Pt3 - 14:

THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

The A93 to Braemar snaked along the valley floor alongside The Blackwater, a rocky stream flowing fast between grassy banks. Treeless hills clad in brown heather blown flat by the blasting wind rose on either side; here and there falling white water brought yet more restless energy to the landscape. Mere footlings to the real Highlands yet to come, even these hills inspired a sense of your own insignificance.

Braemar, the nearest town to the royal residence at Balmoral, was predictably quiet. The sense of collective loss had grown even more acute with Di’s funeral tomorrow. Normally at this time of the year Braemar would be alive with visitors in town for the famous Games, but this morning it was all but deserted. Every shop displayed a “Closed Tomorrow” sign in the window. I drove on to Balmoral where I planned to take the road to Tomintoul, Scotland’s highest village.

As I approached the turnoff a bobby in a hi-vis vest waved me into a carpark. Apparently, movement was afoot. The royal standard, symbolising the monarch is in residence, fluttered briskly at full mast. According to the complexities of flag protocol the standard always flies at full mast to signify the monarchy endures all. I got out of the car and joined a small crowd of onlookers at the gates. A few minutes later two vehicles came up the drive, pulled smoothly into the road and sped off towards Aberdeen. It all happened so quickly it wasn’t till I was back in the bullet that I learned from the radio announcement Charles was at the wheel of the first car with William and Harry in the back.

I took the opportunity to leave before the queen and Phil drove out and took the narrow road up through pine covered hills towards Tomintoul. The town wears its only claim to fame modestly, with nary a sign declaring its altitude, and I pushed on to the Culloden Battlefield on Drumrossie Moor near Inverness.

Culloden was the final act in the Jacobean campaign of Bonnie Prince Charles, a Scottish Stuart, to win back what he saw as his rightful heritage, the crown of England. Despite a few early successes the uprising became a bitter civil war pitting clan against clan, kinsman against kinsman. It was doomed to ultimate failure, which came at the hands of a highly organised, professional and well-resourced Royalist army under the Duke of Cumberland on the 16^th of April 1746. A bloody affair, Culloden is the last pitched battle ever fought on British soil and lasted less than an hour. The Royalists inflicted catastrophic losses on the rebels at the cost of a few hundred lives of their own.  The battle lines are marked with rows of flags; a black rose on yellow field for the losers, white rose on red field for the winners. The Graves of the Clans are especially poignant monuments, shallow mounds marked with rough-hewn stones bearing the clan name. The Stewarts of Appin, ancestors of my mate Bill Duff of Athens fame, were in the front line third from the right facing the foe.

The weather is far too windy and bleak for camping so I rang through to a B&B in Strathpeffer near Inverness. It was late when I wheeled in for an early night.

*

Today is Diana’s funeral. I’m not a monarchist and have little interest in the royals, but you’d have to be dead from the ankles up not to be affected by the whole ghastly business nor be aware this is history in the making. I had the radio on as I pointed the bullet for the village of Dores where the road meets the eastern shore of Loch Ness.

The wind whipped up quite a swell as it ripped up from the south, bringing with it scudding grey clouds and petulant squalls that forced me to go for the wipers. The showers swept through as quickly as they arrived, leaving in their wake uninterrupted views across the narrow loch to the wooded hills rising steeply from the western shoreline.

I followed the road down to a layby near Fort Augustus at the foot of the lake and pulled up just as Diana’s coffin, having moved from Kensington Palace, entered Westminster Cathedral. Apart from the hushed, sombre tones of the commentary team covering the cortege’s progress along the route in relays, the only sounds you could hear clearly were the occasional weeping and the steady clopping of the horse’s hooves, which echoed like water dripping into an underground pool. Now I concentrated on the service. In a Shakespearean twist, just as the first few bars of the opening hymn rang out the rain came pelting down with such force I might have been sitting in a washing machine. Earl Spencer’s address dripped with thinly disguised contempt for the media, but even I got a little lumpy when Elton John chimed in with “Goodbye English Rose”. We heard it twice more in quick succession before I’d had enough and hit the off button. As I edged back out onto the road the rain abruptly stopped, the sun came out and small birds appeared, darting in and out of the pines as though I’d just imagined the turbulence of a moment before. All seasons in an hour…

Random observation: Few people will remember that one of Di’s most admired role models, Mother Theresa, died on the same day as she.

I completed a circuit of the long thin lake, the towns along its picturesque shoreline clearly trading on the monster myth for their prosperity. The carpark at the Monster Exhibition Centre at Drumnadrochit was crammed with tour buses, but Nessie had the day off for the funeral.

*

It’s day 200, and ahead lies a milestone on the Awfully Big Adventure. Sitting at latitude 22^o33’N, Abu Simbel on the shores of Lake Nasser was southernmost point of this long journey; it’s so long ago it seems like another life. The road I’m travelling now along the northern shoreline of Cromarty Firth will eventually take me all the way to Dunnet Head near John o’ Groats on Scotland’s North East tip. At 58^o67’N it’s not only the northernmost point on the British mainland but I won’t be getting any norther either.

The road hugged the coast and carried little traffic. The wind became more and more boisterous with each kilometre. The views were more complex than they seemed at first glance. To my right, the North Sea stretched away to an eastern horizon obscured in swirling sea mist. Three oil rigs lay in the middle distance. To the south the jaws of Cromarty and Moray Firths were visible along the dark grey coast towards Nairn. The sea itself was steel, stained gunmetal grey in the shadows of low scudding cloud. Where the watery sun leaked onto the white capped swells they were a dull chrome, resolving to a brilliant sheen inshore where the bays and coves broke the wind’s full fury.

Further north the coastline took on a ruggedness I hadn’t seen since Datça. Steep cliffs rose sheer out of the roiling sea. The coastal margins were sprinkled with small farms and crofts and derelict stone houses with rooves collapsed under the weight of thick slate tiles. All the rooves around this coast are furry with a fine moss like antler velvet. By the time John o’ Groats hove into view the ferocious wind seemed to have blasted the very land flat; the tallest things here were the burnt brown bones of thistle no more than 30cms. From wind-lashed Duncansby Head I could see west along the coast to Thursø; offshore lay the Island of Stroma and in the distance the mysteriously shrouded South Walls of the Orkneys. Gulls wheeled wildly in the wind shadow like shreds of tissue. The gale howled and screamed, a horde of demons escaping from hell, beating and battering the car where I sat unable to open the door.  Here is the edge of the world.

I’d seen the Dunnet headland from the Scarfsferry Road, looming grey and sheer like a fallen pillar behind the yellow fields dotted with rolls of hay. I made my way out there now along a narrow, potholed road flanked with brown boggy heathland. Dunnet Head itself was a maelstrom of wind and water and, as at Duncansby, I couldn’t open the bullet’s door against the tempest. Suddenly I wanted my mummy, but since that was out of the question, a pint of Guinness beside the fire at the nearest alehouse would have to do.

The first glimpse of Thursø as I approached from the headland road suggested a remote Scandinavian outpost, with steep-gabled grey stone buildings rising like lego blocks up the shallow shores of the bay and along the banks of the river. The town is proud of its Norse heritage, even retaining the ø in the local signage; indeed, it’s half the distance to Stavanger in Norway (555kms) than it is to London (1090kms). I booked into Pathecia B&B on Janet Street, which runs alongside the River Thursø near the Tourist Office. Although it presented the standard square frontage to the street the building was full of weird angles and curved walls. The second floor room was cold and uninviting so I had a hot shower and hit the streets.             

The streets were cold and uninviting. Along the embankment birds cowered against the crisp breeze. The stone houses all looked the same, grey monopoly pieces. If this is summer in Thursø I shudder to think what winter’s like. Funnily enough, in all this wind I felt like I needed some air. I returned to the B&B, grabbed the journal and went to the pub. Lately I’ve noticed people taking an interest in the bloke sitting in the corner and writing; one or two have asked if I’m writing a book. “Maybe,” I tell them, “If I ever get my shit together.”

It was dark by the time I wandered back to the B&B. Instead of climbing the stairs to the cold room I climbed into the car and drove down to the waterfront. Off to the west lay Scrabster, which sounds like a skin disease. Scrabster looked uncommonly beautiful for an oil tank farm. It was lit up like a Mediterranean resort and reminded me of the lights of Samos town floating in the deep darkness. On the tip of Holborn Head the lighthouse pulsed into the night every eight seconds. At the river mouth to my right a blue navigation light flashed every second.

If everything goes according to plan I’ll be covering a few ks tomorrow, and I expect they’ll be challenging ks at that. I need my beauty sleep…

Next week: The wild ride continues...