I made for a hostel as soon as the bus let me off in Inverness and then out along the eastern end of the Great Glen Way. It ran beside the Ness River, then out onto it. A string of small islands split the river in two, and their miniature forests provided a beautiful escape from civilisation for a short time before I was dumped onto the opposite bank near a sports centre. I’d have liked to see the locals out playing on the fields, but it was still work and school hours so it was no surprise to find it deserted, and I guess they wouldn’t be acting any differently to Aussies anyway.

A little further along, the track took me over a bridge designed to let boats past. The cars were stopped stop while its great metal bulk swung round parallel to the river and canal boats chugged by. On the other side, I started to follow the GGW along the river again, but spotted a manor on a hill behind me. I abandoned the path in favour of a chance to see such a grand building up close. Back on the highway, I found that every turn took me further from the manor. A side road seemed to go more in the direction I wanted, so I took that, but soon it too was heading away. I then took a dirt track which headed up the hill almost directly towards it, but then found myself wandering along below it, with a barbed fence announcing my unwelcome. Finally, I came to what looked like the end of the track, with a boulder in the middle of the road at the top of the rise I was on. I almost turned back – there wouldn’t be light for much longer – but after walking for an hour since seeing the manor, I let my curiosity get the better of me and walked up to the rock.

“>

Two metres beyond the rock was a road with a sign clearly marking the GGW. If I’d stayed on the original path, I would have come here anyway. I laughed at the irony, then snuck up the road – even as I fretted about time – and there was the entrance to the manor, now some sort of mental asylum. I’m not sure I was meant to go so close, but there weren’t any fences this time so I got a few pictures of the building and turned to look at the view it had. I could understand why a lord would choose this place for his home. Even now, it looked over a long hillside of fields and scattered villages, stretching out until it reached the Ness River. Looking left, you could follow that river for miles until it ran behind a hill and presumably ran into the Loch Ness just out of sight. It was a view I’d be happy to see each morning. Likewise, its prominence was a reminder – of protection or fear – for the peasants who could see the manor from anywhere in their serfdom.

“>

Light was already failing, so I hurried down the GGW – this trip taking barely 20 minutes – and along the river to the bridge. This time, something was wrong and the technicians were running all around it while the lights and bells above the boom gates flashed and chimed irritatingly. It soon became apparent that the bridge was stuck. One of the men brought a big winch handle out and together they began to swing it manually. It was a long and strenuous process, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether it was a rare occurance or whether it indicated the general state of infrastructure in Scotland. I don’t have the answer, but it’s another question I’ll have when I come back. Time was not quite as tight as I’d believed, and the sight of Inverness in fading light was a welcome homecoming.

The next morning, I wandered around town trying to find interesting people to watch. Nothing stood out, so I went into a tartan shop and began looking at the selection. They had both Murray, Angus and Gunn on the racks – kilts, ties, scarfs – and as I searched, the shopkeeper came over to help. “Oh, with a name like that, you have to buy one,” she said when I told her of my heritage. She showed me that a full set – socks, kilt, belt, shirt, jacket, pin, hat, and purse – could be bought for as little as 200 pounds – ‘only’ A$600. In euro it was slightly better, even tempting, but I couldn’t see any occasion to wear it. “Oh, you can wear them for weddings, parties… anything,” she said. In Scotland, perhaps.

“>

Finally it was time to catch the bus back to Glasgow, ready for the flight home the next day, but I couldn’t resist one last stop in Stirling. I’d been told that the castle there was worth a look and I had to agree. The city itself crawls up a narrowing ramp to where the castle perches at the peak. The land falls away sharply at the edges of the ramp so that the castle has cliffs on two sides of it’s roughly triangular borders. It’s been set up beautifully to give you a real feel for how the residents must have lived in its prime years. You’re able to walk on the walls where the sentries marched. The kitchens are set up with all the noise and bustle of a working restaurant, complete with dogs. They’ve left some of the gardens intact, but they’re now bordered by highways. Off in the distance, standing proudly on a pointy hill, is a large monument to
William ‘Braveheart’ Wallace for it was here that he defeated the British in 1297.

The sun set as I wandered through the last courtyard, set a level below everything else and used to store the gunpowder. It brought home how dangerous life was, or could be, in those days, but I still find the romance of castle life alluring. I followed the road back down to the bus stop and caught one back to Glasgow. I’d heard about a hostel out of town a bit, so I caught a subway to get there. I was surprised to find it as old as the New York subways yet as small as the London tube. Surely they can’t have been short of room when it was built. In this hostel, I found where all the backpackers had been hiding. There must have been thirty in this place, all with interesting stories. An Irish pair had come over to make a documentary on the slums of Glasgow, a Kiwi was there living day by day off labouring work on the other side of town, a couple of Nova Scotian girls had come to see their homeland and a Japanese girl taking a break after suffering burn out. One of the Canadians took me to a local pub to try a single malt whisky, but I have to say that I was disappointed. I preferred Famous Grouse, though I coudn’t say why, and it was a third of the price.

After a few of those, the last night and the trip home became a blur. Though I somehow ended up with a new pack more appropriate for backpacking.

I’d planned to catch the bus straight through to Inverness, but the ride up to Fort William was so enchanting that I decided to stop there for the night. That bus ride took me past Glen Coe and numerous other lochs and castles – all with mountainous backdrops. Those mountains were covered in a fatigue motley of greens, red-browns and yellows, and bordered by black stone walls. Sheep and goats clambered over the patchwork inside their walls.

Small villages, like something out of the Wheel of Time, lay nestled at the foot of these mountains. I’d loved to have stayed at one of the villages, and walked between the blacksmith and the inn up into the hills, but I didn’t yet know enough about this country to risk stopping in a 3 building village out of season. I might end up sleeping with the sheep and waiting for the next bus 24 hours later.

So Fort William it was, and a friendly local getting off the bus invited me to join him for a traditional Scottish lunch in the pub. I passed up the haggis and went for bangers and mash. Matt explained that he wasn’t really a local, but was currently living further down the river in a training camp for adventure guides. He’d been asleep when we’d passed his stop and now had to wait a couple of hours for the return bus. He pointed out a couple of ‘toy stores’ (outdoors stores) where I could buy some more clothes to deal with the rain if I needed to. Fort William is the wettest place in Scotland, he told me, and that was saying something. I didn’t really think it was necessary though. European rain barely deserves the term ‘drizzle.’ It’s more like walking through an extremely heavy mist. But it’s perfect for the outdoorsman here, with the moutains, lochs, and rivers, and evidently it’s a great place for teaching the experts.

By the time he left, it was getting dark and the mist was starting to fall, so I gave up on the idea of heading into the hills and instead marched up to the local backpackers, hoping to meet some true locals as well as other backpackers. I’d forgotten to ask Matt whether I’d be able to find accomodation in the small towns off season, or which towns were worth seeing. Unfortunately, the backpackers was being run by Aussies and Kiwis, but I enjoyed the time chatting with fellow countrymen here on the other side of the world. Most of them had come over to see the UK and ended up basing themselves in a particular town where they could get free accomodation for a little cleaning work. They suggested that I stop at Fort Augustus, which is small but important enough to have plenty of accomodation. They also suggested that I walk up The Ben, the highest mountain in the area, for the views of the surrounding glens. There was also an impressive castle ruin in the area, apparently.

I spent a confused evening, trying to decide whether to stay in Fort William another night to make the climb, or to head on to Fort Augustus. Plans to get up into the highlands were now impossible as none of the smaller bus routes were open out of season and I only had 3 full days left. I’d use one of those just getting to Inverness and another getting back to Glasgow. In the end, I decided to go on to Fort Augustus because I wanted to experience the culture more see than the scenery, and I figured that I’d have more chance in a smaller town.

So, the next morning, I set off into the drizzle, caught a very early bus and arrived in Fort Augustus before it got light (meaning before 10am). The hostel I’d chosen to stay in didn’t open until 5pm, but the owner let me dump my pack and gave me a small map of walking trails. This was the Great Glen Way, one of the most famous trails in the UK, and Fort Augustus was the southernmost town on the more famous Loch Ness.

I arrived in Glasgow via Prestwick airport. My hopes to get far north were shattered in the first hour when the train that took me into town lost an engine. That delayed my arrival in town until after the train to Inverness had departed. The other options didn’t seem any better. I could get a bus to either Inverness or Fort William, but I’d be travelling in the dark and then looking for a place to stay in the middle of the night. After a quick stop at the tourist office, I headed for one of the backbacker places. It was only 2pm, but the light was already fading, despite the clear skies. I hadn’t realised how far north Scotland was. Certainly it was the closest to the Arctic that I’d been, but the difference in latitude from Brussels seemed only to be the same as between Sydney and Melbourne and I’d never noticed a difference in the length of the day there.

Two hours later, it was dark and I still hadn’t found a place to stay. The Lonely Planet was glued to my hand now – the sweat from holding it open at the map for so long had frozen in the Scottish winter cold. Three backpackers seemed to be closed for the season or missing entirely. The Youth Hostel was being renovated after a fire, I later learned. I checked into a Bed & Breakfast that cost a bit more than I wanted and seemed to cater for a higher class of clientele. I laughed again at my new ideas of class. When packing for the trip, I’d pulled out all my hiking gear and found myself panicking that I couldn’t be seen in a purple fleece jacket over a red fleece cycling shirt. ‘When did I start caring about how I look?’ I wondered. Certainly not in Japan, where I was comfortable using my gaijin status as an excuse for the holes in my t-shirts and jeans that were too big for me. It was Belgium, I realised, that had changed me. There was nothing to differentiate me from the Europeans who dressed up to walk the dog. Everywhere I went, I felt as though I was being judged by my clothes and so wore only the newer clothes, even making an attempt to match colours. In the end, I’d discarded my new fashion sense and worn the strange motley of comfortable travelling clothes and now I would have to learn to ignore the looks all over again.

Feeling much more settled, I packed the LP and my notebook into my day pack and stepped out into the cold dark city. The walk back to the town centre, George Square, took me along a brightly lit shopping mall that could have been any city. Any city where a number of young men walk around in kilts, that is. George Square, where the tourist office is located, was now bustling with people. They milled around, not with the social atmosphere I’d seen in Spain, but as though waiting for something – a concert if the men in bright yellow ‘land control’ jackets putting up speakers outside the City Chambers were anything to go by. It looked like they’d be a while, so I walked back to the hiking shops I’d seen in the mall to have a look at the latest gadgets. I didn’t see much that was new, but I found a pack I liked better than the one I was carrying, which was great for hiking when I’d need to carry tent, sleeping bag, stove and food, and have it with me all the time. It wasn’t suitable for backpacking when I also needed something to carry during the day. Other backpackers I’d seen since I arrived had compact packs that fit the sleeping bag, a change of clothes and some food. It was tempting, but I certainly didn’t want to carry a third bag around for the rest of the week. Perhaps on the way back.

“>

When I tried to return to the square, I couldn’t get closer than fifty metres. The square and all the streets around were packed solid with people, like sheep in a pen. Who was playing to draw such a diverse crowd? There were young children, teenagers, families and many with grey hair. I could hear music, but there was nothing to see over the mass of heads. I should have been able to see the stage from here – I had a good view of the City Chambers. Then the music changed from hip-hop to Spice Girls and I realised that it was only a DJ. The main act hadn’t started yet. When it finally did came, I found it wasn’t a concert at all. At 6:30, a bodiless voice said ‘let there be light’ and the square was lit with colour. Draped between the buildings, christmas lights surrounded the park in the centre. There were leaves of Holly, red and white candy canes, and bells that appeared to swing. It was all done in great detail, each object lit up in three dimensions to give them shape from wherever you looked.

What really surprised me though, was that it was only the 16th of November. Christmas was six weeks away! But this was it. The official start of Christmas in Glasgow. Perhaps for all of Scotland, for as I continued my journey I found shops were increasingly adorned in red and green decorations and sporting Christmas sale signs. It was all too much. I decided the time was right for a drink. I found a likely bar, ordered a whiskey and sat down to plan the rest of my trip. The trains weren’t going to be any use to me. The connections were too bad, and they had a reputation for breaking down. I decided to take a bus up to Fort William, then to Inverness. From there, I’d see what my chances were of getting up to Thurso and Sutherlandshire. That decided, I ordered another drink. In Belgium, beer is cheaper than water, and if it wasn’t quite true for whisky in Scotland, I could at least get drunk here for the price of a single whisky at home.

“>

The next morning, I rose early, dined on a ‘traditional Scottish breakfast’ of eggs, sausage, bacon, toast and a ‘scone’ which was more like a quarter of a savoury pancake. Suitably stocked up on energy and feeling like I wouldn’t need to eat until dark, I checked out and walked through the fog to the bus station. My bus wasn’t to leave for another hour and a half, which gave me ample time to visit the the Glasgow Cathedral. It wasn’t open at that time of morning – still 8:30, so I wandered around its blackened exterior, stepping carefully between the coffin-sized gravestone laid flat into the grass. It was difficult to make out much of the detailed Gothic stonework when it was all burnt and worn, and hazed by curtains of white, and while the size was impressive – probably five stories tall and a hundred metres long – I’d seen similar in Belgium. It’s fame apparently comes from its status as the only remaining Gothic cathedral on the Scottish mainland – the rest having been destroyed in the many wars over the centuries.