Given that the Edinburgh festival is on and apparently about a million tourists visit this city of only 0.5 m, there is a non-stop traffic jam on the pavements. So not wanting to entangle myself with the tourists here, I decided to become one in the North-western Highlands.
I have seen a fair bit of the (beautiful) countryside of Scotland, but as
the train chugged away from Inverness, I was taken aback by the what I saw - lush green open fields, gentle hills whose tops are perpetually cloaked by misty clouds (as is usually the case in bonnie and wet Scotland). The sheep were in full force as were the horses who were trotting and cantering at what seemed to be a slower pace than normal. The countryside is punctuated with a large number of lochs (lakes) and the train journey to Golspie was as picturesque as it gets – a lake on at least one side of the train tracks, and cute wee train stations (a la Barog in Himachal) where many times the platform was at the edge of a loch. Across the lake you could see a tiny collection of houses that is, in this part of the world, ambitiously called a town.
After a rather long journey (6 and a half hours from E’burgh and its tourists), I finally reached Golspie where I was the only one to disembark. The lady at the B&B had helpfully given me clear directions on how to get to the B&B from the station and had assured me that it would not take more than 6-7 minutes. But after about 20 minutes of walking, panic set in as there was no sign of the B&B and the signal on my mobile was predictably dodgy. A police car passed me twice – perhaps because they were rubbing their eyes in disbelief at the sight of an Indian, with luggage on his back, mobile in his hand, and a frown on his brow in this wee fishing village in the back of beyond of Scotland. But fortunately, after about 5 minutes of holding the mobile in all sorts of different ways, I finally did get a signal and immediately called the B&B. When I told the lady that I was lost, she first laughed and then scolded me for not knowing my left from my right (“Remember, I clearly told you ‘turn left from the train-station’. Why did you turn right?”). She then promised to send her husband to pick me up in a “Grey Honda”. Minutes later a van (which was not–so-Grey and not-so-Honda) stopped next to me and a rather dishevelled and confused man (look who's talking) asked me to get in. Before I started imagining shotguns under the front seat, he told me that the son had taken the ‘Grey Honda’ which is why he had come in the van.
The main attraction in the area is Dunrobin Castle, a 12th century construction belonging to the Sutherland family which once owned over 1.3 million acres of the surroundings. The castle, renovated in the 18th c, was the usual too-many-opulent rooms (187 to be exact) affair. But the icing on the Scottish-castle cake was the well-manicured gardens that overlooked the sea. These gardens have a daily Falconry show where I learnt the difference between Hawks, Falcons, and Owls. The chappie conducting the show was making these birds land on peoples heads (much to the amusement of the others). Since I wasn’t sporting a cap or a hat, I was spared the feel of talons on my head. Phew…
From Golspie, I visited Dornoch, whose claims to fame are two-fold
1. It was in Dornoch that, in 1722, Scotland’s last executed witch was consigned to a vat of boiling tar
2. Madonna got married at the nearby Skibo castle (given the state of her marriage now, or the lack of it, I don’t think too many people visit the castle).
I instead headed straight for the local inn which was choc-a-bloc and everyone was huddled around an old radio - you know, the TV-sized ones with wooden panelling and the large dials. At first I thought that someone finally broadcast Churchill's speech telling them the war was over. But it was the start of the Scottish and English football seasons and everyone was listening to the commentary (Don't ask me why the inn didn't invest in a TV). After a nice heavy lunch, I pushed myself to the other attraction in town – the Dornoch Cathedral which had some decent (though recent) stained glass windows (apparently Madonna’s son was christened here).
Then it was off to Glenmorangie distillery which is easily one of the more picturesque distilleries I have seen. After a wee dram, I was faced with a predicament that anyone who relies on public transportation in the UK confronts. I had no way of reaching the nearest town ‘Tain’ so I had to walk along the highway (my complaint letters to the Mayor of Tain and the Head of the Glenmorangie Distillery are in the post). After risking life and limb, I reached the rather charmless town of Tain from where I took a bus back to Golspie. I added a Scottish touch to my day by dining at the Golf Club (the mint lamb cutlets weren’t a patch on the cutlets of ‘India Coffee Home’!).
The highest point in the area is Ben Bhraggie – given that my train was on Sunday afternoon, I decided to leave the ascent for Sunday morning. When on the appointed morning I opened my curtains, I saw the most common sight out of windows in Scotland – a heavily overcast sky with rain. So that was water poured over my plans to do a bit of hill-walking. Over the heavy breakfast (where I had an extra glass of orange juice), I prepared myself for a morning of sitting on the sofa reading my book and watching the rain drops pattering against the window panes. But by the time I had finished my coffee, the sky had cleared and the sun had made an appearance (‘In Scotland?’, you may ask).
So off I was, with my best hill-walking demeanour, to reach the top of Ben Bhraggie. Fortunately, the path was well sign-posted, and despite my best attempts to get lost, I could feel myself getting closer and closer to the top which has a huge statue of the first Duke of Sutherland. The duke was a rather unpopular figure, since he had cleared the area of the farmers ('crofters'), so the local tradition is to go to the top of the ‘summit’ (394 m! This is UK, remember) and then relieve oneself on the statue. I had no such plans when I set out, but as I got closer and closer, the extra orange juice I had for breakfast was ‘pressurising’ me to stick to local traditions.
To avoid answering nature's call (on the Duke or elsewhere), I diverted my attention by enjoying the countryside. It helped that I was crossing lush green fields where one could see horses and beautiful vistas of Golspie bay and the sea. And when I finally reached the top I was blown away – literally! It was extremely windy and I had to struggle to keep myself from being blown off. So I sought refuge behind the gargantuan statue of the Duke. I was only 15 metres from the place from where I would have started the descent but every time I took a few steps in that direction, I lost balance (you weren't there so you can't imagine how windy it was). I imagined getting stuck there forever, or getting thrown of the cliff after losing my balance because of the wind (“Indian missing. Last seen flying over Golspie”).
I will spare you the embarrassing details of how I finally got down. After a rather hasty descent, followed by a nice pub lunch, I reached the ‘un-manned’ (i.e. the station is so small that we won’t even bother paying someone to work there) train station at Golspie and then back to E’burgh (and its tourists!)
