There isn’t a route 66 through Scotland but there is an interesting set of road trails which combined with the TT’s back seat filled with the Heritage Trees of Scotland book, Julian Cope’s stone circle book, the Good Beer Guide, Best of Scotland and two OS maps (North and South Scotland) with a mysterious gap between them – Kim and I set off after gutbusting on the Saturday morning with a rough itinerary and an intention of getting back home Monday night.
First stop was Cairnpapple, north of Bathgate, where a lady originally from Hawick sold us tickets and some chocolate fudge and left us to wander around the 5,000 year old stones and tomb and enjoy the fabulous views of the entire Pentland range, over to Arran, up to Ben Lawers and across the Forth to the Isle of May, Fife and East Lothian. Kim, newly started on her SSRI anti depressants, was listening to a radio article on how hard it is to get off anti-depressants, although at least she was telling jokes so they seem to be working.
Through Linlithgow (fictional birthplace of Scottie in Star Trek) where the ‘Black Bitch’ pub is (albeit named after a dog which is the town’s coat of arms, a greyfriars bobby type of tale, and not the landlady). Onward to the unmissable Pineapple building with huge lawns filled with running dogs and shouting owners, and over the Kincardine Bridge (new railway bridge being constructed alongside the road bridge with a worrying gap in the middle) to Clackmannan, named after a stone, the Clack, worshipped as the Celtic sea god Manann – mounted on a pillar is looks like a giant phallus. I had never thought I would be a tourist in Clackmannan photographing a giant phallus representing a sea god when we were lots of miles inland. It hadn’t started to rain yet so it looked like we had no excuse but to walk up Dollar Glen and see the waterfalls and the Castle Campbell (which I kept calling Glen Campbell) known as Castle Gloom with the burns of Care and Sorrow around it – Kim cruelly suggested this would be a great place for her unmedicated depressive sister’s wedding as we watched limousines filled with strapless dressed wedding guests waiting to whirl under the green men. Dollar is from Dolor meaning Grief so perhaps her sister should move there after all.
Racing to Aberfoyle for ice cream and a dander up Doun Hill where the Fairy Tree grows festooned with wishes, coins pressed into the bark and statues of fairies around the base. There are lots of other trees around the summit of the wee hill similarly decked out. With something, or someone, buzzing around my head we ran back to the car, before we were forced to take the ‘Thomas The Rhymer’ side trip to Fairyland for a few years, getting back just as the rain pelted down – it stopped two days later. Over the Dukes Pass with the views obscured by low cloud and to Loch Katrine with drenched tourists waiting for the Sir Walter Scott steamer. Brig of Turk has the Bicycle Tree, where the legend has it that a chap leaned his bike against the tree, went off to war and was killed and the tree and bike become one. The local tale is that the local blacksmith used it as a dump and the tree grew around the metal refuse. In any case it is an interesting sight, and a bugger to find a single tree in a wood when you have NO directions but are trying to work it out from an old photograph.
Up to the Falls of Dochart at Killin and over the steep and winding Ben Lawers road to the lovely, long and legendary Glen Lyon. Down the Glen is the most picturesque village in Scotland, Fortingall, where the church hosts the oldest living thing in Europe (or the world depending on who you read) – the Fortingall Yew (sadly depleted by tourists carving large chunks off its trunk for drinking vessels). We were too late for the Crannog Centre but we passed through Aberfeldy to see the Obelisk bridge and Black Watch status (with an electrical cable going up the highlander’s kilt for some reason). Pushing the itinerary to the limit at 7:30pm we got to the Meikleour Beech Hedge – the highest in the world and most magnificent. There was no room or dinner table with local beer at the Meikleour Inn, due to the Game Fair – so we headed north but found the Braemar road closed due to a fatal motorcycle accident so stopped off for the night at The Bridge of Cally – along with 26 Rolls Royce and Bentley owners and a gun dog trainer.
The Rolls Royce owners were all well turned out for breakfast, gentle souls who were too afraid to ask when the milk, grapefruit and orange juice ran out, but suggested shooting the terrorists (or possibly all Muslims it was difficult to tell) who rammed Glasgow Airport with a 4×4 filled with propane. There were also a pair who could be your atypical lottery winner dressed in T-shirt but the only one lovingly wiping the torrential rain off his car.
Northwards to a snow free Glenshee Ski Centre and thus to Royal Deeside, an ancient forest and traditional place fit for the Royals. Licking our Braemar icecreams we wandered around the tourist packed centre, passed Balmoral, with No Stopping signs which Kim suggested because Charles was a poor shot, since Lizzie wasn’t in residence we decided to pass the opportunity of tea with the queen and headed to Ballater – a town where every store seems to be By Royal Appointment, some to the Queen Mother who must be accumulating bread in her tomb. An ancient bus in the Bluebird garage had Tarland on its destination sign – and curiously enough that was where we were heading to see the recumbent stone circle at Tomnaverie (with passing places on the pedestrian walkway) and the Twin Trees of Finzean – two separate fir trees joined by a single branch growing between them.
Driving back we passed through unlikley named town of Kincardine O’Neil
We wanted to drive along the Cockbridge to Tomintoul road, which appears regularly on Radio Scotland traffic report as closed, and we could see why – steep ascents and descents and a high exposed mountain road with the Lecht Ski centre in the centre. We came across the village of Lost and at Bellabeg there was an moated motte – the Doune of Invernochty which was used as a radio bunker in the war – it was wet, steep and boggy and there was a ‘danger chemical spraying in progress’ sign but we marched on and got soaked. There was an avenue of lime trees planted in remembrance of 42 radio operators who died in the war, and a memorial sundial.
Duffton to Keith railway is a private concern but we couldn’t find any information on it (it was missing off the tourist boards and there was just an answering machine) – so we drove up to Fochabers and the ghastly Baxter food village to queue for some tinned Baxter’s Haggis broth.
That refuelled us to face the Moray coast and starting at Spey Bay we traversed each of the fishing towns all with welcoming marketing tags such as ‘Aye Afloat’, ‘Home of Cullen Skink’ and the baffling ‘Welcome Knockers’ at Portknockie. Buckie, formerly Buckpool, filled in its harbour to make a play park and we walked the Speyside way by passing through the Start marker and turning round and passing through the Stop marker (on the rear of the Start one), I needed a beer after that. Portsoy had a festival on with old boats in the harbour, folk singers and a drunken woman rolling on the street in a large puddle being laughed at by her friends. We walked along the cliffs to see the open air sea pool and the Serpentine rocks.
Gardenstown and Crovie cling to cliffs with a steep winding road down to the harbour and Pennan is where the film Local Hero was filmed, albeit not in the welcoming inn where the landlady was coping with calls after her assistant put an advert in the paper saying – ‘Own car? Good stamina? call Linda’. The phone box was also not the one in the village, and the beach scenes were filmed in Arisaig – but in any case it is a picturesque village and harbour.
Fraserburgh, which should be twinned with ‘Belfast during the troubles’, was a bit depressing so we headed southwards to Peterhead (a bus passed with a direction indicator of HM Prison), through Aberdeen to Marycoulter, near the unrelated Petercoulter) and the Old Mill Inn, which was friendly, comfortable and the food was good. After some real ale and a bottle of claret I was ready to ignore Kim’s snoring and watch the dreadful Concert for Diana, where the princes were doing a good job of making Gordon Brown sound eloquent. Sort of Dead Aid, except there didn’t seem to be an obvious charitable recipient. Pretty soon I joined Kim in a symphony of snoring on our creaking and squeaking bed.
The plan was to swim at Stonehaven’s open air heated pool, but they covered up the ‘we open at 10am’ with a ‘we open at 1pm’ sign. We spotted a sign to the Highland Boundary Fault which we were wandering around as I took pictures of empty clothes poles in the mist, when I was accosted by a lady with a large boxer dog who seemed to think I was a paedophile photographing her caravan site. When she could see that I was more interested in her breasts she seemed to be a bit more friendlier and showed us where you could see the boundary fault if it wasn’t completely fog bound. The original plan after swimming was to visit my mother. however with the pool closed we called her and she was out. I remembered she gets her hair done on Monday so got my son to call up all the hairdressers in Arbroath to see if Muriel was there. The first one said it was impossible as it turned out to be a gentleman’s barber but after he skipped all the ones who close on a Monday – he finally got her.
We visited the sculptured stones at Aberlemno – pictish stones covered in carvings of people, angels and symbols. Fabulous and difficult to find on the OS map we have as the stones are marked on the wrong road just before the mysterious missing part of Scotland between the two maps. Once we got the church though it was easy detective work to find the others.
Lunched at the Old Brewhouse with Arbroath Smokies, with a cannonball that was apparently fired through the wall by a French pirate and some chap capitalising on its value grabbed it with his shirt, burning his shirt, hands and on dropping it broke his foot. Following the tradition of injuries a window pelmet swung down narrowly missing another diners head. Arbroath harbour is now a marina, none of that pesky fishing stuff in the inner harbour, with a seafood restaurant and startling shopping mall which will look great as an architectural model and less great after the seagulls have deposited all over it. A quick walk up the cliffs to read the Danger signs then it was off on the inlaws trail to see Kim’s mother crossing the Tay Bridge (which is tolled as it is free to get into Dundee but you have to pay to get out).
Balmerino Abbey is a splendid ruin but more splendid is the Spanish Sweet Chestnut Tree – a huge sprawling mass of tree with branches held up with metal scaffolding and its innards filled with concrete. Walked down to the silvery Tay before setting off homebound and tired and splashing through flooded roads through Fife and the Borders – the rain stopped when we got to Kelso.
So what have I learned over the long and tiring weekend -
Glasgow Terminal has very strong doors;
Tully means hill and there are lots of places starting with Tully or Pit which means village or Pictish place;
You can intimidate Rolls Royce owners easily, especially if you are carrying a copy of the Koran;
Don’t get blind drunk in Portsoy with friends like that;
Never write any book exposing the truth about faeries unless you want to disappear;
Space Kitchens continually cold call in breach of TPS and even call phone boxes (I am looking forward to the designer visiting our local red telephone box to measure it up).
