Back to my Roots

Well, for those of you that care, here's a whirlwind summary of my trip to Scotland. As usual, you can see pictures here. Enjoy!

Day 1
My flight got in earlier than expected, and getting my rental car was a breeze, so I found myself with time to kill right off the bat. Of course, the first little bit was devoted to orienting myself to driving on the left, which came surprisingly easily. In fact, the whole time I was there, I never once confused the windshields wiper control for the turn signal, which as many of you know is an easy mistake. After that, I wended my way over to the nearest big tourist site, Culloden Moor, basically the Scottish Alamo (I'd try to explain the story behind it, but Scottish history is hugely convoluted, and I don't think I could do it justice; suffice it to say, there's far more than just Braveheart, though much of it is in the same bloody vein - no pun intended). Then it was just down the road to Clava Cairns, a collection of stone circles and bronze age graves, and finally down to my B&B in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of Loch Ness. The town has a series of trails along the River Urquhart through the Urquhart Woods to Urquhart Bay, which of course I couldn't resist. Dinner was in the local pub, where I had my first of many Scottish beef meals of the trip.

Day 2
I started off the day by running just down the road to Urquhart Castle. You've probably seen photos of the castle: it's the ruined one that stands on the edge of Loch Ness and has been ground zero for Monster sightings. My interest was a bit more prosaic: it's this castle that gave our family its name. According to the information in the visitor center, the name Urquhart means "by the forest" and was applied to the glen, river, woods, and bay near the castle, as well as the people that lived there, thus giving rise to Clan Urquhart and, eventually, the Orcutts. That's enough family history for now, I suppose, but there'll be more later. Anyway, the castle itself is a nice one, though it is ruined, and there's no better place for views of the Loch, jutting out from the usually straight shoreline as it does. I left the castle as the tourist hordes began to arrive, and high-tailed it up Glen Urquhart by way of another Bronze Age grave to Glen Affric, supposedly one of the nicest areas in the Highlands. I couldn't really argue with anyone who says it's the best scenery in Scotland: I certainly saw nothing better on my (admittedly limited) travels. It's a long valley, surrounded by mountains (snow-capped, which was something I hadn't seen in a while) with a river and some lakes in the basin. It's also one of the last places where native Scots Pine forests grow. It reminded me in many ways of a mix between the San Juan Islands and the Klamath Mountains of Oregon, to try and put it into a local context. It was a really nice place, but I was chased out before too long by rain, which drove me up the next glen to the town of Beauly, where I saw an old, ruined priory and took a tour of the Glen Ord scotch distillery. I wasn't sure at first if the whisky tour would be worth it, but it was actually fascinating; I'll never say chemistry is useless again, at any rate. Of course, we all got a taste at the end, and I have a newfound regard for good scotch now. I finished up the day with dinner at a live Scottish music pub in Inverness.

Day 3
Sometime in the 13th Century, as I recall, the Urquharts were made sherrifs of Cromarty, a port on the Black Isle, and ever since, it's been the Urquhart/Orcutt "homeland." With it being so close, I really couldn't pass up a trip. The Black Isle is actually not an island, but a peninsula with a climate and landscape almost identical to that around Sequim. Cromarty itself is a really nice town, in large part because its economy tanked in the early 19th Century, and it really hasn't changed much since. For the same reason, there are few Urquharts left in the area: they all dispersed to find work, so I suppose it's thanks to the recession in Cromarty that I'm here today. I did meet one Urquhart, an old lady who was helping to restore the church (where there's a memorial to Sir Thomas Urquhart, the man who traced the family back to Adam and Eve) who said that there was supposed to be a big clan gathering in 2011 in Cromarty. Guess I'll have to keep my calendar clear...
The rest of the Black Isle was very nice too. I saw dolphins in the Cromarty Firth, went to a museum of Pictish carvings in Rosemarkie (the Picts are the people that predated the Norse/Celtic Scots, and they are always referred to as "mysterious;" apparently the museum took objection to this, as they pointed out that the only reason they are called mysterious is because so little is known about them, which I'd always thought was the definition of the word), hiked the beach at Eathie (supposedly a fossil site, but I couldn't find anything), a ruined cathedral in Fortrose, and Alexander MacKenzie's grave (How well do you know your Northwest Coast history?) in Avoch.

Day 4
My flight wasn't until late, so I decided to take the scenic route back. I drove the long way around Loch Ness, dipping south and driving back up along the eastern shore. It was a gorgeous drive, just bursting with Highland scenery, but still no monster sightings... I finished up the morning at Cawdor Castle, the castle in which Macbeth takes place, though the current structure is a few years too young to have been home to the actual man. Still, it was a really nice castle with beautiful gardens, so it was a good way to finish up my trip.

Overall, Scotland was one of the best trips I've taken in a long time. You don't really realize just how crowded Europe - and especially England - can be until you somewhere like Scotland where there are actual open spaces and few enough people around that you can hear yourself think. Having family history there was a big plus as well, of course, and I'm proud that the Urquharts/Orcutts are from an area as all-around nice as the Scottish Highlands.