Inverness - Summer 1995

Inverness, 1995 July 17, 1995

 If my Granddaughter Nicky ever decides to change professions she will make an excellent tour guide. On Thursday morning she gathered up Matthew, my 15 year old Grandson, and I and we set off from Dumbarton in a northerly direction to tour Inverness and North West Scotland.

 Our first stop was Pitlochry which is famous for its hydro-electric dam and salmon ladder. The salmon don't actually jump up the ladder but swim through interconnecting pipes. There is an observation chamber where you can watch the salmon swim through the pipes through a large plate glass window. After an about a half hour of watching the salmon swim through the tubes, which is sort of like watching paint dry, we adjourned to the grounds surrounding the visitors center, found a unoccupied picnic table and enjoyed our packed lunch.

 Back on the road we continued northwesterly through some beautiful scenery and passed Aviemore. This is a very popular skiing resort located in the Cairngorms National Park. We arrived in Inverness dumped our luggage at our B&B and then set off to check out the town. The first place we headed for was the Visitor's Center and signed up for the three hour boat tour of Loch Ness the following afternoon.

That out of the way we set off down the Loch to the Loch Ness Exhibition and Visitor's Center at at Drumnadrochit I love the name. Drum-na-drock-it. Kind of feels good in my mouth. Anyway, this is one of the most interesting exhibitions I have seen in a long time. Originally the Official Loch Ness Exhibition Centre, the hi-tech multi-media presentation leads you through 7 themed areas and through 500 million years of history , natural mystery and legend revealing the unique environment of Loch Ness and the famous Nessie legend. We spent way over an hour in there and if it hadn't been close to closing time we could have happily stayed longer. I really have to give the British a lot of credit when it comes to putting together exhibits and tours. They go the extra mile to do a bang up job.

 Across the road is the Urquhart Castle ruins. Castle Urquhart is built on a rocky promontory above Loch Ness. There has been one thing or another on this site from about the 6th century or thereabouts and archaeologists have revealed traces of an Iron Age settlement as well. As far as views go it can hardly be beat. Parts of the current castle dates back to the medieval period and changed hands numerous times and in the processes has been fortified, torn down, rebuilt, blown up, and blown down. With it's newly opened Visitor's Center and admission fee of six pounds, fifty if enough people visit it maybe they will be able to rebuild it again. And as an aside, in 1977 from a place close to the castle some guy claims to have seen Nessy, the Loch Ness monster. That can't hurt the tourist traffic. As we were poking around the ruins Matthew happened to look at his watch and it was nine thirty p.m. The sun was still well up in the sky and it looked and felt like mid-day. Still, we wanted to get an early start the next day so we packed up and headed off to our B&B.

Since our Loch Ness tour was scheduled for early afternoon we headed off bright and early for Culloden. This is a must stop for any one who is interested in Scotland’s history or has read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander books. It was perfect weather, chilly, dreary and misting rain. Just the kind of day you need for wandering an ancient battlefield that is said to be haunted. I am not particularly receptive to ghosts but even I have to admit that there is an aura of sadness that hangs in the mist as you follow the path through the battlefield. A small sign marks the location of where each clan or regiment originally started out in the battle and the old stone farmhouse still stands on the edge of the moor and looked exactly as I have seen it described in books as do the stone clan markers that were placed on the site of each clans mass grave.  Just for fun I am providing a link to a youtube video about the  Ghosts of Culloden Moor

 We watched a film presentation inside the visitors center, grabbed a quick sandwich and cuppa in the tea room and scurried back to Inverness to meet up with our tour. Matthew, who was our official bearer of carry around items left the camera in the car! Nicky and I told him that if we spotted Nessie we were going to heave him overboard and use him for chum. I highly recommend this tour. The tour starts on the river Ness and immediately enter the Caledonian canal, through a lock and then into Loch Ness. The scenery is absolutely beautiful and there is a walking path that runs alongside the canal. The weather had cleared up and it was perfect hiking weather. All the folks on the path smiled and waved to us. Loch Ness is one of the prettiest Lochs in Scotland and that is saying a lot because I haven't seen a single one yet that isn't gorgeous. The views of Urquhart Castle from the water were breath taking. What a shame the camera was in the car. Darn kid!

 Nicky's parent's were driving up after her Dad got off work so after walking around for a while and looking in the shops we went back to the B&B and bummed some tea and scones off the nice lady who ran the place and waited for them to call. For dinner we went to a pub that served meals. The place was jumping and as we came in one of the waitresses shouted out and waved to Nicky. We had a lot of fun kidding her about being known in all the pubs in Scotland. Because of the crowd the service was a little slow but the food when it finally arrived was outstanding. Good thing we had eaten those scones earlier. Jenny had been busy. She had booked us a tour of Orkney though the Helensburgh Tourist Center so the next morning the five of us presented ourselves at the bus station and SIX THIRTY A.M. to take the chartered bus to John O'Groats, the northern most spot in Scotland to embark via ferry to Orkney.

Link to a slide show of all my 1995 Inverness Pictures

Orkney Islands

June 16

We arrived at the bus station bleary eyed and half awake but on time.  Happily there was a catering lady on board who sold coffee, tea and pastries so we didn’t starve to death on the drive to John O’Groats where we would catch the ferry to the main island.

The countryside through Caithness is very bleak and barren, at least what I could see from the window of the bus was so we all nodded off and caught up on some of the sleep we missed by getting up so early.

There is a small visitor center at John O’Groats that also contains a very small post office so  I bought a couple of post cards, one of which I mailed to myself at home so I could have one for a keepsake with the stamp and post mark.   The Ferry was small, smelly and cold.  There was seating inside but what’s the fun of that?  We decided to brave the North Sea weather and were amply rewarded by a school of dolphins who swam alongside side for a while looking us over and I swear, making fun and laughing at us.  This is the kind of situation where I allow my imagination to take over and picture viking long ships on the horizon.  

Skara Braae

After arriving at our destination there was another bus waiting for us and we set off for the grand tour of the main island.  Our first stop was Skara Braae, and Iron Age settlement dating from the late Neolithic period and was  inhabited between 3200 BC and 2200 BC. or so they tell me.  It was located right up on the beach and had been buried until a storm caused enough erosion to uncover it in the late nineteenth century.  

The houses were small but they looked like there were cosy.  They even had a place to keep live fish until they were ready to cook them.  The beds didn't look like they would be too comfortable though.  It started to rain so that cut our visit a little short.

The Ring of Brodgar or   The Standing Stones o' Stenness

To be honest I don't remember which one of these stone circles I didn't visit.  The tour stopped and I sent Nicky and Matthew out in the rain to take a picture.  What are Grandchildren for if not to abuse?  At any rate I have a photograph but there is no way I can tell you which one it was.

Stromness and Scapa Flow

We visited both of these places.  We had a wonderful lunch in a pub on the harbor.  There was a Danish Tall Ship in port.  It was the first time I had ever seen one of them.  After lunch the tour bus took us to the site where the Naval Base at Scapa Flow used to be.  I have to say they certainly did a good job of returning the place to it's original condition.  You could not tell anything had ever been there except for the Italian Church.

The Italian Chapel was built by Italian Prisoners of War during WWII.  It started out as a quonset hut.  This was by far the highlight of our visit to Orkney and I have included two links that will tell you more than I can as no words of mine would be up to the task of describing just how beautiful and poignant this site is.

Link to brief history of the Italian Chapel on Orkney

Kirkwall

This was our last stop on the tour and we were given an hour to just walk around the City Centre.  We visited the church and checked out the shops for tatty souveniers, had a cup of tea and a scone and got back on the bus to return to the ferry landing.  The return was just a reverse of the morning except that it started seriously raining so we rode inside on the ferry.

Footnote, kinda.

Since this trip I have read Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter and I have longed to return to Orkney and all the places mentioned in that book.  It's one the list of my top ten all time favorite books.  It just never worked out for me to go back but I am so grateful I was able to go once anyway.