Our Second Full Day...How Lovely the Loch

This post is post-dated for Friday, August 31, 2007.
It was lovely to awake this morning to a loch view. We are staying in room number 6-- a warm and inviting room in shades of creamy yellow, with a large windowseat overlooking the garden and hills and loch, and an ensuite bathroom with, my personal favorite: a towel warmer. We awoke (after a GREAT night's sleep!) at 8:30 (late for us as 6:45 is more the norm with a child). We had breakfast at Kilcamb by the window. The weather proved to stay bleak and gray today, with the occassional spurt of light. Dave and I enjoyed our gourmet breakfast while listening to instrumental "elevator" style piano renditions of Coldplay and Eric Clapton, much to our amusement. I guess you've arrived as a musician if they are turning your music into elevator music. Then it was off to the winding roads again as we headed out towards the westerly areas of Ardamurchan. And le me just say upfront that, even though these were newly paved roads (with help from the EU), these single lane winding roads were even more intense than yesterdays. After ten minutes of Dave driving like a race car driver in our Vauxhall stick-shift, I was sure I'd lose my breakfast. Queasy was an understatement. "Stay left" was my motto--made irrelevant in light of one lane roads where cars stop on a dime to let the other pass--or, "overtake" as they say in Scotland. Two cars flying towards each other at speeds of 35 miles an hour can feel like a game of "Chicken"--my mother would have refused to ride in the car after two minutes of this. It's feighning, to be sure. But I'm guessing they have very few alcohol-related accidents on this road, as you have to have your full wits about you (and quite a bit of nerve) to not hit anyone just being sober. Drunk, one couldn't stay on these roads for more than a minute. I'm not exaggerating. Warning: If you are planning a driving trip here, you better prepare yourself! So onward we went until the roads got to us--so we stopped off at Glenborrodale Natural History Museum in, where else, Glenborrodale. A sweet little museum aiding the visitor in familiarity with the animal life of the Ardamurchan peninsular. They, of course, had a gift shop so we had to take a look and found some children's books for our son written by a UK author-very cute. Probably the best kid's books we've seen in a while. The rhyming is inventive and fun and Dave remarked he looks forward to reading a good night book other than Goodnight Moon--a classic, but the rhyming terrible and annoying after the third read: "Goodnight room. Goodnight moon..." Anyway, these Hairy MacClary books are great. So we bought a few. Onward and upward, after gathering my bearings, we braved the road once more. This time heading to the westerly Ardamurchan peninsular around Ben Hiant--or, the Holy Mountain--to the ruins of Mingary Castle. I have a real fascination with castle ruins--actually, ruins of any kind. But castle ruins especially intrigue me. Mingary was just the thing. There was a small footpath open to Mingary from a small carpark near the entrance to the village of Kilchoan. The castle itself has a modern lock on its door--I guess to keep out people like us. But being fascinated we tried to walk around as much of it as possible. It is a castle of the 13th to 16th Century, betrayed by the architecture of thin slat windows, small doors and a deep moat/ditch. It's name in Gaelic is Mioghairidh, which means "the great land between machair and moor". The rear of the castle is perches on a cliff overlooking the sea below. The drop to the sea is quite dramatic, so we didn't venture there. It causes me to wonder of the clan chiefs or princes who lived there and what there lives here must have been like. Back then this would have felt like exile to the edge of the world. Even now villages here are small and remote. There may be a small primary school house for a hand full of children at most. We didn't see one middle or high school except in Strontian. To get to this part to of the peninsular takes such dedication of time (and nerve), I can't imagine people leave but every two weeks for maybe a day to get goods. We joked about mail order and internet orders being the primary means people get things around here. So I can't imagine its remoteness and sense of isolation during the 13th or even 16th centuries, when the Renaissance was taking place all over Europe. Leaving here we headed to the north part of the peninsular to Kilmory beach, where there was a short walk to the beach and we walked along the sand where the tide had drawn out and ate our packed lunch there. It was a long drive back, but David again took pleasure in driving like a race car driver. We made it back to Strontian and headed for the town center where we parked and walked to the head of the Strontian woods walk. Probably the best walk to date, we passed first through a thick forest of pine, rock, fern, and lichen and ended on a high hillside open with heather and the ubiquitous thistle (of which I picked some to paint for later). We walked about a third of a mile through really soggy, heather covered ground and then turned back. The views from there were stunning with the Ben Nevis range to our right and Loch Sunart below. It was breathtaking. In the forest we were amazed at the size of some of the pines, and how in areas where there were many younger pines, they competed for light, so when you stood under them there was only darkness around as their leaves were focused upward toward the sky and the lower half of their trunks were devoid of foliage, but covered in lichen. It was a real Robinhood like, dark forest. David remarked that the ground here is like the Scots themselves--hard and soft. The boggy spongy ground was soft, but deep down was granite, hard stone. Such a contrast in the land, and the people. They are a tough people, but soft really--and so kind. We headed back to the hotel to give Dave's mom a call to speak with our son on the phone. We sat and had tea, while I wrote in my journal. I looked at the window to the Loch, thinking of the day and how I had liked the lochs better than the sea because the lochs were surrounded by mountains, and the sea was open, bare, and lovely. Before dinner I began to read The Road North--essays about the west highlands...but more on that later. I forgot to mention in the past 2 days we've seen a fair amount of wildlife: red highland cattle (my favorite whooly mammoths); 2 merlins; a salamandar; a couple of ring-necked pheasants and their chicks; sheps galore; tags; and a field mouse. But so far, no infamous midges--thank God...but thanks to a tip I now know that Avon's Skin So Soft is the cure all preventive for keeping midges at bay--though no one knows why as of yet.