My last trip to the Scottish Highlands was by train and while an exnihilating experience watching the snow-covered landscape pass me by, I was excited this time would be a driving adventure, allowing us to stop along the way at our own pace. While I love trains as a way to travel, particularly over longer distances, a car on the open road gives you an extra sense of freedom, even if it is a rental. Our first stop was breakfast – somewhere suitable in the direction we were travelling. We settled on Finnegan’s in Flakirk where I had the traditional Scottish Breakfast although this one came with black pudding. It was really good – the tattie scone and the sausages were particularly good but I do have to say I prefer haggis to black pudding – it is more flavourful. One thing we have both noticed is that everything here is saltier, particularly the bacon. And the other thing is that everywhere we go toast is served with butter. You can choose whether to put it on, but you get the choice. A lesson in that for cafes back home. Breakfast was washed down with a latte. Dan had a hankering for a hot chocolate, so we stopped a few metres down the road at a Starbucks. From here it was just a few kilometres to our first stop – the Falkirk wheel.
The wheel is a magnificent piece of engineering that uses the power of water to transfer boats between two canals – the Union Canal and the Forth and Clyde Canal where one of them – the Union Canal – is 35 metres higher than the other. The wheel uses hydraulic pumps to raise the boat 24 metres but they still need to raise another 11 metres through two locks to meet the top canal. The weight of the water in both arms of the wheel is key to the operation of the wheel. Opened in 2002, it has a Celtic inspired design and is a magnificent piece of working sculpture. Given it is winter, most of the long boats on the water are stored until the warmer months when canalling becomes a more pleasant way to travel. Travelling the UK’s waterways in a long boat seems like a really relaxing way to see some of the countryside. Particularly, the spectacular landscapes of Scotland. The Falkirk wheel has become a bit of an attraction so it has a visitor’s centre and food van, both of which were closed on our visit. It also boasts a water park, which was a concrete area with some dirty sand and fountains – maybe it is better in summer but it really did look a bit like piss weak world.
From here it was just a quick drive to the attraction I was desperately waiting for – Scotland’s own big pineapple. Although here it is just called The Pineapple as they obviously aren’t aware of the two big pineapples in Australia. This one is made of concrete rather than fibreglass and sits atop what used to be an ornate glasshouse at the Dunmore Estate. The Earl of Dunmore decided to try to grow pineapples here, along with other fruit and vegetables, in the 19th Century. He built a walled covered garden that was climate controlled with furnaces between two brick walls. Rumour has it that the pineapples weren’t very successful but the pineapple motif was a symbol of wealth, power and hospitality at the time, which probably explains how a concrete pineapple wound up here. Nowadays the National Trust who manage the building, call it a folly. There is also a residence as part of the walled garden structure which you can stay in… wish I’d known that before! It is, however, the final piece of a triptych of Big Pineapples – the Big Pineapple in the Gold Coast hinterland (where I made Dan go on the educational pineapple train to relive my childhood), the Big Pineapple made from the same fibreglass mould that sits atop a service station at Gympie (sans any form of gift shop), and now the concrete Pineapple at Dunmore.
After the Dunmore stop we were on our way through the Scottish Highlands to our destination for the night – Inverness. While I had travelled to Inverness previously by train, nothing quite prepares you for the drive to the Highlands from Edinburgh – traversing valleys between sweeping, barren mountains. You half expect Connor McLeod of the Clan McLeoed to ride over the mountainside to tell the world he is immortal. The character of highlanders, a bit rough around the edges but stoic is born our of the landscape. This is harsh but beautiful country – even now as it is almost spring, the hills are barren and desolate with a few still capped with snow. It is a three hour drive north to Inverness, much of it along the edge Cairngorms National Park. And you spend much of it looking up to the heavens where the mountains touch the sky and because of the elevation (and the weather) at points they disappear into the clouds like something magical. The sound of the celts – the thunder of the drums and the siren like pipes evoke this big landscape. [Big Country – Big Country – I put together a spotify playlist of Scottish songs for our drive and this was the perfect tune for the Highlands. Even though it is a thoroughly 80s tune – the big drums and the atmosphere created sounds like this big landscape. It is the Scottish version of The Triffids Wide Open Road (incidentally, it was created in the same era).]
For the first hour or so of the drive big scale service centres are plentiful but as you skirt the edge of the national park these disappear and the only sign of life (apart from the goats) is other travellers parked at roadside lay bys. The road here is a single lane in each direction but at the more scenic spots, it can be hard to find a park. As you get closer to Inverness, there is a stop on the side of the road where you will find a roadside café and toilets – as is traditional in many parts of Europe, there is a charge to use the toilets but you can pay by card these days. Upstairs is a simple café with coffee and snacks on offer. We got some drinks and continued on our way.
Inverness is just what you expect it to be – a small town serviced by the railway that also services the limited tourism in the area. Perhaps harking back to the hey day of Nessie enthusiasts, there are more hostels here than you would expect but not so many swish hotels. On my last visit here more than a decade ago, I arrived late on the train, having travelled on the ferry from Belfast and then trains via a stopover in Glasgow, with my pack on my back. It was snowing. I had no GPS and was pretty sure I had walked in the wrong direction for about 2-3 kilometres looking for my hostel. After having this confirmed via phone from home, I gave up on a lengthy walk in the snow and took a room at the Royal Highland Hotel which I remember being pretty swish. We stayed here this time and would describe the hotel as far from that – while it still has the grand tartan rugged staircase, the rooms are tired and old and the bathroom had a number of issues. We turned the heat down as far as we could but it was still incredibly warm.
We decided to go for a stroll around the town before dinner and wandered down to the river, crossing over and doing a circuit across the second bridge. The thing that strikes you is that there are a lot of churches in Inverness. We must have passed close to 10 in a 15 minute stroll. There is also a castle perched on the edge of the city. While castles have stood on the site since 1057, this one was built in the early 1800s so perhaps doesn’t really rate the title of castle in the truest sense.
We did score much better with dinner – our first Sunday in the UK, I was keen to eat somewhere Sunday roast was on offer. MacGregor’s fit the bill. I started with a bowl of Cullen skink, a creamy fish soup chock full of Scottish wild caught salmon. It was delicious. Dan had what you might call Scottish- Indian fusion with a Haggis Onion Bhaji, which actually tasted amazing. I, of course chose the roast dinner – beef with red cabbage and jus, Yorkshire pudding, carrots and potatoes. Potatoes are synonymous with Ireland but they are pretty much a staple here too. From the tattie scones at breakfast to the mash that comes as an accompaniment to everything. Something you don’t see at home very often anymore. Dan forewent the roast (probably because he cooks such a good one) and opted for the steak and ale pie. Dan makes tastier yorkies but the roast was pretty good and I really enjoyed the red cabbage as an unusual accompaniment. We couldn’t really fit dessert in but there was a toffee pudding on the menu so we had to try it. It was divine – the best dessert so far (with the exception of the fancy place in Edinburgh). Now I am a well-known Guinness aficionado and if you see me with a beer in hand, it will almost certainly be a stout. Tpnight I had the best stout I had ever sampled and can’t for the like of me remember what it was called beyond Cambridge stout – it was very smooth and chocolatey, with all the body of a Guinness but not the bitterness.
After retiring quite early, we awoke to a buzz about the hotel as locals and some guests had driven slightly north of the city in the middle of the night and seen the Aroura Borealis, a feat which has eluded me twice in the Arctic circle and apparently again in Scotland. And it was pretty close to guaranteed given it had been seen as far south as Bristol. Coincidentally locals at home were posting pics of the Aroura Australis from Gerroa Beach.
Fridge Magnets – 5 Postcards – 5 T-shirts – 1 Christmas decorations – 2