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Our fabulous Haggis Compass Buster Tour of Scotland began early on Saturday morning, after a long train trip last on Friday night.
There were 29 of us on the bus, mainly aussies and kiwis with some Canadians and South Africans for variety. We were to be led astray for the week by our local guide, true Scotsman, Stocky (aka Graeme or Stumpy). From the first minute on the bus he had us in stitches with his jokes and non-stop
banter. I could tell we were in for quite a week.
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| A castle near misty Glenorchy |
We left
Edinburgh immediately, although Stocky’s commentary, which would enthral me for the week, began even here. Unfortunately the weather was dull and wet and so there are not a lot of photos to
accompany my journal from the first couple of days.
Our first
stop was at the (William) Wallace Monument, high on a hill near Stirling, two miles from (the original!) Bannockburn. Stocky forbade us from taking a
photo of the tacky Mel Gibson Braveheart statue, seeing that the Hollywood version
of the film is so inaccurate, but I have never been one to obey!
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| The Wallace Monument up on the hill and the "Braveheart" statue of Mel Gibson down below |
The next stop, just round the corner, was the Stirling
Bridge. Here we got our first taste of the true, deep, Scottish hatred
of the English, which, when you hear the history, you can’t really blame them.
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| Stocky telling us one of the first of many stories, this time on Stirling Bridge |
After meeting
Hamish the hairy coo (that’s spelt “C-double O-double O-O” but the last O is silent), we stopped for lunch
and a quick wander in Balquhidder. More history lessons followed as here is where
the real Rob Roy MacGregor lies. This story gave a sneak preview of what we were
going to learn at the next stop – that the Scottish don’t think much of the Campbell clan either!
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| Hamish the hairy coo |
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| The sign read "Don't hold onto Hamish's horns" |
We had
to walk off lunch so when we stopped at Glencoe, Stocky sent us up the hill for a walk along a ridge in this grand valley. He met us after a while and told us the story of the Campbell
massacre of the MacDonalds, a rather nasty story in Scottish history.
We stopped
for the first night in Oban, a small sea-side town full of coffin-dodgers. Justine,
Megan, Libby and I had fish and chips for dinner and then a few drinks in the local before crashing for the night.
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Unfortunately
the weather on Sunday was dreadful and our brisk walk in Glencoe in the morning was in the pissing rain. As we drove on, we dried off, and passed through Stewart country and heard Stocky tell a fellow traveller
Mark Stewart that he could be the rightful king, if only the FEBs hadn’t ruined it all.
(The E in FEB stand for English…) We also learnt about a Miss Bonny
Paps, one of Haggis’ first customers, who still receives a Xmas card each year, given that her name means “nice
boobs”!
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| Justine and the bridge that starred in the Harry Potter movie. We just missed the Hogswart Express! |
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| Loch Shiel, which also starred in Harry Potter, and the monument to Bonny Prince Charlie |
There was
a quick stop at Fort William and then on to the Harry Potter Bridge! We just missed seeing the Hogswart Express cross it, but we did learn
about what really happened in the area and Bonny Prince Charlie’s role.
During
lunch we sheltered from the rain in a nearby hostel and then spent the rainy afternoon in the best place really – the
Ben Nevis Distillery. The tour was really interesting, even if I didn’t
particularly like the end product!
Later this
afternoon Stocky told us stories of the Five Sisters (a range of hills) and the real Old MacDonald’s farm.
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| Peering into the whiskey vat |
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| In the distillation room |
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| Tasting the end product |
One of
the highlights of the trip for me was the visit to the Haggis cairn. As Stocky
explained, cairns, which are effectively piles of stones, are often left in memory of someone or
something. They often become very large piles due to the tradition of visitors
placing a stone on the cairn. This particular cairn we stopped at was huge. Underneath, Stocky told us (straight-faced), was a memorial to the last known haggis,
shot on this very spot in 1777. So many people had left stones in memory, that
the original memorial is covered up. In deference to its namesake, the Haggis
company felt duty-bound to begin the process of removing the stones, to uncover the memorial.
But, before we could remove our stone, we had to do the haggis dance. In
the pissing rain. And then we had to do the haggis mating call. While people drove past. I haven’t laughed so much in
a long time. And, much to my delight, an aussie up the back of the bus took the
bait, and asked what a haggis looked like. Stocky didn’t crack a smile
as he explained that a haggis was “about the size of a badger”, had long eyelashes and red lips (from eating all
the heather). Brilliant.
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| We each took a stone from this memorial cairn to the haggis... |
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