Highland highlights

Time for another retrospective post. This time we’re off to Scotland. In November 1990, I spent a week exploring Scotland with Dean Keiller, a friend from Portland, Victoria. At the time, we were nearing the end of an extraordinary six months travelling through Europe.

Dean and I had made our way from the Netherlands to London on 23 October. For the next three weeks, we based ourselves at Auntie Shirley and Uncle Tony’s house in Lewisham. At the time, Dean had an Australian friend living in Inverness on a working holiday visa. After all these years, I don’t recall his name, but I’m almost certain he worked at a local hospital. His friend invited us to stay.

On 1 November, we caught the early morning Caledonian Express bus from Victoria Station bound for Inverness. The journey took up the better part of a full day to complete. For the next seven days, we literally explored Scotland from east to west and north to south.

Inverness was a curious place. I wouldn’t call it a beautiful city despite its coastal location. However, it proved an ideal base for exploring Scotland. The image above comes from a postcard I bought at the time. Dean’s mate had a car, which made all the difference. As a result, on our first full day in town, we borrowed it to visit Loch Ness and go in search of Nessie. We also stopped to admire the ruins of Urquhart Castle on its western shore.

However, back then, access to the ruins was somewhat restricted as they sat amid private farmland. You had to walk across an open paddock to reach them. Garry and I revisited the area in 2008. By then, the castle had been transformed into a popular tourist destination, with a car park, visitors' centre and guided tours.

We also stopped outside Invermoriston to admire the historic Thomas Telford bridge. This stone arched crossing was built in 1813. For more than a century, it was the only river crossing of the River Moriston Falls on the road to Fort William. The current bridge nearby replaced it in 1933. It was well worth a few scenic “we were here” photos.  That's me in the image that opens this post.

The following weekend, we took a trip to the West Coast, stopping overnight in Mallaig. We departed early on Saturday, 3 November and drove west along the shores of Loch Ness and onwards to Fort William. We then turned inland towards Glenfinnan. While I have no recollection of seeing the iconic Glenfinnan Viaduct, I can’t imagine driving this far and not stopping for a good look.

Dean’s mate decided to take the scenic route to Mallaig, so we followed the western shoreline of Loch Linnhe (which is actually a fjord) as far south as Strontian, then turned towards the west coast. Along the way, we stopped to explore the picturesque ruins of Castle Tioram. This castle was once the ancestral stronghold for the Clanranald branch of Clan Donald. It was destroyed in 1715 during a Jacobite rising and never rebuilt. As you can see above, we timed our arrival perfectly as the castle sits on an island that’s only accessible by foot at low tide. The final image shows Mallaig harbour the following morning.

The following morning, we retraced our steps back to Inverness, stopping to admire the first snowfall of the season on Ben Nevis, the UK’s highest mountain. We also visited the sombre and rather poignant Commando Memorial near Spean Bridge. It overlooks the training areas of the Commando Training Depot, with Ben Nevis providing a suitably awe-inspiring backdrop.

If you look closely, you’ll see me standing in the phone booth above. Even in the remote Scottish lake district, home was only a phone call away. It’s all too easy to forget that in 1990, mobile phones weren’t a part of everyday life. A public phone was your only option if you ever had to make a call while on the road.

On 5 November, I fulfilled a childhood dream with a day trip to John O'Groats. This tiny village on the northeast coast of Scotland is the traditional starting or ending point for cycles, walks, and charitable events to and from Land's End (at the extreme south-western tip of the Cornish peninsula in England).

The drive north was an exhausting six-hour round trip. Back then, the Dornoch Firth Bridge was still under construction. As a result, I had to drive inland via Bonar Bridge, a detour that added an hour to the journey there and back. I took a few mandatory photos of the hotel and international signpost at John O'Groats, then drove to nearby Duncansby Head Lighthouse, located on the westernmost point of Scotland. I also took a short walk to explore a series of deep, rectangular rock channels carved into the lighthouse coast by an unrelenting North Sea. 

Perhaps the strongest memory of my day trip north was the ubiquitous presence of the North Sea oil industry. This was the era of peak North Sea oil production. Towns all along the coast were active bases for infrastructure and vessels that serviced oil and gas platforms in the North Sea. Vessels that bore no resemblance to traditional fishing boats were everywhere, along with plenty of hardcore industrial structures.

For example, I recall seeing a massive oil platform floating in Cromarty Firth, about half an hour north of Inverness. I later learned that this deep, naturally sheltered inlet served (and continues to serve) as a parking lot for mothballed and decommissioned North Sea rigs.  The image above was pulled from the web as an example of the astonishing scene I encountered all those years ago.

On 7 November, Dean and I packed our bags and headed back to London for a final week of sightseeing. Eight days later, on 15 November, we boarded a flight bound for Singapore. Our European adventure was finally over. It would be another eight years before I’d return to the UK, this time on business.