Scotland - The country of 'lochs and glens'

My first experience with English winter made me realize why the English get so excited when the sky is blue and the days are warm and sunny during summer. The period of four months from November till end of February is cold, damp, dark and gloomy. The days are monotonous and if you are lucky you might have an hour or two of good sunshine in the entire day. The only thing that is good about the English 'Winter' is that Spring follows it, announcing itself with bright yellow-coloured 'daffodils' which seem to spring from nowhere, and pick cherry blossoms. The days become longer and the gloom of winter slowly ebbs away. The first long break which everyone looks forward to after Christmas is 'Easter' and during this extended weekend, I decided to visit Scotland, the northern country that is a part of the United Kingdom.

Since the trip was only for five days and we had to cover a country which is known for its coastal routes, highlands, mountains and valleys and some enormous lakes, it was difficult to select which areas one should focus on. 'Google' came to our rescue and I chose some of the most scenic drives in Scotland and based our trip around those. It was going to be a long driving holiday as we had to drive considerable distances daily, starting with a distance of 430 miles (700 km) on Day 1 - from Chester to 'Inverness' via Stirling. We started at 6:30 am in the morning, fully prepared for the long drive ahead of us. Since we left a day before the extended weekend, the motorways were relatively empty and a speed of 80 miles/h (130 km/h) could be maintained for most part of the journey. After about half our journey, we started to see some snow-covered mountains at a distance and some beautiful castles and houses on our way. The board of 'Welcome to Scotland' was soon visible as we drove towards 'Stirling', a relatively big city in central Scotland mainly known for its wonderful castle and also the heritage capital, where the wars of independence was fought and won. From Stirling, we continued on A9 towards Perth and headed towards the Cairngorms National Park. The roads were lined up with tall evergreen coniferous trees and the drive through Britain's largest national park was very scenic. The national park is known for its wide diversity of wild animals and is a place in itself where people spend weeks doing various outdoor activities.  Due to limited time, we could not stop over and headed towards 'Aviemore' which is located to the north-west of the national park and is a popular destination for winters ports.

Aviemore is basically a tourist resort for skiing and other winter-sports. As we approached the town the scenery changed from the green of the forests to dazzling white and blue. The winding roads has fresh snow on both sides (and there was snow in the valley below) and at one point, we couldn't help but stop our car to take photographs and throw snowballs at each other. The weather was sunny and the feeling was amazing. The parking area of the ski resort was buzzing with people geared up for skiing and snow-boarding. A small little funicular train transported us from the base to the top of the glacier and I had the fun of my life playing with snow and watching the skiers and snow-boarders enjoy their sport. The entire 'Cairngorms National Park' with its lakes was visible from the top and the view was spectacular.

We arrived at 'Inverness', a relatively big city in the Scottish Highlands at 6:00 pm. It is the northern-most city of United Kingdom and the place famous for 'Loch Ness' and its mythical monster 'Nessie'. As you approach the city, you cannot ignore the huge loch (lake) which surrounds the city. Our BnB was a wonderful little house which had four en-suite bedrooms on the first floor and a drawing room and dining room in the ground floor. The owners welcomed us warmly and showed us our bedroom. We did not have much time to explore the city, save for taking a walk after dinner along the part of the Loch Ness close to the city centre. Since the next day was going to be a long one and required driving through the remote highlands in Scotland's Northwest region, we decided to retire early that night.

The next day, after having a traditional Scottish breakfast of eggs, mushrooms, roast tomatoes, hash browns, sausage and bacon with toasts we left for 'Durness'. Though the distance from Inverness to Durness was only 110 miles, reaching the most north westerly corner of Scotland, rather United Kingdom, was tricky. The main reason was that it is one of the few places in main Scotland where you have a single track road. A single track road which covers about 60-70 miles of the journey slows down one's journey. There are 'passing' places every 300 meters of the road where the road stretches out on one particular side for two cars to pass by at that juncture. So there is one rule - in order to let a car coming from the opposite direction pass by, one has to take help of these 'passing' places. Since the entire area was remote and there were hardly any cars, this was an easier task than we thought it would be.

The splendour of this journey can be expressed in its relatively smaller but beautiful 'lochs', barren mountains covered with snow and valleys where the foliage in early 'April' had shades of dull-gold to brown; shades unique to the Scottish Highlands. The one track roads twisted and turned through several small valleys and small lakes and mountains and all of a sudden opened -up to an extended horizon with a view of about 30 kms in front of us. The background had snow-covered mountains followed by smaller green hills which ran towards the sandy expanse which looked like an estuary with some water forming various patterns on the sand. We took a sharp turn and slowly entered Durness (a small parish village) and asked for the 'tourist information centre' to the only retail shop available on the main road. We realised we were only half a mile away from the place and as our car turned to reach the tourist centre we were encountered with one of the most spectacular views. I say spectacular because of it beauty and its sudden appearance. The tourist centre was located right at the edge of a cliff and from the cliff one could just look ahead to endless blue-green water and a golden beach pattered with beautiful black rocks at intervals. It is one of the most scenic little beaches I have seen in my life. We spent couple of hours at the beach finished our packed lunch and headed direct towards Fort William via Ullapool, a small coastal town nestled on the shores of loch Broom. It is a picturesque fishing village where tourists stop over to explore the northern side of Scottish Highlands as there are cafes, restaurants and B&B's available in plenty near the city-centre. Since our journey was a long one we took a 10 min break in Ullapool and drove on. The A835 from Ullapool was thankfully a dual carriage road which took us straight to a place called 'Drumnadrochit' near Inverness and from there we just followed Loch Ness on A82 till we reached Fort William at 7:30 pm. We checked-in at our B & B and was welcomed by our hostess, a charming old Scottish Lady.  It was a wonderful and hectic day with some spectacular sceneries and some amazing roads.

We woke up next still reeling under all that we experienced the previous day and the window greeted us with a rather cloudy sky with very slight drizzle. A quick check on the weather told us the day would remain like that so we decided to take it easy. A hearty breakfast and good rest cheered us up before we started the drive. We decided to first drive to Glencoe which was one of the most scenic glens (valley) in Scotland and then drive up  to Cairndow in Argyll. Glencoe was the place where a major part of 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' film was shot. As we crossed valley the strikingly beautiful and easily recognisable peaks of Buachaille Etive Mor and Buachaille Etive Beage - 'The great' and 'The little' shepherds of Etive greeted us. However the reigning mountain peak of the Glen belongs to the peak of Bidean nam Bian; whose main summit is hidden above and behind its more famous outliers, three truncated and picturesque peaks known as 'The three sisters of Gencoe'. There were several big car parks in front of these mountain ranges and there were many trails starting from the highways down to the stream and to the mountain ranges. We crossed this spectacular valley with snow covered mountains on both sides and headed towards the area of Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. The view changed from the mountains to lakes and greenery and we took a break at a scenic botanical garden where various coloured rhododendrons were in full bloom. We returned to Fort William early in the evening and decided to explore the beautiful town located right across the bank of Loch Linnhe. The road which just follows the lake and lead us to the city centre reminded us of the boulevard road in Srinagar on Dal lake. There were numerous lodges and B & B's lining the road and each one with their own garden and spring flowers just lifted up the place. We parked our car and walked by the lake and around the town centre. The centre had a quaint little church called the 'Church of Scotland' as well as beautiful souvenir shops and several pubs and restaurants. We realised the popularity of Indian food in these regions as number of Indian restaurants all across Scotland outnumbered most other cuisines. We had an early dinner at a lovely pub overlooking the lake and ended our day.

The following morning was bright and sunny and our host was all smiles at the breakfast telling us how lucky we were to find a day like this. We agreed and quickly left for the much awaited trip towards the Isle of Skye. The opening of the Skye Bridge in 1995 did much to open up access to the Isle of Skye: and the removal of the bridge tolls at the end of 2004 helped further. But in some people's eyes the bridge means that Skye is no longer an island. However for people like us it gave us an opportunity of reaching one of the most beautiful parts of west Scotland very easily. We had decided to take the anti-clockwise route of the peninsula following A82 to reach the Kyle of Lochalsh and then cross the sky bridge to reach the isle (island) and then follow A87 hugging the coastline as it  twists and turns en-route north towards Portree. Portree is a busy tourist resort and the main town on Skye. It is built around a natural harbour and the town's brightly painted houses rise steeply from the water's edge.  The pier, built by Thomas Telford in the early 1800s, still provides a safe haven for the fishing and other vessels using the harbour. We took a quick lunch at Portree and spent few minutes on the pier overlooking the town. One of the popular features on the peninsula include a distinctive column of rock named The Old Man of Storr around 6 miles from Portree. At 165ft it presents something of a challenge for those who choose to climb it, whilst a walk to its base is a more straightforward undertaking. Staffin another town in the peninsula has a museum with fossil finds from the area and a dinosaur bone discovered in 1994. In 1996 several dinosaur footprints were also discovered here. The village itself has a thriving Gaelic speaking community. From Staffin a single-track road cuts across the peninsula allowing access to the Quirang, a spectacular forest of pinnacles and fierce rock formations. From Quirang we went to the tip of the peninsula where the road curves and you can have a panoramic view of blue sea all around and then to Uig a pretty coastal town in Skye. The trip back over the skye bridge was equally breathtaking as the sky in early evening had taken a dull gold colour with a pink hue. The various colours of gold and pink on the blue sea, deep blue coloured lochs and snow tinted brown mountains with green coniferous trees will remain etched in our mind for a long time to come.

The next day we started our journey back home feeling totally rejuvenated for the all the visual treats that we had encountered in the Scottish Highlands and planning our next trip to Scotland during our long journey.

Photos courtesy Nilangsu Mahanty