And the jail. Yes this town has turned their jail into a successful tourist venue.  www.inveraryjail.co.uk

Take note Dornoch!!! You missed an opportunity.

On past Loch Fyne famous for oysters, lobster and all the other Scottish seafood.

And the forest park of Trossocks and Loch Lomond, to Dunoon.

Now why did I have an idea that Dunoon would be a quaint little seaside village. It wasn’t quaint or little. It was a bit like Newhaven. Enough said. 

The ferry took about 20 minutes to go to Gourock (pronounced Geruk)

And then it was another 30 miles, through Glasgow Docks to Glasgow town.
 Here I am staying with Helena, a medical secretary in her nice little apartment in a house in a quiet road about 15 minutes from the city centre.

Day 45: Forss, Reay, Sutherland, and Durness

Between Dunnet Bay and Castletown there is a stretch of high sand dunes that look as though they have been covered in green fur. They look really odd. It is grass growing in tufts – Marram grass in all probability.

There are two sorts of walls round the fields and houses round here too. One is dry stone construction like this

And the other looks very like tombstones! Neither use mortar.

There are more concrete buildings here that have an MOD feel about them too.

My unruly Sat Nav unreliably informed me that I could fill up with petrol in Castletown. Wrong! There is a garage but it has no petrol. 

I hoped that meant there was a shiny Tesco lurking on the outskirts... but no Tesco. Luckily on this occasion there is one at Thurso, so I can breathe again. I noticed that those in the know were all filling petrol cans to go in the boots of their cars.

Got to Forss but saw no trace of any 18^th century drugs racket, and just a few miles on I came upon Dounreay Nuclear Power Station. I had seen information about it in Thurso yesterday.

It stopped working in 1994 and has been largely de-commissioned but something is still going on there. Look at all the cars. And I may be wrong, but there seemed to be some sort of police or military presence there. Lovely beaches nearby but I would be a bit wary of swimming there or drinking local water.

Reay is a pretty village and the local shop seems to have solved the petrol problem They have their own pumps.

Several towns in this area are advertising their upcoming Town Gala and are putting up jaunty bunting. I am looking forward to finding out what it entails. I assume it’s a sort of village fete and I will come across one soon and find out for myself.

As I drove into Sutherland I saw another stone sign welcoming me to 'Mackay County'. According to Erin and Richard at Thurso library, everyone in this county is called Mackay, Sutherland or Munro. When the Mackays put up the stone calling it Mackay Country, the others took umbrage and their stone was defaced and other signs with other names on them appeared. Not today though. Today the prize goes to the Mackays.

From here it is, 27 miles over the peat bogs and on single track mountain paths, interspersed by little villages and fabulous little sandy bays and the added hazard of sheep wandering across the road smiling.

With the roof down on Gloria, the air is full of the scent of gorse, smelling like coconut and vanilla.

I am not the only one on this road. There are cyclists.

I have come to the conclusion that the cyclists doing this road in their lycra, helmets and sweat pouring down their agonised red faces, are totally mad. This road from Thurso to Durness is tortuous. I am doing some of it in first gear on the way up and only second gear on the way down. I can only assume that the ghastly going up is compensated for by the exhilarating freewheeling down. 

Exhilarating but scary. Some are even towing small trailers behind them with tents and luggage. I bet the concept of electric bikes is looking rather attractive. 

This is simply one of the most spectacular roads I have ever travelled along and is up there with the Garden Route in South Africa.

Exquisite little coves and beaches and no-one on them.  What looks like a vast expanse of dry rocky acres of mountain is also misleading. There are pools of water in the peat everywhere. Some are as small as twenty foot across, others half a mile. No idea how deep.

After seeing nothing but mountain and free range sheep for miles on end, Bettyhill was eye candy and the views got better and better. Very glad to have asked Visit Scotland to try to find me accommodation for the next couple of days. There are no buildings here at all, let alone hotels or Bed and Breakfast. Where there are places they are sporting No Vacancy signs.

I stopped for lunch at one of the very few cafes on the route – The Weaver’s Cafe.

They had lovely homemade soup and sandwiches and a selection of crafts. Some were from Harray Potter of Orkney. This is not a deviation of harry potter for effect. 

The potter is actually Andrew Appleby from Fursbreck Pottery in Harray Village. He is well known and elderly and ready to retire so if one doesn’t take advantage and buy his work soon they won’t be able to.

Filling up with petrol still a serious concern for lots of people. Thirty bikers came through here last Sunday unaware that the village pump was only open for an hour. And not that hour they were there. The owner of the Weavers thinks it is red diesel that the locals are using. She is even considering getting a pump on her premises. Good idea. She could charge whatever she wants. People would pay gladly.

I crossed the beautiful causeway on the equally beautiful Kyle of Tongue

Then back on to A838 and into the mountains once more. About four miles outside Tongue I spotted what looked like peat – masses of it – cut into blocks and lying drying at the side of the road again in the middle of nowhere. Peat is a deposit of impacted plant material, mostly sphagnum moss,  that is unique to certain areas of the country and the World actually. This is one of those unique areas. It forms in waterlogged areas hence all the pools and lochs everywhere.

But who cut it? There is no house in sight anywhere - just a ruin of one. And is it for their personal use or for sale as heating fuel?

Durness is minute and spread out. I found the MacKay hotel and the bunkhouse where I am to stay tonight and tomorrow, easily. It is a purpose built hostel housing about 20 people and I have a private room which is a blessing otherwise I would be sharing a mixed gender room with the cyclists.

I went a bit further along the road to the Balnakeil CraftVillage where there is a artisan chocolate workshop. The centre has an interesting history having originally been an RAF military camp during the cold war. Now it is a collection of private homes and small craft businesses.

One of which is Cocoa mountain a chocolate making company. They have a cafe where they sell hot chocolate naturally, tea coffee and snacks.

Is this the best drinking chocolate in Scotland? Quite possibly.

Took so long drinking it that I got back to the bunkhouse after the only shop in the area had closed. No supper for me then.

Off to bed in my two bunk room which is literally smaller than a two man prison cell and is possibly against the Geneva Convention on human space. The only other two bunk cell, I mean room, has a Australian couple in it and they snore - loudly and not in unison.

Now why did no one suggest taking a pair of ear plugs on this trip?