Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Arisaig, or the Safe Place, is a village set on the shore of Loch nan Ceall on the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. Chilly clear blue waters and outlooking the Hebrides this was a welcomed landscape variation from the jagged and mountainous Cullins region on the Isle of Skye.
We arrived to a ghost town with only a grocery store (the only one) open. We quickly gathered together dinner supplies and set off on foot to explore the village. The single road wraps around to the church on a hill overlooking the loch. With the single lane street vacant of traffic, and the town void of other tourists the entire walk you could hear the quiet lapping of waves against the sandy coast.
Before we left on our trip Dustin's Grandpa Pace had asked us to keep an eye out for any McDonald's on headstones. We received fair warning that there were in fact two clans of McDonalds, one spelled Mac- and one spelled Mc-, the latter was ours and not to be confused with the first. Up until this point all the tomb stones we had found were of the Mac- clan. As eery as tomb searching sounds, we actually found the grave yards to be beautiful and solemn places...well until J picked up a book of Highland Ghost/Folk Stories. As luck would have it we happened across tomb stones of the Mc- clan ancestors of Grandma Pace's family. After our short bout around the village we set off to find a spot to set up camp. The beauty of Scotland is camping on public lands is free of charge and can be done anywhere, within reason. We found a pull off already holding a Sprinter filled with a group of four 50+ year old women gathered around a campfire in wetsuits and enjoying dinner after a sea kayaking adventure. They welcomed us to share their beach camp and we set to work making setting up camp.
The spot was my favorite of the entire trip, like it had been pulled straight out of an adventurist's novel. A white sandy beach, surrounds by black rocky shore, with clear blue ocean waters reaching to the shore and stretching out past the loch and into the vast seas. We made camp, enjoyed warm drinks, a hot meal, soaked in the scenery, and as a symbol of one of our final nights in Scotland we set off paper lanterns we had found in the grocery store.
I then remember crawling into the tent and snuggling into my sleeping bag as J read a folk/ghost story about a priest, listening to the beach bug popping against the tent wall trying to make their way in, and dozing off the the sounds of the ocean and nothing--I truly felt like I was in a "safe place."
Then came the lights, bright flashing red, blue, and white lights. Then the megaphone voices--still drowsed with sleep I can't quite remember what was said. I perked up pretty quick catching the word "coast guard." My first thought was my supposed "flagged passport" had caught up to me, so with the feeling of urgency I stuck my head out the tent door only to be blasted by a spotlight. Come to find out a patrolling guard out a sea had seen 4 lights float from the coast into the sky and go off evenly spaced apart. They had radioed to the village's land unit to search the coast for any distressed ships. It took a minute then it clicked our paper lanterns, 4 lights we had set off had been the supposed distress call. With the misconception cleared, my name and number were taken down for record--another point to my growing Scotland "record"--the night fiascos ended and I was drifting back off in my safe place.
"Plans ALWAYS change." -- Dustin Randall
Sometimes husbands are right. It all started with a missed connection, AM jog through Heathrow, and a "flagged" passport...ending with lost luggage, which is the pits. Our plan was to catch an early AM train from Edinburgh to Inverness which would be the starting point of our biking tour. However, with the gear bag unaccounted for and at the mercy of the airlines timeframe; we set up base in Brodie's hostel and roamed the cobblestoned streets of Edinburgh.
That evening we spent exploring Mary's Close, the 17th century Edinburgh streets and homes buried beneath the Royal Mile; walking the grounds of Edinburgh castle; treading lightly through graveyard ruins; found a plaque with Stacy's family name in St. Giles Cathedral; and walking through Princess Street Gardens, located in the area of the drained Nor'loch which had become the convenient dump in the 1500's (perhaps why the grounds are now so well fertilized). That first night we ventured a taste of the traditional Haggis (surprisingly--considering its contents--palatable), then my three traveling companions experienced their first night's rest in a hostel.
The added day, aside from the worry of my potentially lost costly gear, made for a pleasantly relaxing start to our journey. Not having to catch a 6AM train; we started sipping Belgian hot cocoa, ate the tastiest scones we had on the entire trip (same location of Robert Louis Stevenson's inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), reunited with my gear bag, scored a free car rental from British Air for the inconvenience, and headed off (with only slight navigational struggle to left lane driving and left hand shifting) to the highlands.
A great trip of firsts like crossing a single steel cable bridge in Fort William. Starting to shift though pictures and reminiscing on the great adventure we had.
Skógar falls according to legend viking Þrasi Þórólfsson hid his treasure behind the waterfall, and if conditions are just right you can see the gold flickering behind the rushing water. The best we saw was two rainbows. The last couple days spent in Reykjavik we spent exploring the city harbor side playground, dressed like vikings, and ate their infamous hot dogs and chocolate cake.
The swiss must have brought the weather with them, because that was the first day we experienced hail and rain during the mid-day. The hut made the weather bearable, it had a clear roof so we could watch the stormy skies and see the clouds rolling through while enjoying the shelter and hot cocoa.
Turns out the East and Southeast areas of Iceland have the best weather. We enjoyed two days of clear sunny skies. The weather is like clockwork: 06:00 clear sunny skies, 12:00 light sprinkle, 14:00 reach the high (48F) of the day, 20:00/21:00 some clouds start rolling in and the sun starts dropping, 01:00 high winds pick up, 03:00 storm rolls in and rain starts dumping.
With the high winds, rain, and morning sheep call nights aren't always the most peaceful.
It was hard climbing. Everything is basalt rock that rips at your hands, not to mention the strong seaside winds. The F.A. climbers are mainly 6 ft+ Scandinavians who are super strong and powerful. They're used to bouldering and it is evident in their routes. All the routes are under graded, a 5'6=5'7b, 5'9a=5'10c and so forth. It took a few leads to get warmed up, especially since we'd been in a car for so long, but once we got a feel for the rock the climbing was RAD.
We took the mountain RTE 917 to the east coast and followed the fjords. We passed Batman mountain, saw a seaside Viking village in Höfn, climbed on some seaside rock stacks, saw glaciers that stretched to the sea and farms that sat at the base of them, and made it to the main climbing spot Hvannadalshnjúkur.
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