My goal today was to visit the northwest coast of Scotland, and the best place to gaze over the North Sea was the Isle of Skye, which sticks out of the mainland of Scotland like a small hand. To get there I had the option of using the highway, or take the road less traveled weaving through the glaciated valleys of the Highlands, and of course I chose the latter. I had to keep an eye on the weather, however, because yesterday’s sunny sky has been replaced by gray clouds.
Country roads in Scotland are incredibly narrow, with a wide spot every 1,000 feet or so, where a polite driver can wait to let incoming traffic pass by. Not a problem since Scotts favor little cars, but a big problem because lorries also take these roads and they are so wide there is little room for error. Speaking of error, now and then I get mesmerized by the stark but beautiful landscape and slowly drift toward the right side of the road. On one occasion I startled seeing a car almost in front of me, but was able to take a sharp swing to the left just in time to avoid disaster (he, he, you should have seen the look of terror on the face of the lady driving the car).
Scotland is the land of lakes, and each of those long glaciated valleys has a beautiful lake/loch that could supply California for a year or two. It was a delight to see so much water, peacefully resting and waiting for the next torrential rain, which I thought might happen any moment now. There are fat fuzzy sheep everywhere, so it is easy to imagine a bearded Highlander strutting around in his kilt, oblivious to the steep topography and ever present drizzle. I also noticed that there are some very young forests on some of the slopes, way too geometric to be natural. Turns out timber is a lively industry here in Scotland, and the lumber companies are actively planting the crop of 2050 right now. But sometimes they overload the slopes and the whole thing becomes unstable and fails in the form of spectacular landslides.
Eventually I got to the bridge that connects the mainland with the Isle of Skye, and then Mother Nature let me have the full Islander experience, with wind so strong that I thought my little Cinquecento was going to be tossed off the road. Oh, but the place is stunningly beautiful, with one gorgeous fjord after the other. I could well imagine the crusty Scottish salts, standing erect at the helm of their fishing vessels, sailing out of the fjords in a gale to head for the cod banks. In this day and age, however, you are more likely to see a salmon farm than an old fishing scowl.
Skye fills an important chapter in the annals of geology, because a very simple gabbroic intrusion (the remnant of a basaltic magma chamber) bulged the sequence of sedimentary rocks 60 million years ago, and fed a “distinctive” radial dike complex that allowed the old geologists to develop the concept of effective stress fields around an intrusion (more about this if and when I get to see the Isle of Mull). I call it “distinctive” because even to my trained eye it was difficult to see individual dikes, so I am taking this on faith knowing that the old boys were really good field geologists. I paid my modest homage to those old geologists, by walking a few hundred feet toward the gabbroic intrusion of Cuillin, known among British hikers as a rock climbing paradise. It is a good thing I knew that caution is the best side of valor, because the rain was coming down hard, and some of those creeks were going to swell into impassable torrents.
Did I already mention the beautiful fjords? One of my favorite moments was when there was a break in the clouds and a beam of sunlight painted a beautiful rainbow on the steep walls.
Getting out of the island I once again took the road less traveled to reach the town of Fort William, where I will spend the night. I had a very nice long talk with my host John, who wanted to talk politics. His favorite subjects were Scottish independence from England, and the chances that Trump has of getting a second term. On the latter I will say that Europeans in general like the mockery that Trump has done of the US political system and its much touted democracy, and love how he has made fools of all the citizens (Schadenfreude if you ask me). On a more personal note John went to his bookie 6 years ago, and betted 500 pounds that Trump would win the election, at odds 80 to 1. So, he made 40,000 pounds out of Trump’s win. This time round he has betted the same 500 pounds, at odds 800 to 1, so he is hoping that a Trump win will set him up for the rest of his life!
In the afternoon I drove a few miles out of town to see the
Harry Potter train, which is a stretch of train track that parallels one of the
lochs and that apparently was used to film some of the aerial views of the
Hogwarts Express. There is not really a lot to see, but the track goes over an
impressive bridge of stone arches. It reminded me a bit of the train that goes
around Lake Baykal, in Siberia, which is a nostalgic steam engine that carries
tourists from one end of the lake to the other.
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