Tour 14/16: Northern Lights
'When we came back to the glen,
The winter was turning
Our goods lay in the snow,
And our houses were burning,
I will go, I will go'
I Will Go Clearance song.

Northern Lights
Main Map

Inverness sits at the mouth of the River Ness, in perhaps the best location in Scotland. Because it is on the east coast it is relatively dry and sunny (the dryest place in Scotland is nearby, Portmahomack, with a rainfall 1/10th of the wettest places), and the road to central Scotland is a fast one. It is also only a short distance from the west coast and the best wild country in Scotland. It is the main town in the Highlands and, unlike others, is prosperous and growing. Loch Ness is only a few miles away, and surely everybody has heard of the monster which is said to live in this 24 mile long, and 950ft deep freshwater loch. A thriving cottage industry has grown up midway along the loch at Drumnadrochit, with not one, but two rival Loch Ness Monster exhibitions, where one can examine the evidence for and against an unidentified, large creature and come up with one's own conclusions. As they say in Drumnadrochit, 'they can prove Nessie exists, but they can't prove she doesn't' and, short of draining the entire loch, they are correct. People's love of a good mystery keep them coming to Loch Ness, scanning the water, hoping...

The lochs and glens to the west of Loch Ness are said by some to be the most attractive in the whole of Scotland, for they retain the ancient pine forests which are long gone from many other, bare glens in the Highlands. Personally I have a soft spot for Glen Feshie in the Cairngorms, but one has to accept that Glen Affric, and Strathfarrar, are not short on charms. Walking through these glens - then around the high, spacious, unpopulated and roadless country at their heads - provides one of the best wilderness experiences Scotland has to offer. I once walked from Ardnamurchan Point to Cape Wrath, and this area was a revelation. I had never visited or read much but it was one of the highlights of the walk to be here.

The rivers of these glens exit to the sea near Inverness, where a resident dolphin population can be seen playing. Boats can be hired to get closer to these amazing mammals. Inland, the most atmospheric battlefield in the British Isles is found - Culloden Moor.

On a peninsula in the sea near Culloden sits Scotland's premier example of an artillery fort, Fort George. This was built as the last and most impressive link in a chain of forts at strategic points (Fort William, Fort Augustus, Ruthven barracks, Glenelg barracks) built throughout the 18thc to help quell the Jacobite threat. By the time it was complete, the Jacobites were no longer a threat, but the emergence of Napoleon in France at the start of the 19thc meant that Fort George still had a potential role to play. The commander of Fort George was reported as being keen for Napoleon to invade the north of Scotland, just so that he could try out his fort! A large number of artillery forts were also built on the south coast of England at the same time, facing France, but the invasion never came. Fort George is Scotland's last, and perhaps most militarily impressive castle, but it never saw any action.

To the north of Inverness sits some fertile farmland - perhaps a surprise to those expecting the Highlands to be entirely barren. Recently reintroduced Red Kites swirl through the air over arable fields, and this area is perhaps the best in Scotland to live for the outdoor lover. In Loch Ussie is said to be a magic stone, cast there by the most famous prophesiser in Scotland, the Brahan Seer.

To the north, huge mansions sit in thousands of acres of farm and moorland, built by the 19thc landowners who replaced the clans. Carbisdale castle is the flagship of the Scottish Youth Hostel association, a massive, impressive pile which is said to be haunted. Skibo castle, near Dornoch, was build by the 19thc industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who came from Dunfermline in Fife and made his fortune in America. At one point he was the richest man in the world, and, reaching old age, decided to give away as much of his money as possible to good causes. Libraries, parks, scholarships, all bear Carnegie's name, and Skibo became his Scottish home. They simply do not make houses as big as this anymore, in Scotland at least. The best, however, is probably Dunrobin castle, home of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, the biggest landowners in Britain and, in the 19thc, the most reviled.

To the northeast of Sutherland sits a flatter country, one which never seems to have been so cruelly treated, and one where a norse air starts to become apparent. This is Caithness, a horizontal place of large, flat flagstones, one of the most natural and distant parts of the British mainland and, for that reason, site of Britain's first nuclear reactor at Dounereay. Scotland has five reactors: - Dounreay, Torness in Lothian, Chapelcross near Dumfries, and two at Hunterston in Ayrshire. If the power these reactors generate was used solely in Scotland, it would have the highest proportion of nuclear to conventional power in the world. The Highlands have a large number of hydroelectric schemes, a lot of wind and waves for turbines, and there is oil in the North Sea and Atlantic. Scotland is an energy rich country, but these riches, when spread over the whole of the UK, are spread thinly, and fuel prices in Britain are high. It is one of the ironies of modern life that in the areas closest to the oilfields and power stations - the thinly populated areas where public transport is non existant, distances to amenities greater, and a car all the more necessary; that the prices of fuel are at their highest.

Caithness is famous for John o' Groats, a strange inconsequential wee place whose fame rests entirely on Lands End to John o' Groats races. The most northerly place on mainland Britain is several miles away at Dunnet Head, and the more spectacular most northeasterly point at Duncansby Head is also a couple of miles from John o' Groats. A walk along the Duncansby coast from John o' Groats is highly recommended, a coast of low seacliffs with sea stacks and ravines called geos. On a clear day, the unexplored islands known to the Romans as Thule and Ultima Thule, the Northern Isles of Scotland, can be seen.


Inverness from the River Ness

Trees in Glen Affric

Loch Beinn a' Mheadoin in Glen Affric

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness

Autumn burn

The Falls of Glomach

Head of Loch Beinn a' Mheadoin

Dunrobin Castle from a distance

Crops growing on the Black Isle

Bettyhill on the north coast

Dunrobin Castle from the garden

The Stacks of Duncansby near John o Groats

Dunnet Head - northermost point on the mainland
 

A far country MAIN MAP Land of the Sagas

Loch Ness: Even disregarding the monster, Loch Ness is interesting. It is home to rare species of fish such as arctic char, who live at depth and are probably unaware that the ice age is over. Picturesque Urquhart castle sits on a knoll with a view over the entire length of the loch, one of the most strategic forts in the Highlands in old times. For in the days before roads, Loch Ness and its neighbouring waterways were an important route of communication between the east and west coasts. They sit on one of the major faultlines in the country, separating the North West Highlands from the rest of Britain, and today the Caledonian Canal which links these lochs provides a wonderful inland boating trip. (back)
Culloden: Culloden, the last pitched battle fought on British soil, was the last stand of the Jacobites, in the winter of 1746. They had been retreating since Derby and defeat seemed inevitable. After the battle, soldiers from the victorious British Army (many of whom were Scots and also Highlanders) roved over the surrounding countryside, killing indescriminately. The whole place has an eerie air of sadness, even on a sunny day, and there is a discrete and excellent visitor centre. The castle of Shakespeare's Macbeth, Cawdor, is nearby, and perhaps Shakespeare had a moor like Culloden in mind when he set the scene of the witches on the heath. (back)
The Brahan Seer: The Brahan Seer was said to have come into possession of a stone with a hole in the middle, and when he looked through the hole, he could see the future. He is said to have predicted many events which came true long after his death and was himself killed by a local landowner, who asked him what her husband was up to during his trip to Paris. The Brahan Seer could not lie, and told the lady that her husband was being unfaithful to her with another woman - and, outraged, the lady had him boiled alive in a vat near Loch Ussie. The Seer threw his stone into the loch and cursed the lady's family, a curse which came true over the course of time. A few of his predictions remain to be fulfilled - including one about ravens drinking human blood, and an ominous one about black rain falling and making the land uninhabitable. (back)
The Highland Clearances: Sutherland today is the emptiest corner of Britain, but it was not always so unpopulated. The glens of Strath Naver and Halladale - now famous for their salmon rivers - were once farmed. But, in the 19thc, overpopulation became a problem. The Duke of Sutherland decided to kill two birds with one stone - reduce overpopulation and increase his profits - by moving the population away from the glens to the coast and Americas and filling the emptied glens with sheep. The people were not keen to move, but were forced on by the estate factor and his henchmen. Houses were burnt down, old people forced out into the snow, in some notorious cases when the fit men were abroad fighting for the British Army. Scenes such as these took place all over the Highlands in the 19thc, and the haunting ruins of abandoned villages can be found all over the place. But it was in Sutherland that the depopulation was most rigourous and heartless. The Duke of Sutherland had a huge, Stalinesque statue of himself built as a 'memorial of thanks from his people,' even as these people were dying of starvation in the potato famine which also hit Ireland so badly, and this statue has been the target of threats to dynamite it, even this century. It was only in the latter part of the 19thc, when crofters in Skye and the Western Isles began to fight back (despite heavy handed opposition from the police and army) that parliamentarians sent representatives to the Highlands and were shocked at the punitive conditions people were living under. Previous to this, perhaps it was thought that the Highlanders, who had caused such a fright to the British state during the Jacobite risings, deserved whatever miseries befell them. (back)