To properly understand and appreciate Scotland is to understand that it is akin to a moody, beautiful woman. She doesn’t beckon, she just stays, confident that you will be compelled to come to her. She knows she’s the most beautiful girl in the room, so she does not feel the need to impress you, she knows you’re already impressed. She’s unapologetically passionate, moving from warm, sunny and happy to cold, quiet and nonchalant within minutes. She’s confident in what she is, she never feels the need to explain herself to you.
If you realise this swiftly about Scotland, then you can properly appreciate her beauty. The weather in Scotland is as unpredictable as a kite without a string. You can be decked down in sunny garb because you see the sun outside, but from the time you put on your loafers to the time you step out the door, it would already be drizzling hail and freezing. The weather got so moody, that our philosophy when it came to doing anything in Scotland almost never came down to the weather. If it was pouring outside and we wanted to hike, we still went because some sun is usually just around the corner. A host in one accommodation we stayed in very aptly described the weather in Scotland as ‘four seasons in a day’.
We rolled into Waverly station from York, cold, a little lost but gamed to start the road trip leg of our trip. But first, we needed our chariot. She booked the cheapest car on the menu, which she expected would be a smallish car where I could possibly have needed to press my derriere against her face just to release the hand brakes. Instead, we were given the keys to a C Class. We paid for a chariot but got a wagon instead. Mistake? Luck? Blessing? Who knows. I was just dreaming about rolling like a boss. Now, where were my shades? But jokes aside, the difference between a nice and unforgettable holiday often comes down to the little things. Like the sunroof that our car had. To be able to wind it back to enjoy the warm sun on chilly mornings or to allow the cool evening gust to rush through the car on warmer afternoons, made the long drives very memorable for the two of us indeed. They did not feel like wasted travel time. We were experiencing Scotland even inside the confines of German engineering.
It was nice to drive away from the bustle. I have very little preferences when it comes to traveling (mainly because I didn’t do much of it before) but I think something I have developed in recent years is a schedule that goes from the bustle of a city, gradually retreating into quiet solitude. I’m not sure why, but there’s an instinctual comfort that comes from having your senses overloaded and then gradually unwinding into an almost meditative state. London played it role as the ringmaster of the circus wonderfully, orchestrating trapeze jumps after another through things I loved but I was equally excited with the prospect of having the lights dimmed and the curtains fall now as I retreat into the quiet.
The terrain in Scotland is unrelenting, larger than our camera lenses could comprehend. While we were properly wondered by the picturesque landscape of New Zealand, Scotland’s charm is a little more uncouth, a little more uncontrollable. While New Zealand often seems like God’s own properly manicured garden. One where he brings a gardener or landscaper in frequently to tend and beautify, Scotland feels like the garden in his second home. One where he doesn’t quite leave completely to rot, but does allow the seasons and forces of nature to shape and refine. Being somebody that has never enjoyed anything that’s too refined or pristine, I really appreciated the ruggedness of Scotland’s landscape. There wasn’t always amenities where you expected them, the car parks to the walks/hikes were often self-shaped and defined, you had to hike at times, uncomfortably through forages and bushes to get where you need to. But that adds to the charm of it. This wasn’t nature on a Top-40 million-dollar production budget. This was the heart and soul of an artist grinding through a track in the basement of his mother’s home, more or less unconscious of the brilliance that is about to bloom.
This unpredictable charm was best illustrated during our hike up to see the Old Man of Storr. And before your imagination starts running wild to a malnourished, bearded spiritual guru who sits on a rock on a mountain, awaiting Asian tourists to pop by so that he can enlighten them with the secrets of life and death, the Old Man of Storr is really just a large boulder. But, the fun’s not always in the objective right? My wife might sound a retort. Anyway, we made our way up, going from well paved roads to sludgy puddles of mud, while weathering wind, rain and eventually hail. 40-minutes later, there we were, taking refuge at what can probably be described as the derriere of the Old Man as the winds rustled up a whistle and the hail getting vicious. For a moment stuck up there, with no fellow hikers in sight, it felt, dangerous. Like perhaps we forgot to read the fine print on the brochure – ‘May potentially not come back’. I did not sign up for this. I started the journey thinking it was going to be a breezy walk, adjusted my expectations when I saw the muddy climb and now you’re telling me it ends here? Surely thou jest. But that well-publicised moodiness of Scotland weather was to be our salvation, as the weather turned tepid as quickly as it did dangerous and we started making our way down.
One of the magical things about traveling is that it introduces you to lifestyles that are different from yours. Experiencing these idyllic lifestyles abroad is a way I deposit some hope into my heart and soul that there are better ways to live this life. Sure, we may never attain them but it somehow feels better to have something to aspire to than having absolutely nothing at all. We’ve witnessed people who have carved out an existence in between a scenic loch at the back of their home and snow-capped mountains at the front of it. We’ve seen people who tend to a croft for a living, up in the hills, unburdened by the excesses of civilisation, contented with forging a meaningful existence largely with and around nature.
I lost count on the amount of charming small towns we drove through, marked by scant pockets of settlement and civilisation. The idea that someone has created an existence for themselves so removed away from the existence I’ve carved for myself continues to be endlessly fascinating for me. To be able to take our time and drive through them, at times meeting the people there, dine with them, just increased the fascination for me. Flashes of scenes pop into my mind as I write this – the candy shop in Portree where we bought some Haggis-flavored chocolates, the town of Inveraray where it’s largest attraction is a prison, the delectable langoustines we had at the Oysters Shed, tucked away on top of a remote hill in the town of Carbost and my wife tempting death or at the very least, frostbite by climbing the iron cable bridge at Ben Nevis across a lake.
But the experience we had at the peak of Kilmuir, a village above the town of Uig up in the Isle of Skye was nothing short of surreal from an existential perspective. Surrounded by rolling peaks, scattered housing, little rustic roads that look like they lead to the afterlife and a clear view of the distant sea and the sun on the horizon, Kilmuir seems like a town drawn out of the pages of an Enid Blyton book. Realistic enough to not have to pinch yourself but with just a dash of the whimsical to have your head up in the clouds. The heavens felt uninterrupted up there, like they were an arm’s stretch away. And in the midst of this breath-taking experience, there we were, holed up in a stationary camper van, tucked under an electric blanket with nature just cooing a gentle melody around us. That evening where we rustled up a no-fuss pot of meatball soup, sat ourselves out on a wooden bench and watched the sun go down on a heavenly horizon remains one of the most memorable nights for me on our Scottish journey.
Our hosts ran a small farm behind their home, tending to sheep and journeyman travelers. They talked about attending a neighborhood birthday party down the road with glee and on evenings they come out to the back of their home where they get an almost uninterrupted view of the sea and the clear horizon. Being in a place like that, to self-consciously milk a city cliché, ‘re-orientates’ you. We often stress ourselves with so much expectations that come from trying to survive and thrive in a concrete jungle. But the people out in Kilmuir content themselves with pretty sunsets and clean air. No need for fast cars and dangerous men and women when you have a lovable dog named Lexie to brighten up your day.
For a split second of a moment, I envied the simplicity of their lives and how uncomplicated they made everything seemed. An existence such as this may seem too remote for most of the people I know, but the thing about being in the limelight is that it sometimes burns. We exhaust ourselves by going on a treadmill and running on it for basically the majority of our lives, unable to stop, unable to rest. But out here in the highlands of Scotland, you are allowed to walk through your existence. The contrast made me want it.
Scotland’s nature still appears to me in my pensive moments. The rustic highlands, thronged by wild brown grass, punctuated by deep blue lochs. The flash rains and hail that blow through us like a passing carnival troop, imposing and disruptive for a moment, but gone as quickly as it came. The miles of undisturbed roads, navigated by ‘Passing Place’ signs that assure you that salvation is but only a few yards away. The North Coast 500 road that takes you up gorging canyons down to hilly passes and up beside scenic lakes, so unbelievable that one needs to experience it to properly believe it exists. The sad reality is that for a lot of us, we would not have enough resources or time to revisit a place like this. Just something we check off the bucket list, consigned to only repeat in the theater of our minds until we part this earth. I wish I would be able to come back to revisit this beautiful moody woman one day.
To see how far she’s come since I last gazed eyes on her.
adrianyapck 