May 31 To travel hopefully

The pub with no beer at Inverie

One of the very first guide-books I consulted in planning this trip was the Good Beer Guide. That wasn’t because I intended it to be a 3,000 mile pub crawl, but if there happened to be a pub serving a decent pint of beer in the general vicinity of where one was planning to stay, well, so much the better!

Poring over the maps and the GBG in the long and lonely winter evenings in my stable-conversion alongside the M40, I came across The Old Forge, at Inverie – “the most remote pub in mainland Britain”. Now there’s a challenge, I thought. The only way of reaching it was by passenger ferry from Mallaig, and the best way of reaching Mallaig was by ferry from Skye. Thus was my route determined.

The final leg of my pilgrimage to this outpost of inn-keeping civilisation could not have started more propitiously. It was a simply glorious day, I managed to find a car parking space big enough to accommodate Carmen’s considerable back-end, and Bruce Watt, the skipper of the Western Isles, could not have given a more convincing performance as “jovial Scottish boatman” if he was being paid by the Scottish tourist board.

We crossed Loch Nevis and arrived at Inverie, on the Knoydart peninsula, shortly before 11. It is, for sure, the only way of getting there, other than a demanding hike across 17 miles of some of the roughest country in Scotland, or anywhere else, for that matter. The Old Forge was open. Phew, thank goodness for that. But I decided that a walk along the shores of the loch would make the beer when it came taste all the sweeter.

So it wasn’t until around 12.15 that I finally got to walk through the doors of a pub that I’d been thinking about for months and had travelled – all told – over 1,000 miles to get to. “A pint of your finest Scottish real ale”, I requested of the barmaid, with a note, of not of triumph, then certainly of approaching fulfilment in my voice. “Sorry sir. It’s off”, she replied.

“Off? Off? How can it be off?”, I cried in despair. The senior barman appeared, jaded from a singsong that had gone on until 3 am the night before. “Yes, sorry mate. I tried tapping a new barrel but it almost blew up on me. There’s some more coming over on the afternoon boat, so we’ll have it back on by this evening.”

But that was no good. The boat back left at 3. So I ordered a glass of white wine and a main course portion of local mussels, which are among my most favourite foods, especially on a hot day with a glass or two of sauvignon blanc. Ten minutes later, the cook appeared. “Don’t shoot the messenger”, she said, “but we’re clean out of mussels”. So I had bog standard haddock and chips, washed down with a bog standard South African chenin blanc, just as I could have done in any one of 500 pubs in Scotland. The view across the loch, the blazing sunshine, and the fact that I could at least tick off “the most remote pub in mainland Britain” in my GBG provided some consolation.

The boat trip back involved travelling further up Loch Nevis (“the lake of heaven”), to pick up passengers from Tarbet. A sharply-peaked mountain dominated the sky-line. I enquired of the affable Bruce as to its name. “That’ll be Sgurr Na Ciche”, he replied; adding in a conspiratorial under-tone, “it’s Gallic, y’know, fur nipple.” I looked again at the mountain, and could immediately see why. It will for ever have a special place in my heart!

No prizes for guessing the name of this mountain!

Back at Camusdarach, it was such a glorious evening and such a beautiful beach that I decided that an early evening swim was in order. The water was sharply cold, but no more so than it would be at this time of year in the Scillies, and I splashed about happily enough for all of five minutes. When the sea is really cold, it takes your breath away. This wasn’t in that league by any means. Still, swimming in the sea, in Scotland, in May. It’s not a bad claim to fame.

Today, I have driven down to North Ledaig, just north of Oban, stopping at Glencoe en route. The sunshine has been unbroken, and the mountains, glens and lochs through which I have travelled can never have looked more magnificent. I am, if anything, scenery-drunk, as mountain has followed mountain, loch succeeded loch, and vista unfolded upon vista. The road from Mallaig to Fort William follows the line of the West Highland Railway, which is presently featuring a steam locomotive, The Lord of the Isles.

Now that would be travelling in style.

May 29 Mainland magic

This is much better. Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald are welcome to their Isle of Skye. The song that was running though my head this morning as I approached the ferry terminal at Armadale began: “Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing, over the sea from Skye.”

As an island, it looks fabulous from a distance. But up close and personal, its defining features (apart from the mountains of course – when you can see them) are biting midges and smelly self-obsessed mountain climbers. It does have one saving grace, as far as I’m concerned: a pretty little nine hole golf course at Sconser on the shores of Loch na Cairidh. I spent most of yesterday there, playing golf in increasingly torrential rain, there being not much else to do on Skye except climb a mountain, and there wasn’t much point in that because the top two thirds of every one was shrouded in cloud and rain.

However, though I say it myself, I played pretty well and my happiness would have been as complete as could be expected under the circs, but for one rude awakening. Second time around, I sliced my drive to the long second into light rough. I took a four iron, to move it along. As the ball came out, it was accompanied by two clouds – one of spray, the other of midges. I am now smothered in Autan, but even with that, it would be a brave man who took his supper outside in this part of Scotland.

Radio reception returned as I reached the ferry terminal. This proved to be a distinctly mixed blessing. The first voice I heard when I tuned to Radio Five Live was David Handley’s familiar, grating, insinuating whine. He reminds me of Uriah Heep in David Copperfield – ever so ‘umble on the face of it, but underneath brimming with ambition, resentment and bile.

The description “fuel protestors” has come to define a new faction in British politics: embittered, right wing, militants-for-anything whose sole purpose in life is to get themselves on the telly, in any and every populist cause they can think of. The harm that Handley has done in mixing the farming community up in this motley, unprincipled, far-right leaning, egotistical ragbag is incalculable. And he represents no-one but himself (except maybe his wife).

After that, the sunshine which broke through as I reached my sylvan campsite at Camusdarach, midway between Mallaig and Arisaig, was balm to the soul. We (that’s Carmen and I) are just inland from a beautiful white sand beach, looking across to that wonderful triplet of islands, Muck, Eigg and Rum! The coast around the little golf course at Traigh, where I played this afternoon, reminds me very much of the Scillies, with its white sand, crystal clear waters and low, rocky islets.

Traigh golf course, looking across towards Rum

Yes, there are midges, and I swallowed a good many of them as I was cycling back from the pub at Arisaig this evening. But they don’t seem to bite as much as those on Skye, and I haven’t seen a back-packer all day – just posses of middle aged German bikers, of whom more anon.

The beach at Camusdarach, where I swam on May 31

May 27. Cuillins tower…

…above my campsite, which is routinely spectacular. It is at Glenbrittle, on the south west of the Isle of Skye. I am parked virtually on the beach, whilst all around are the aforementioned Cuillins. They look as mountains should look; impossibly high, impossibly steep, impossibly craggy and impossibly menacing: the sort of mountains your imagination would conjure up if you were reading The Lord of the Rings. These are the Black Cuillins (the Reds are about 10 miles to the north east), although they are actually battleship grey. When the evening light softens the jagged edges of the ridges and scree, it looks as though they’ve been upholstered in grey velvet.

The Black Cuillins from Glenbrittle

But if the mountains are magnificent, the mountaineers are much less so. Skye is overrun with people of all ages in lycra, fleece, leggings, fatigue trousers and, above all, boots. I haven’t seen anyone wearing just plain shoes all day. For the genuine mountaineers, I have nothing but admiration. But the mountain climbers – the ‘Munro Baggers’ as they’re known in Scotland for reasons I won’t bore you with – are an unappealing lot.

In the pubs, they talk of nothing but their climbs; on the mountain they appear to talk of nothing at all. As I passed them on a brief foray up Sgurr Alasdair this afternoon, their faces seemed set in a mask of determination. The couples tend to walk in single file, about 50 yards apart – and that goes even for those who aren’t married!

Anyway, I would rather they weren’t here in quite such numbers. The campsite is jam-packed with them, the pubs over-run (or perhaps that should be over-tramped), and Skye – whilst undeniably beautiful – lacks the sense of solitude – of other-worldliness almost – of Durness and the far north western Highlands.

Last night I stayed at The Sands caravan park, at Big Sand, a few miles north of Gairloch. It is a big site, with every facility you can think of, set behind a ridge of dunes, beyond which is a huge sandy beach. As I sipped a glass of cool white wine and recovered from the 140 tortuous miles I’d covered to get there, I could see the mountains of the north of Skye blue in the distance.

But much the best of yesterday was visiting Sandwood Bay, the almost legendary beach which is claimed to be both Scotland’s most beautiful and most remote. It took me about an hour and a half to make the four mile trek from car park to beach. The track got rougher as it went long, although the hardest part was the final slog through the dunes. It reminded me of dear old Fred Rumsey, a Somerset fast bowler of the old school, being set to run up and down the dunes at Burnham in his cricket boots, in order to get fit for an England call-up. I think he managed about three, before setting off with his ‘fitness coach’ to the nearest pub.

Arriving at Sandwood Bay

Sandwood was well worth the trouble getting there. To arrive was even better than the hopeful travel. It is a huge crescent of white sand, backed by dunes, and behind them, the dark waters of Sandwood loch. At the south end is a rock stack, whose gaelic name means ‘the shepherd’. Just off-shore is a large rock, called ’the sheep’ (although it actually reminded me much more of the rock off Cape Cornwall, whose name I forget, but which is known locally as “General de Gaulle in the bath”!) I couldn’t linger long, as I needed to make it to Scourie before the pub shut at 2.30, but I picnicked happily in the dunes, basking in the sunshine and reflecting on how glad I was that I’d made the effort.

And so back to the present, which is a bit lonely. They didn’t have a hook-up available (all those bloody mountain people!), so I’ve no television, there’s no mobile signal, so no phone or internet, the radio can’t even pick up Isles FM and I’ve just blown up the front of my gas grill, in which I was warming a pizza for my solitary supper. Claire will no doubt tell me that I’m stupid and shouldn’t have closed the glass door, but it seemed the obvious thing to do to speed things up. Happily, it was safety glass, and no harm has been done – other than to my pride, of course.

The Shepherd and the Sheep, Sandwood Bay

There are places I'll remember.......

I have done Durness a grave misservice. It isn't the 'John Lennon Memorial Hall'; it is, in fact, the 'John Lennon Memorial Garden', which is in the grounds of the hall and, if a little windblown, represents a genuinely moving tribute to the village's most famous adopted son. The claim is made - and I'm sure it is true - that it was his fondness for Durness that inspired him to write "In my Life", which happens to be just about my favourite John Lennon song. If I can ever get this wretched computer to up-load photographs, I'll show you a picture of it....and here it is:

Anyway, when I get home, one of the first things I'll do is to download "In my Life" to my MP3 player, and for ever after it will remind me of beautiful, hospitable, elemental Durness - the village at the end of the world.

Durness May 25

I finally reached my kicking off point after two days and 680 miles. The journey did not have the most auspicious of beginnings. After bidding a tearful farewell to Claire, I set off at a steady pace, reflecting to myself that holding up the traffic would be a novel experience. Even so, the hand signals being employed by the various drivers who managed to overtake on the twisting road towards Bridgwater did seem to be particularly demonstrative.It wasn’t until a builders’ flat-bed drew alongside as we were crossing Westonzoyland airfield that I realised what the trouble was: my bicycle had broken loose from its moorings at the back of the van and was dangling at right angles, whilst the compartment below was swinging open, threatening to decant my golf clubs and sundry other precious possessions into the path of the following traffic. I swore and pulled in. I’d barely got out of the van to put things right before Claire turned up. For some reason I failed to understand, she seemed to find the whole thing highly amusing!

Thereafter, Carmen went like a bird – if rather more of a swan than a swallow. Unlike her namesake, she is built for comfort, not for speed! I stayed the night on a campsite near Moffat, dining at the Old Black Bull. No self-respecting hostelry in the Scottish lowlands is complete without (a) a reminder of some English-inspired historical outrage and (b) a connection with Robert Burns, and the Old Black Bull is no exception. A plaque on the wall informed me that it had been the HQ of Graham Claverhouse, who had been King James II’s Commissioner appointed to suppress the rebellious covenanters in 1683. “Bloody Clavers”, he was known as; and his exploits were “the Killing Time”. The Scots are great ones for “nursing their wrath to keep it warm”.

Which brings us to Burns, who, according to another plaque, wrote the following on a window pane whilst staying at the Old Black Bull: “Ask why God made the gem so small and why so large the granite? Because God meant that mankind should set the higher value on it.” As words go, they’re not exactly immortal, and maybe I’m being particularly dense, but it’s not clear to me whether it is the gem or the granite by which Burns thinks we should set the greater store. This being Scotland, presumably the latter.

Once I’d got past Glasgow, the traffic began to melt away, as did the radio reception. I lost Test Match Special between Perth and Inverness, so switched to Radio 2, to revel in the traffic reports. Sure enough, the M5 was clogged from Michaelwood services to Clevedon. How very glad I was not to be caught up in the that lot. But as I was driving along a completely deserted A838 (which is actually a single track with passing places) on the shores of Loch Shin, even Radio 2 disappeared. So I pressed the ‘search’ button, and was eventually rewarded with what I took to be a song in Gaelic. This turned out to be Isles FM and its “Drive time programme”. Drive time, in the Western Isles?! “Boat Time” would be more like it.

Durness (pronounced as in ‘furnace’) turned out to be a joy: an oasis of understated civilisation in the midst of an elemental landscape. The campsite is directly above a handsome beach called Sango Sands, with the mountains behind, and sea lochs on either side. John Lennon used to come on holiday here as a child, a fact which is commemorated in the handsome, new (and no doubt massively EU funded) ‘John Lennon Community Hall’.

I finally reached Cape Wrath (pronounced with a short ‘a’ as in ‘rat’) yesterday lunchtime, after a bike ride, a ferry crossing and a hair-raising 11 mile minibus ride along the narrow twisting road that was constructed for the building of the lighthouse in the early nineteenth century. I know that, thanks to the minibus driver, David Hirn, who knows everything there is to know about the most north westerly point on the British mainland and its lighthouse, and has even written a book on the subject called “A Light in the Wilderness”.

And a wilderness is what it is. No-one lives on the Cape Wrath peninsular. It is a vast expanse of moorland, mountain and rock which has the dubious distinction of being the only military range in Europe where live 500 pound bombs can be dropped. Happily, these are aimed at a small island just offshore, rather than at the Cape itself, and not on a bank holiday week-end. The regular pounding has made little visual impact. This is a landscape more than capable of shrugging off anything that mere man can throw at it.

We were given an hour to wander around the lighthouse, admire the towering cliffs
and watch the arctic terns fishing for their lunch. I had taken the precaution of bringing a picnic, which I ate (and drank!) in the shelter of the lighthouse walls. The sun was above and the steel-blue Atlantic below and here I was, in the most remote corner of mainland Britain. If my journey offers any better moments, they’ll have to be pretty good.

Later in the day, I played golf, at Durness GC, and this too was very heaven. It may not be the longest nine hole course in the world, or the most manicured, but there are some fascinatingly quirky holes, and one very good one – the par 5 6th which curves its way around Loch Lanish, just daring the over-ambitious to attempt a wood across the water, to get home in two. And the views are just stunning – of blue sea and the white sand dunes of Balnakeil Bay on one side and the mountains on the other. With crisp moorland turf underfoot, and the larks singing their little hearts out up above, it was a golfing experience I will never forget, and for just £15.

The only person I’ve met who has actually visited Durness is the Western Morning News’ esteemed Farming Editor, Bingo Hall. When I’d told him where I was bound he said instantly “Ha! In that case you must go to the Seafood Platter. Marvellous fish, straight out of Loch Eriboll". And do you know what, he was absolutely right! I had a platter of lobster, crab, mussels and langoustines, all as fresh as fresh could be. It was a memorable meal to end a memorable day. By the time I’d cycled back to the comforts of Carmen, I was so mellow, not even the voting in the Eurovision song contest could disturb my equilibrium. In fact, I thought Terry Wogan made rather a fool of himself with his huffing and puffing over Eastern bloc togetherness. What does he expect?

But where, I hear you ask, is the Celtic in all this? Well, if truth be told, the far north of Scotland owes a great deal more to the Picts and the Vikings than it does to the Celts. Cape Wrath apparently takes its name from the Norse word hvarf, meaning ‘turning point’. Which describes very well the precise geographical meaning of ‘cape’. It is a headland that marks the dividing line between two seas; in this case the Atlantic and the North Sea. The only other cape in the UK is Cape Cornwall (which is where I learned all this), where the Atlantic meets the Irish Sea.

But going back to matters Celtic, I did note that the highest cliffs on mainland Britain, a couple of miles east of Cape Wrath, towering 900 feet above the churning Atlantic, are called Clo Mor, and that has distinct echoes of the cliffs of Moher in County Clare, which are the highest cliffs in Ireland. Someone will no doubt tell me that they are both Norse rather than Celtic in origin, but for the moment that is my Celtic connection and I’m sticking to it!

Apart from the obvious one, of course, which is the Gaelic language, which is still spoken by a few of the locals here. I thought I’d encountered one such when I clambered on board the little ferry across the Kyle of Durness, when the ferrymen said something completely unintelligible to a crofter from Fraserburgh, who is on holiday here with his wife. I met up with them again in the evening, at the fish restaurant, and asked about the conversation. He laughed. “That wasnae Gallic. That man was drunk. He hasnae been sober for the past five year!”

Sorry to disappoint any Scottish football fans who may chance across this blog, but I'm afraid it has nothing whatever to do with the equal best side in Glasgow! It will instead be an account of a journey, by me and my camper van, down the length of the Celtic coastline of Europe, from Cape Wrath in Scotland to Cape St. Vincent in Portugal. It will take in lanfdscape and seascape, food, pubs, culture, the odd golf course and the people whom I meet along the way, and if it has any serious purpose to it, it is to explore the links between the peoples of Europe's Western seaboard.

I do not intend to get involved in the debate over whether the Celts were a defined race, originating in central Europe and dominating the continent before first the Romans and then the Anglo Saxons pushed them to its outermost fringe, or whether they were a much broader assortment of iron age tribes, given a historical identity by medieval (and later) romanticists. Suffice it to say that whoever the people were who dominated Europe before the Romans, they were undoubtedly gradually pushed westwards. To a large extent the evidence will speak for itself. If there are clear cultural similarities between, say, Galicia and Galway, then the case that these similarities stem from a shared cultural ancestry becomes that much stronger.

As for myself, I have just retired after 36 crisis-torn years with the NFU. I decided to make the journey because my mother's family is pure Celt - Welsh as it happens - and I have always felt a strong affinity with the wild and rugged coastlines of places like Cornwall and Britanny. But I have never been to the West coast of Scotland, or Galicia, or indeed to the vast majority of the places I will be visiting over the next four or five months. I am also a camper van virgin.

Actually, it's a bit more than a camper van. More of a motor home, if I'm being honest. It's called Carmen; partly because the last three letters on the registration are BZT and partly because the NFU's Chief Economist, Carmen Suarez, playe a big part in encouraging me to embark on this venture, and she's a Celt, from Asturias.

I shall miss the pastoral lushness of the Somerset Levels where I live. And I shall miss my wife Claire. But after 36 years of hard graft, I decided it was time for an adventure; which, for better or for worse, I'm sure this will be.

I'm leaving in the morning, stopping overnight near Moffat, and God willing should be arriving at Durness on Friday evening. I'll catch you then.