Scotland

>>> Bagpipers on Edinburgh Royal Mile >>>
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"Mr Watson, come here I want you."

Do those words ring a bell ? Well, how about this? –

“Elementary, My dear Watson!”

One real, the other fictional. One the most momentous and defining moment in history, of scientific inventions. The other, attributed to the most famous fictional sleuth. Coming from famous personalities, men of sharp minds, the way these famous words are connected, sounds like eerie coincidences- Watson features in both, and they both are assistants / sidekicks- One, of Alexander Graham Bell; The other of Sherlock Holmes, whose character was inspired by Dr Joseph Bell, professor of Medicine at University of Edinburgh where Conan Doyle studied to be a doctor. Dr Bell had many traits from which the character of the detective was derived.

Alexander Graham Bell and Arthur Conan Doyle were born and brought up in Edinburgh, Scotland. So that really is the connection :) 'Elementary, ...My dear Watson !' :)

On a windy drizzling ‘English summer’ morning in late May, we alighted from the Glasgow-Edinburgh bus, opposite Waverly railway station on Princess St. Second time in the UK, I felt that the look-n-feel of the place being different, and the difference was felt more than that at Bath. This time around it’s not just the buildings and architecture, but the people- Scots seemed more relaxed and welcoming, accommodating and friendly than the English, starting with the ol’ man who stopped by and enquired if we needed help, when trying to figure out from the map, where exactly we were. My adventure of driving thru Edinburgh was to begin later in the morning. Picked the rental car for 3days and somehow reached Scottish Youth Hostel at Bruntsfield. Good facilities and an international crowd.

It’s a Victorian building. Room’s cozy. It’s overlooking an open meadow with some sorta makeshift golf course. Scotland is where golf began, from the ancient Scottish game of Gowf. The golf club was started in 1754 in StAndrew, golfers’ mecca, a coastal town just north of Edinburgh. The club later became The Royal and Ancient Golf Club. The R&A is the world authority on the sport and it administers the rules..

BANGALORE Tandoori Restaurant, Opp King's Theatre, Home St, Edinburgh. Had nothin to do with Bangalore as such, though menu intro proclaimed that it's a piece of bangalore recreated!. Duh.

Took an afternoon stroll towards the castle to the Edinburgh castle and spent 3hrs. The wind at the castle was so strong that you feel the legs are drifting off-course when you lift it during walk !. In the Scottish Army memorial, where all the battlefields where scots played a part are inscribed on the walls- listed among them were Mysore, Srirangapatnam etc., (most likely the battles against Tipu Sultan). From one of the army souvenir shops of the castle, picked a copy of British Army’s elite SAS (Special Air Services) cadres’ Survival Guide, which looked quite interesting.

Another interesting piece of history on the ramparts is The One O’ Clock Gun. Installed in 1861 to provide an accurate time signal, important especially for the mariners who could set their clocks/chronometers accurately before leaving the ports, which they would use it for scheduling and more importantly for navigation when out of sight of land- to find the longitude at sea, the navigator compares the local time aboard the ship (say, by observation of the sun) with the standard time carried on board the ship by an accurate chronometer.

After breathing in lots of history and bloody colonial battle-fields, once out of the castle, walking down the Royal Mile, it was time to smell some whisky at the Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre. The World’s oldest whisky distilled in 1937 was on display, with a bottle @ a kool £10,000. Glenfiddich brand Single Malt variety. Am no aficionado, in fact hate the taste, (and that of the beer. Prefer that of Wines. Champagne was the best ever stuff I tasted.) but with so much of the spirit of the place in it, the history and the whole shebang of the whisky is hard to ignore while in Scotland- visiting a distillery in the highlands is definitely on the cards. (Whisky wasn’t always Scotland’s National drink. In 17-18^th centuries, Claret, red wine imported from Bordeaux was the most favoured here. But the tax on wine popularized whisky as an alternative).

For my Potter-manic kiddo friends, Wanted to get a shot of JKRowling’s favourite café where she used to spend time over a cuppa, writing the initial Harry Potter novels- she cudn’t write from the cozy comforts of home as she couldn’t afford to heat her flat. On my way, was browsing through souvenir shops and also trying to see if I can lay my hands on a £1 note anywhere, which is not available in England, but read somewhere that if you are lucky, might find one by Bank of Scotland if you ask around.

When chatted with a shop-keeper, got a hint of some Scottish words interspersed in his talk, and I asked more about it, he explained a bit- Scots say ‘Aye’ for yes, ‘huus’ for house, ‘heem’ for home, ‘I don’t niken’ for I don’t know’, ‘biyems’ for children etc. The words folks, wee are Scottish. Picked an English-bashing post card with long list of inventions by Scots and how tough it is for a plain Englishman to live without being so dependent on Scottish inventions!.

-To quote from Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island,
“Scotland with her clever cherry-cheeked people, has churned out a rollcall of worthies far out of proportion to its modest size- Watt, Scott, Conan Doyle, Adam Smith, Alexander Graham Bell, Lord Kelvin, John Logie Baird, Charles Mackintosh, Stevenson, JM Barrie, Thomas Telford, Charles Rennie, Ian McCaskill, to name but a few. Among much else, we owe the Scots are whisky, raincoats, rubber wellies, bicycle pedal, telephone, tarmac, pencillin, understanding of the active principles of cannabis…”
Unquote.

Btw, I did find an old man wearing one o those Sherlock Holmes-style deerstalker hat (with flat curved parts that stick out /visor, one at the back and one at the front)

Out on the street again on the way to the café where Potter-mainc’s would want to have a dekko. This time I heard some bagpiper band starting off and rushed towards the sound. They were going towards the Castle thru the streets. Some kids , some old men, all in kilts, the bagpipers were good to watch and listen to.

Bravehearts in Kilts, belting out Celtic music.. Bagpipers' band marching outa Edinburgh Castle. The question naturally popped out- what do Scots wear beneath kilts ? Traditionally its military regulation for Highland soldiers not to wear anything beneath, with some exceptions. But pretty strong winds provided the answer, most did wear stuff :).

Next day started off with the drive, straight outa Edinburgh onto the motorway towards the highlands. Destination Inverness, which is called the capital of the Highlands. Terrain is truly scenic and very unlike the usual highway rides, never got a wee bit tired, throughout the total 720kms, eventhough though mostly it's curvy two-lane roads without shoulders and divider. Still it was thrilling behind the wheels, thanks to the glens and lochs.

When entering the Inverness Youth Hostel, heard someone speaking in Mallu- later caught up with a small mallu gang of 6 students and rookies who are from Cochin, Kottayam, studying/working in Glasgow and Birmingham, they were out there for hiking on Ben Nevis (1344m) near Fort William. Later on the day, exploring the north of Inverness, passed by a very small town, Avoch (next to FortRose by the Moray Firth) with apparently no asians around, but there's a small take-away n Indian restaurant run by non-asians, and two Indian cooks were around. One, Hussain looking in his late 30s, from near my place back home. That was another surprise.

For the highland geography, you need to equip yourself with a wee bit of Gaelic words: Loch- for lake, Glen- narrow secluded valley, Firth- long narrow estuary.

Cromarty, an idyllic small-town by the Cromarty Firth, xploring N of Inverness.

Urquhart Castle by the Loch Ness(of the monster fame), which is the largest body of fresh water in Britain, stretching around 37km with ~3.2km width

In two days, from Edinburgh to Inverness via Aviemore and then back to Edinburgh via Loch Ness and Glencoe, we passed by scores of Glens, Lochs, and Firth of Forth at Edinburgh, Moray Firth and Beauly Firth near Inverness and exploring further north into the small-town of Cromarty, had a very enjoyable drive along the Cromarty Firth, where I had a pit-stop for watching some shore-birds on their migratory pit-stop, from an RSPB hide. Oystercatchers, Dunlins and Mute swans, Common Gulls. That sums up my birding during the trip- almost zilch.

I'd been checking with the staff at YH about the places where highland cows can be seen, but reply always sounded like u may get to see on some highland slopes, they aren't common.. chances are less.. but do watch out.. might get lucky. On the third day afternoon, finally Lady luck smiled. They look something in between a cow and a yak, more appealing than a normal cow with long hair cascading over the eyes. With formidable horns and not giving any clue to its intentions behind the veiled face, I had to approach it pretty gingerly, respecting its space, mustering bold body language, but with each step, mentally preparing like a matador ready to run for the door :)

Highland Cow, near Ben Nevis. Consider yourself lucky if u get to see any highland cows.

On the way back from Inverness, after the uplifting drive along the edge of Loch Ness locked by hills in spring splendour, eagerness started knocking on my head, awaiting my first visit to a distillery- a Scotch one at that, in the very heart of highlands, at the foot of Ben Nevis, UK’s highest mountain at 1344m. The thought was intoxicating, and put the brain on overdrive, to soak-in the brewing tale of barley to the bottle. And the tale turned out to be more appealing than the taste, of The Bottled ‘Spirit of Scotland’.

Where Whisky brews. Ben Nevis Distillery, estd 1825 near Fort William.
It's at the foot of Ben Nevis, UK's highest mountain.
The word Whisky comes from Uisge beatha Gaelic for 'water of life', in time abbreviated and corrupted to 'whisky'. Here’s whisky jargon for the connoisseur.

Though thought of taking the road opp the Ben Nevis distillery to the Silver-sand beach of Morar and Mallaig, had to shelve the plan as we ran short of time. Also known as 'The Road to the Isles', it is said to be one of the most romantic and historic journeys in Scotland thru spectacular Highland landscape, which featured in hollywood flicks including Braveheart and Harry Potter series. In Summer one can also take the steam train from Fort William to Mallaig and back (which runs once a day). From there, there's access to the western isle of Skye.

The previous day on the way to Inverness, around the Cairngorm mountains, near Aviemore, wanted to take detour for watching the Ospreys at the RSPB nature reserve, at Loch Garten near Boat of Garten but there was no other birder in the pack and since Inverness was waiting for us to be explored, I didn’t want to foist birding upon rest of the folks eager to hit Inverness, though I cud be missing the rarest of chances to watch a Capercaillie.

Had dreamt of taking pics of Atlantic Puffins , clown of a bird, and visiting Bass Rock off the harbour, accessible by boat from Scottish Seabird Centre.

Like many outings, as far as Natural History is concerned, this too has left me with a petty grouse- that I couldn’t get myself into the proximity of a Capercaillie, the Largest European Grouse, endangered species and in UK, an endemic bird of ancient Caledonian pine forests of northeastern Scotland. It’s in the Red List of endangered species, meaning, on the brink of extinction, and in its case the second time!, believe it or not!!- it’s already gone extinct in Scotland in the wild earlier in 1785 and was re-introduced in the 19^th century. If at all I cud get to shoot it, I’d be able to add to some photo-archives one more ‘specimen’ for the next generation to come, with the message, ‘RIP- Another Creature, gone bust fighting for its share of earth with the “sapient” creature Homo sapiens.’ Hmm.. that’s another grouse.

The emblem of Scotland Tourism Board is a flower, Spear Thistle. I did watch out for it in the highlands, but never found any. Then I found it on an unlikely place- Bank of Scotland currencies which spiked my curiosity ( That was during another quest to get hold of a £1 note, which is sort of rare but if you are lucky, could lay your hands on it in Scotland ). Was wondering wots uniquely Scottish abt it, but never found the answer during the trip. But later, got it in an unlikely place, where history sources and brochures I hit upon didn’t mention it, found the answer on a Natural History trail - Wildflowers of Britain and Europe sez “Famous as the emblem of Scottish Kings. Occurs throughout Europe including Britain. Flowers from Jul-Sep.” Bang on !. It solves the puzzle, why I cudn’t find any (during May end), and being a common flower, why it got into Scottish currencies and Tourism Board signs.

The Gothic William Wallace monument, near the Stirling Bridge where the he lead the famous victory against English in 1297and became Scottish National Hero..(of Braveheart fame)