Driving through real Scottish weather - Lairg, United Kingdom
Lairg, United Kingdom
The day started very badly. Last night, when we arrived, our hostess Alexandra mentioned that a gale was expected, and that windows should be shut. What we didn't realise was that that was a rule, not a suggestion. The room was completely airtight, and we're fresh air freaks anyway, so naturally we opened the window a bit and slept not too badly, with the wind gusting dramatically most of the night. But at 6:15 we were startled awake by a fierce thumping on our bedroom door and a yell: "Will you CLOSE your window, it's wide open!" Gray made the mistake of replying (he's the only one of the two of us with the brains to speak at 6:15am) "We like it open!" to which Alexandra replied, "Well, *I* want it CLOSED!!"
So we closed the damn window and had our early morning coffee in our airless box, emerging for breakfast at 8am, only to be confronted, instead of the slightly apologetic, shamefaced, "sorry I over-reacted" hostess I expected, by a harridan wanting to go on yelling at us about our lack of common sense in leaving the window open, what if it had slammed, where would she have got someone to fix it on a day like today, who would have paid, she had TOLD us to close our window, etc etc... It was no use saying we hadn't understood the statement to be a requirement, we were clearly just in deep, deep **** for not doing what we'd been told and we were to be castigated for it. Her poor husband Kenny, caught in the middle of it, tried to say the same stuff only more placatorily, but the whole thing was clearly just going to get nastier and nastier so we ate up the fruit we had already served ourselves during the first part of the diatribe, and said we wouldn't have the rest of the breakfast and took ourselves off.
Even that got silly because once I was clearly upset, they started saying things like, "we want you to enjoy your stay here" and then said they didn't want our money. However, we are not ones to take accommodation free - and the room itself, though airless and with an odd shower that you had to turn on with a red switch outside the bathroom, had been fine, so when Gray took the cases out, I took the seventy pounds and the key and put them on the breakfast table. Kenny came dashing out the front door after us, and when we wouldn't take the money back, opened the back door of the car and tossed it in. He then gestured for Gray to open the car window and said something about, "in the Highlands we say, 'come back soon'" - some Scottish phrase - so clearly he was trying to part on better terms, but the whole thing left a really, really unpleasant taste in our mouths which took a long while to go. The first unpleasant Scot we've met in our whole time here. Poor Kenny.
Durness didn't get any better for being out in it at 8:15 on a very wet Sunday morning. The famous craft village in a converted Cold War observation post just up the road was naturally shut very right, and even when we got to the golf course at the end of the road, overlooking a pretty beach, dramatic in its windswept ruggedness, and I scrambled out in the wet wind to take some photos, my camera took one frame and then ran out of memory card!! So we decided fate did not intend for us to be at Durness, and we turned ourselves southwards.
As it happened, the drive was lovely. The much-anticipated "storm" was largely over by the time we were on the road and was only ever wind with some squalls of rain. As we moved down the coast, the clouds lifted at times, and even when they didn't lift the rain was never heavy enough to make driving difficult, or to obscure the view - if anything, it made it feel quite authentically Scottish.
We have a few nights booked near Lairg, in the centre of the Highlands and could have gone straight there to arrive before lunch; instead we wound around a long route, taking a few detours, and stopping briefly here and there, but the only time we stopped for any appreciable time was at Ardvrech Castle (naturally we have been pronouncing it "aardvark") on Loch Assynt. This is a gloriously picturesque ruin on a small island joined to the shore of the loch by a narrow neck of land. The area around has been settled forever, as there are Neolithic cairns all the way through to 19th century mansions, also in ruins. We were particularly lucky with the weather: when we first stopped, and were sitting in the car putting on our boots, the rain pelted down and so we lurked in the car until the squall passed, but once it had, the sun came out and the light on the ruins and the loch and surrounding mountains was achingly beautiful. Which is not to say we didn't get thoroughly wet and muddy later on when it went in again, but that seems to be Scotland for you: if you don't like our weather, wait five minutes and we'll have something else.
And so on to the gloriously named Oykel Bridge Hotel, where we had to ring and call before a nice Kiwi came out and said, yes, of course we could have some tea and then some lunch, just make ourselves at home, she'd be right back with the tea and the lunch menu; lunch didn't start on Sunday until 12:30, but just relax and be comfy. It was such a pleasure to meet someone nice again. Isn't it sad the way one bad experience can undo all the positive things that have happened before?
The young couple who manage the hotel appeared later: she cooks and he runs the bar and front-of-house and they were also lovely: we had a good lunch, the only guests, as Sundays are the big change-over from one lot of weekly guests to the other, and went on our way much more cheerful than we'd been in the morning.
We drove through Lairg, the closest village to the hotel we will be based for the next three nights, and then on along Loch Shin to Overscaig House where we found a friendly, slightly dippy couple. The special I had booked online had shown only one room available, a family room, which I assumed was their only available room, but it was actually something to do with the special. So we are the only guests in the place, as far as we can see, and are in an enormous suite sort of thing. It's a nice old rabbit warren of a place, with lounges and bars and so on, and I'm sure we'll be comfy here.
We spent most of the afternoon huddled indoors watching the rain, only going out at about 5pm when it cleared and got quite sunny but we didn't realise how incredibly cold it was out of the warm hotel in the wind. We walked a short distance along the loch until prevented from going further by a swollen stream, broke out of the neighbour's locked property by climbing his fence and then a short distance along the road. I think we'll be driving to our walking spots from now on!