The Isle Of Skye

This map is far out of proportion if one refers to current cartographic output of the Isle of Skye, but it is one of my favorites so far - winding around the lochs on the central part of the isle really does feel that wiggly. However, since we have the modern pleasure of google maps at our fingertips, we were still able to find our way to and around the island without much trouble. Not that it would have been too easy to get lost - the road from Inverness to Skye is clearly marked and once you're on the island itself, there aren't too many roads period. Most loop around or come to a dead stop, literally at the mouth of the sea and you simply have to turn around and head back to whatever turn you last made. It is really satisfying, in a way.

Thus, our weekend adventure to Skye on the 27th through the 29th of May was concise but brimming with Scottish goodness. It began with our sweet mini ride, rented from the Inverness airport:

That is Eli, boldly driving manual on the right side of the car and wrong (I mean left) side of the road. It was strange even being a passenger at first, and all of the traffic circles that this country loves were a little dicey. Once we were out of the little city though, it was fairly smooth sailing. Though, our wee steed had positively zero ability to climb hills, so locals were flying past us any chance they got.

En route to Skye we stopped for a picnic-in-the-car lunch across from the Eilean Donan (pronounced ail-en don-en) castle. It is a picturesque little (ha) place that was originally built in the 13th century, destroyed a few times - most recently in the 18th century during the Jacobite rebellion - and finalized as its current version in the 1930s. A bit of old/new but still rather classic and lovely to look at during the constant misty rain:

We stayed our first night in Portree, the main town and base of the north loop - a fairly popular place for tourists, but also the only place to really find groceries for the hostel dinner and shelter from the sideways rain. Did we mention that Skye is an amalgam of Norse, Gaelic and English in meaning - and two of the leading etymologies are 'mist' and 'clouds'? There is good reason that it would've been named either. Portree is also where we had the fortune of stumbling upon the pub experience we shared in the last post. Oh YEAH! Old (and one young) Scottish dudes freestyle on the accordion really made our night complete.

The next morning the weather had eased up a bit and we decided to head towards the Talisker Distillery in the central part of the island, abandoning the north loop and it's attractions partly because of the ominous clouds in that direction and mostly because there was a cycling event planned for that road during the day. It was a great decision. Our 10am scotch tour smelled of peaty deliciousness and the post tour dram was super tasty. Talisker is the only distillery on Skye and will actually stop production entirely if the spring-fed water source goes away. It is right on the water, simple and classy. Also, it is pretty much all that is happening in the "town" of Carbost, aside from the Old Inn pub:

After getting a tip about a good campsite from the hostel owner up over the hill in the picture above, we headed to Glenbrittle - slightly southwest of this town and right on the edge of a loch at the base of the Cuillen (pronounced cue-lin) Mountains. The campsite was right on the water and our tent (loaned to us by our amazing co-wwoofers at the farm) was instantly enveloped in wind and rain, but it held steady. During a break in the clouds, the sun eeked and peeked and strained to show up and we took advantage of the few hours to hike a trail a few miles from camp called Fairy Pools. Strange enough, the landscape we were in seemed a mix of Colorado, Iceland, and Wyoming to us and the mention of fairies immediately brought me back to Þorsmörk romping. Here there were roaming sheep that left their mark (wool) on the trails, a network of waterfalls leading up to the base of the range, and - for good measure - a brisk and windy rain on our hike back out.

As we walked up to where the car was parked, we ran into a couple we had met on our Talisker tour and another shrinking world experience entered our trip. We may even meet up with them in Edinburgh in a few weeks.

At the same time, the world is growing and expanding and becoming more colorfully complex than ever. There is always more to see, other roads to take, different tips to listen to (or not) ... the realization that we cannot possibly do or be a part of everything we plan on or hope to be involved with while traveling is fresh in our minds. It is paired with the fact that each choice we make, each movement our inertia urges us towards, brings only exactly what we need. Having the weekend away from weeding and eggs and compost gave us that...and some magnificent views, so much green, misty glasses for eli, warm pubs and lots of oatcakes.

Location:Isle of Skye, Scotland

MacLeod Organics

The above is a fairly standard view for us for nearly the last two weeks. The yellow is a shrub of some sort (couldn't catch the name through the accent of our wonderful but very Scottish host) that seems to cover the hillsides like a weed and, despite the good looks, hides some pretty vicious thorn tangles. Fun!

We have now been at MacLeod Organics in Ardersier for just about two full weeks, having arrived last Monday the 16th, and are due for an update here. Ardersier is about 11 miles northeast of the small city of Inverness, which lies right at the beginning of the Highland area of Scotland. Inverness is considered to be the hub of the northern part of the country and, though it is a bustling town, ~55,000 people isn't huge by any means. It's nice that way. It is small enough to feel a little less like your standard big city, but big enough that it has the necessary amenities: an airport (where the next Batman movie is rumored to have a scene shot), some live music venues, and, after a little searching, some worthy dark chocolate. We visited last weekend and wandered the downtown center where we discovered that A) the Andean flute players really are in all of the major markets worldwide, B) the Inverness castle isn't quite as old as it should be, and C) print studios don't have to be messy and covered in ink. The latter was something we had been looking forward to seeing since Casey found it in a little research months ago and it's every bit as great as it seems. Workshops, open studio, screen printing, digital, mono print, etc. etc. The Iist goes on and on.

But enough about Inverness.

We have been pretty excited to have a full month to work with the farm and really spend some time with the people that are integral to its existence. It is a family farm, run by a life-long resident of the area, his daughter and son-in-law, along with a large extended family of helping hands. MacLeod is not unfamiliar with WWOOFers and has three bedrooms in the house dedicated to traveling farm help. Another couple from Hungary are in the other room currently and have been with the farm, in some form, for about a year and a half, having spent the better part of that time at the sister farm about 30 miles away. They have been incredibly helpful in both orienting us to the farm work and giving us advice on where to explore beyond the small village of Ardersier. Plus, Casey has been learning small bits of Hungarian from Monika throughout the day - most importantly the word for chocolate covered cottage cheese. And, of course, beer. This may also send us to exploring Budapest for a little longer than expected.

MacLeod Organics is a small farm, the main gig of which is organizing a weekly box scheme that delivers produce (all organic, plus meat, dry goods, dairy, etc. sourced as locally as possible) all over the highlands. This means that our jobs, so far, have consisted largely of planting, watering, harvesting and boxing produce that is grown on site, as well collecting eggs from ~600 chickens (2x daily), rounding up sheep or cows, and then starting over on Monday. In short: we are farmers for a month.

MacLeod is an active member of the Soil Association of Scotland, is intensely resourceful and self sustaining, participates in multiple farmer's markets each week, and fully supports neighboring organic farms. We are learning a lot about growing in polytunnels, under-planting...or maybe it is called something else..(i.e. planting lettuce between and under runner beans), and generally how to get the most out of your soil and land with the most natural processes. We also find ourselves saying things like ... maybe when we have some land, we can also have some chickens? Woohoo!

Location:Ardersier, Scotland

The Road To Inverness

The ride from Glasgow to Oban is, along with the bit of Utah where I-15 splits and heads south from I-70, one of the more powerful and beautiful bits of scenery I've ever been through. Given that our bus on Sunday morning left at 8:30 am, we were both still half asleep, and the sky was pretty overcast, I really wasn't too well prepared for what awaited us along the way, and I found myself wishing wishing sleep wasn't calling so loudly. In all of my Scotland daydreams in middle school, high school and since (There were many. Thanks, Travis.), I always sort of pictured the cities as being in sort of ho-hum flat spaces, and it wasn't until the highlands that things got hilly and green and picturesque. To be honest, I'm not sure what exactly counts as the highlands so perhaps the whole Sunday morning bus ride was part of it. Mountain after mountain shrouded in a dreamy, low hanging fog, waterfalls spilling out of nowhere headed toward the nearest loch (lake) and the road winding up and over and through it all. I wish I could've asked the bus driver to pause so I could take a few photos. When we arrived in Oban (pronounced: oh-bin, with the latter almost just "bn"), we weren't really sure what we'd find there except, sadly, that the distillery is closed on Sundays. I say sadly because we would've loved to have poked around and taken the tour but what we found instead was far better (especially given the amount of distilleries near where we are now). We checked into the hostel in town and one of the more friendly and helpful people we've met on the trip so far happened to be working the desk. She informed us that not only is there a small island called Kerrera just off the shore of Oban, but there's a free hourly shuttle boat (ten minute ride) that'll dump you off at the marina on the other side where you're immediately free to wander the entire island. There was a small sign pointing the way to the "foot path" but that's pretty much the only guidance. This map might help illustrate the size of the island, which takes four hours to hike all the way around (and includes a bunch of sheep, 35 residents, one restaurant, one castle and one monument), though not the views from it.

Off the other side of it is a seal colony (we didn't see any) and the isle of Mull, which we were advised is more of a full day trip. Despite the misting rain, we managed to have a picnic at the top and then get our shoes completely soaked on the walk back before retiring to what turned out to be a really great hostel overall for the night.

Monday morning brought our bus from Oban, through Fort William, past Loch Ness (Huge lake! No monster, but I won't lie: a little part of both of us kept looking, just in case...) and on into Inverness, the "capital of the north". Since we had a little time to kill before catching the bus that would take us out to the farm where we will be for the next month, we decided to wander around the downtown area and try to find a cafe or pub. In hindsight, some things seem like such great decisions even though in the moment they can feel so unimportant. Getting a coffee at Bar One turned out to be one of these as we ended up talking to an inspiring couple in their 60s from Lancashire, England who were waiting to catch their own train home after hiking for a month from Glasgow to the top of Scotland. For the better part of an hour they couldn't have been friendlier or more interesting, handing off stories of other hikes they'd done and what they'd seen.

Next stop: Ardersier, where we'll be working on an organic farm through most of June, temporarily trading in our wandering shoes for our work boots.

Highlights: - The black Guillemots that reside in Oban. They fly and walk as awkward as a penguin on duck feet, but can dive underwater to 150 meters because their bodies are built to be able to withstand the pressure. Funny AND awesome.

- The Oban Backpackers hostel, which was not only helpful but also had Nutella in the complimentary breakfast. Win!

- The British captain and owner of the 10 Contesto, a 36-foot Shetland style sailboat that we were originally just admiring for its uniqueness. While we were standing on the pier looking at it, he came out and chatted away, eventually getting to the part in his story of where he learned to sail: Cape Cod, MA. It is a small world.

Location:Inverness,United Kingdom

Glasgow

Let me first give a proper super thanks to our lovely couch surfing host, Neil - yep, that's his collection above. He let us try a wee dram and organized it by location after pulling it all out of the cabinet. I had the Caol Ila (pronounced cull-eela), a sister distillery of Lagavulin, and Eli sampled the Ardbeg. Definitely a classy welcome. Neil was a great help as well with giving us some general direction for our brief time in the city - he armed us with a better map, some suggestions for the must-sees, and took us out to some awesome pubs in the evening on more than one occasion. Yay to couch surfing being not only functional, but honest and friendly so far!

One of the first and biggest things we noted about Glasgow is that most of the major, and I hesitate to use this word, attractions ... are free entry, all of the time. That is right - museums, galleries, botanic gardens. Free! Which is supremely helpful to people on a budget traveling in this not-so-inexpensive city. Considering the exchange rate lately and the small amount of time we were actually in the city limits, I'm mildly impressed with what we were able to have our eyes and brains take in.

Something else that we noticed was that many of the art spaces had Community Rooms or Studios where educational workshops, kids classes and events were scheduled to happen or taking place during our visit. The Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art, the Center for Contemporary Art and the Glasgow Print Studio each hosted some interesting work and had plenty of work space for outside groups and classes throughout the year. The CCA was especially diverse and it's space really invited us to just mull about, check out an exhibit, or browse the little book and craft/work shop. Very good place to space out and figure out what's happening in Glasgow while you're there.

In between some rain and hail storms, we ducked into the Mitchell Library for a coffee and, you guessed it, some reading/quiet time. It is housed in a classic old building but has sneaky modern parts that pop up here and there...an interesting combination of the two. Glasgow seems to be full of these little contradictions - particularly clear in the mix of old and new world buildings. Here's the view of our cafe (in the library) during an odd moment of sunshine for that day and the reflection of a beautiful old stone church in the glass pile of a building across the street:

Sandwiched by a few walks down and around popular Byres Road in the West End (college-hip-cafes-shops-road) and a meander through a farmers market with loads of meat and delicious rhubarb-ginger jam, we visited Kelvin Grove and the Botanic Gardens (conveniently close to one another). They were both exhaustive in exhibit and accompanying information, but in the best and most interesting way. The Kelvin Grove is a strange hodge-podge of art, natural science and Scottish history housed in a monstrous brick red stone palace on the edge of a lush river.

The Botanic Gardens were definitely one of our favorite things - and one of the most impressive either of us had been to. I suppose this makes sense, given the UK penchant for gardens and such. Most of the plants were housed inside two of the most magical and well kept glass palace-like greenhouses. Inside, there were rooms for every climate or style of plant, from arid to palms to orchids and succulents and they seemed to go on forever. Each informational poster had not only the name and genus but some thorough cultural or ethnobotany type information, so we ended up spending hours walking around, reading and looking closely at leaves and patterns and whatnot. It was great preparation for the meditation of farming.

Not to be overly heady in our wandering adventure, we took full advantage of the great playground in one of the many nooks on the grounds of the gardens. Glasgow left us with many little bits of dreaminess, no matter how grey and awkward our introduction to it was.

Location:Inverness,United Kingdom