It is 4 am on the morning of May 28th, our last full day in Scotland. We are far enough north on the globe that dawn has begun after the abbreviated darkness that fell at 11 pm. We have been in a bit of a fog the last 2 days, literally and figuratively. Today will be our last full day in the United Kingdom and tomorrow will bring a bittersweet departure for the Continent.

By my count we have put 66 days of this journey behind us with 25 to go. We have visited 11 countries and territories with 7 yet before us. We are tired, yet excited to see the places and friends that await us. We talk more and more about home, yet we also speak of “the next thing”. In addition to venturing out with our camper, we are giving serious thought to renting a canal boat for a couple of weeks next year and plying the inland waterways of England. This has been something on our “bucket list” for decades but encountering one of these vessels yesterday reignited the discussion.

We have wandered the streets of Edinburgh…

Toasted Christine’s brother in law with “a wee dram” of his favorite whisky, Lagavulin…

Stumbled upon a “royal wedding” in miniature…

Watched street performers…

Witnessed the start of a marathon…

And toured Edinburgh Castle…

We have continued to enjoy the culture, food, and exceptional ales found in Irish and Scottish pubs. I have favored the traditional cask ales that have virtually no carbonation, are served near room temperature, and are brewed in small batches. They must be drawn from the barrel by a hand pump since there is no pressure to drive them from the tap.

We continue to meet friendly people and briefly become a part of their own story. Later today we will meet the granddaughter of friends from home who is studying archeology here at the University of Edinburgh. Our meeting place will be at the grave and monument of Scotland’s most famous canine, Greyfriar’s Bobby, who spent 14 years standing watch at his master’s grave until his own death on January 14th, 1872.

It’s time to try and catch another hour of sleep.

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. The monument to Sir Walter Scott. Second largest monument to a writer in the world.

Miss Agnes Toward was born in 1886 in Glasgow, Scotland. Her Father died when she was 3, her two sisters each died in infancy, one at 6 months from whooping cough, and the other at 1 year from abdominal tuberculosis caused by consuming infected raw milk.

In 1911 she and her mother rented a nearby 4 room middle-class tenement at 145 Buccleuch Street. In the early years financial need caused them to take on a boarder who occupied the only bedroom. Agnes and her mother slept in box beds that were located in the closets.

Agnes received the basic compulsory education of the day and then continued her education at her mother’s encouragement and expense. She became Glasgow’s first female “short hand stenographic typist”. Her mother died in 1939. Agnes went on to rent the tenement until her death in 1975.

What is remarkable is that Agnes changed virtually nothing within her 19th Century flat. She installed an electric light in 1960, yet continued to use the gas lights. They are still in operation today. The flat contains her original furnishings, personal effects, including toiletries and a jar of jam that she made in 1929, even the original coal fired cook stove.

The successor who purchased the apartment had the foresight to preserve the unit and contents in their original state, selling them 7 years later to Scotland’s National Trust. The Trust presents Agnes’s flat in its original state as an extraordinary window into Glasgow life of the late 19th and early 20th Century.

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. We leave tomorrow for Edinburgh. We will be there 3 nights and then close the Scotland “chapter” of this journey as we return to the Continent.

This morning we boarded a small 1940 era passenger vessel out of Fort William for a 90 minute cruise of Loch Linnhe. At the start the skipper of this well narrated tour declared the day to be the finest he had seen in the last 5 years. We were believers.

From the start, photo opportunities were overwhelming!

Fort William stands on the shores of Loch Linnhe, a saltwater tidal sea that opens through a narrow passage to the Atlantic. While that passage presents hazards to ship navigation with its 35 foot average depth, 12 foot tide range, and resulting tidal currents, the Loch itself is over a mile wide and up to 600 feet deep. The waters have a yearly average temperature that is barely above freezing. For these reasons, Loch Linnhe hosts one of the world’s premier schools for deep water divers and operators of remotely controlled deep water submersible vehicles.

The yellow object amidships in the above picture is a deep sea submersible. Students learn to pilot and control the vessel, in coordination with deep sea divers, accomplishing complicated construction tasks. The work is extremely challenging as one wrong move by the operator not only risks the life of the diver, but catastrophic expense to a project. A trained operator earns the same salary as the diver, $70,000.00 a MONTH.

The 4 round buoys in the above picture mark the training area for helium gas deep water divers. The students come to the school as highly skilled divers. This 3 week course, and its $25,000.00 tuition take these divers to the highest level of their profession. Students spend the first and last 5 days of the program pressurizing and then decompressing to and from the pressure of being 500 feet underwater. That is over 16 times sea level air pressure, and over 30 times the air pressure contained in the tires of most automobiles. At that pressure, ordinary air becomes so toxic that divers must breath a mixture of 98% helium and 2% oxygen. The first 5 days are necessary to acclimate to the mixture/pressure and then the last 5 days to return to the sea level environment. The other 11 days are spent living on the sea floor and operating out of a submersible habitat. The pay is great, the conditions not so much.

Our tour also took us by an active salmon farming operation. Salmon fry are raised under controlled conditions. At two years they are removed from the pens by sophisticated vacuum devices that do not harm the fish. They are then transported alive to the fish factories in nearby Mallaig where they are flash stunned, gutted, and smoked.

 

The following facility with its seven lines of supporting buoys is a mussel farm. Thousands of lines dangle to the depths below. Mussels naturally attach themselves to the lines and thrive without further intervention of the “farmer”. Every 2 years the operator returns to harvest 800,000 pounds of the delicacy from this “farm”! The owner of this farm is reported to be 21 years old.

 

The other sights we enjoyed included a rare view of Ben Nevis mountain nearly clear of clouds (see yesterday’s post),

A modernized crofters homestead,

“ordinary” seals basking in the rare sunshine,

and some of the most beautiful scenery of this entire journey.

 

Peace Everyone. Pete

At 4,411 feet, Ben Nevis stands as the tallest mountain in the United Kingdom. It is the remnant cone of an extinct volcano that exploded and then collapsed in upon itself 350 million years ago. From 1883 to 1904 a weather observatory sat upon its summit, the data from which remain the most important resource for the study of Highland climatology. The ruins of the observatory can still be seen.

One might conclude that climbing “The Ben” is no great task. Many make that mistake and climb with insufficient preparation. Quickly changing weather and dangerous cliff faces have resulted in frequent rescues and fatalities (3 deaths in 2017, considered an average year). The summit is clear an average of only 1 day in 10. Since my ascent occurred on one of those unlucky 9 days I am including these 2 internet images of The Ben:

I had some forewarning of what my climb would present. Good friends Kris and Dennis from Colorado had accomplished the ascent a week earlier. They are both quite fit and Kris regularly leads Colorado Hiking Club groups on multi-day treks all over the world. We made her acquaintance during our 2013 hike on the Camino in Spain. Here is what Kris said, “Seriously f***ing steep hike today up Ben Nevis, the highest point in the UK. Basically 4,000’ of elevation gain in 4.5 miles. Then back down. Relentless. Character-building.”

I agree. I also learned a lesson, bring more water. The 4,411 foot ascent took me just over 3 hours, and so did the return. One might assume going down would be quicker and easier, but one would be wrong. It was incredibly punishing on the knees. Furthermore, insufficient hydration on my part led to a serious case of leg cramps, one bout taking me to the ground. Needless to say, I survived and did not become one of the rescue statistics. Christine was waiting for me at the base where there is a welcoming Inn. 2 Cokes later and I was (mostly) recovered.

My iPhone and altimeter statistics tell the following tale for the day:

• Total ascent, 4,440 feet.

• Total distance walked, 14.1 miles.

• 36,365 steps.

• 364 flights of stairs climbed.

Tomorrow is predicted to be sunny and a warm 72 degrees. A perfect recipe for our last day in Fort William. Our experience with Shana and her Air-BnB continue to be rewarding. We will be heading back Thursday for 2 more days in Glasgow and then 3 in Edinburgh before returning to the Continent.

Peace Everyone. Pete

PS. Not everyone is satisfied with just hiking The Ben.

PPS. A week later Dennis Waite, who I referenced in this post, died in a tragic fall while hiking a cliff trail on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. He was a good friend who lived life large.