when the train pulled into Inverness i'd been sitting, watching snow-laden fields and towns go by for the last 2 hours. Inverness, on the other hand, was dry, apart from a couple of patches of ice here and there. when my boots hit the pavement this morning a couple of inches of snow covered the ground and as i headed out it started to rain. a good day to go and sit beside Loch Ness this was not going to be, but this is me we're talking about so i did it anyway.
the hostel was easy enough to find - a couple of minutes walk from the train station, with the entrance in the middle of a short alley that led between a side road and High Street. in the doors and up the stairs and i was greeted by a jovial scot and the sounds of construction - "We're in the middle of renovation, so sorry about the mess," he told me. the standard procedures took place, my stuff was dumped in the dorm and i ejected myself back onto the street again. i stopped through the Tourist Information Centre, picked up enough information to make plans for the coming days, and wandered down to the River Ness. a left-turn took me southwards and into the peaceful village. green grass, a nice footpath and a shallow river flowing quickly, but gently out to sea. after London and Edinburgh, even Brighton, the quiet village atmosphere (Inverness is officially a city - they have a piece of paper stamped by Queen Elizabeth II that says so - but it's only got ~70,000 people in it and it FEELS village-like) was like a gentle breeze and i fould feel myself relaxing as i walked. crossing over one of the suspension briges i was able to look down into, and through the water. from what i was told later it's drinkable - clean and fresh with no industry upriver to mess it up. salt water seeps through an artesian basin, filtering through the rocks and into Loch Ness, then flows back out to sea again. up at the Loch it's just as clear and cold you feel like you could immerse yourself and it would wash your sins and pain away, leaving you clean and renewed once again.
heading back up the other side, i kept going until i got to the two churches and crossed over and down Church St where i'd been told i could find a Wetherspoons and therein a cheap feed. it WAS cheap, too - £4.38 bought me a pint of local ale and a cottage pie, which i sipped and scarfed respectively while hitting the net and checking on the news. my phone rang while i sat there - the pimp who's placed me in Louis Vuitton a few times previously, wanting to know if I was interested in some £10/hour work he had going. i laughed, explaining that i was in a pub in Inverness and that it'd take something pretty spectacular to get me to rush back - in other words: you can take your £10/hour and shove it, mate.
a bit of a sit-down in the hostel and i was back outside the Tourist Centre by 6:45PM for an evening tour, which was led by a Patriotic Scot, and on that cold evening catered to a clientele of one: me. he didn't seem peturbed by this - he was as happy to take my money as i was to have an informal one-on-one, and we wandered around chatting while he told stories for an hour or so and i learned a few odds and ends about the town and its history while enjoying some pleasant company.
another quick chill in the hostel after which i fetched up in the Hootenanny - a chain, apparently. they have music every night and tonight was a "traditional scottish jam session", which meant a piano-accordian (for once, not used as a Weapon of Mass Destruction), a couple of violins and a guitar. i found a seat and wound up chatting to a Scottish bloke in his 50's while enjoying pleasant music and pint after pint of the local ales and generally having a really nice time for a few hours.
i was supposed to be up early this morning to get out to Drumnadrochit (Drum-na-d'rocket) - about a 3rd of the way down Loch Ness, near to Urquhart Castle. the plan was to get to the village and hike the 2 miles to the Castle - then i woke up late (missing the earlier bus by about 5 minutes) and saw the weather. alternatives came to mind, but Cawdor Castle was closed (unless you're in good with Lady Cawdor who lives there, and i'm not), so that was out, as was the Culloden Battlefield Centre which is shut through the winter. oh well, fuckit. i bought a ticket for Drumnadrochit, chilled out for the hour or so i had to wait and took a ride down a narrow, windy road past the Loch.
sitting on the bus, i plugged my earphones in for the first time in days (i', hit "Last Played" and Death Cab For Cutie started singing in my ears again (they've wound up providing the unofficial soundtrack for this trip) and i sat there looking out the window, quietly losing it. i'm sitting on the knife-edge between wanting to go back to head back to civilisation and wanting to continue wandering on and on until i run out of breath or money. i was starting to get the over the perception of loneliness, and starting to get the feeling that i could just keep doing this forever - a new town every couple of days, a new bunch of room mates, a new set of streets to learn to navigage. suddenly, while i sat on the bus to Drumnadrochit i was sitting on the MRT in Singapore. as i walked up the road towards the Castle i was hiking back to home-base in London. walking the dark, narrow alleys in Edinburgh and i was walking across the Harbour Bridge in Sydney. in an airconditioned taxi with a disinterested cabbie in Melbourne and i was in a tuktuk in Bangkok where the driver had a mad gleam in his eye and i had the wind in my hair. walking on the pebbled beach in Brighton and i was walking up Cable Beach in Broome. sinking pints in Inverness and i was in the back-deck at Little Creatures in Fremantle. all in the blink of an eye, i splintered an reformed and the only thing that changed was the view out the window, but somehow i got the impression that when i settle down again i'll still be sitting on a bus careening through snowy fields with a view of one of the most famous bodies of water on the planet.
Drumnadrochit is a sleepy little one-horse village sitting just off the water and seems pretty much to cater to tourists and Loch Ness pilgrims. i got some directions for a walking trail (which i couldn't find), pulled out my umbrella and headed off down the road which got more and more treacherous as i went along. with the verge covered in 2 feet of snow i wasn't going to get anywhere in a hurry, so i walked along the edge of the road against the traffic and jumped into the snow any time a car came past. somewhere around 3/4 of an hour later i was finally at the Castle - tired, but alive.
Urquhart is an old ruin sitting out on the side of the Loch with a little visitor's center which i'm now sitting in, nursing the remnants of a hot chocolate, watching what look like robins playing around in the snow. there's not much to it to be honest - it took me a little over half an hour to meander quietly through the remnants of the fortifications and buildings, my earphones dangling dormant around my neck while i enjoyed the sound of rain on my umbrella and Sweet Fuck All else - the silence that comes from being a long away from too many people and the glossolalia of their noisemakers and gadgetry. after investigating the nooks and crannies of what remains standing i ducked down to the shore of the Loch so that i could dip my toe in the water and tempt the Nessie, marveling at the water's clarity, before heading back up to gift shop for a warm drink and a bite to eat.
i'm a little irritated - if i'd managed to get to the earlier bus i'd be back in Inverness by now and i'd have time to do something else this afternoon, but then i guess a quietish day is for the win at this point. i have another 20 minutes before i have to be out on the roadside waiting for the bus back to Inverness (i got a return from the village, but i'm hoping that the driver won't make me hike back there to catch the proper one. in better weather i'd have gone for a walk down the side of the Loch, but i at least got to go to the shore by the castle and dip my toe into it. it's a beautiful place - even shrouded in mist and raining, it's quiet and wild and remarkably unpoluted. even if i don't get to do what i've got planned for tomorrow, i'm glad i came up this way just for the chance to hang around here for a bit.
anyway, word is that the bus drivers do a drive-by and if they don't see anyone than they don't stop, so i'd best be out on the road looking obvious. hopefully being dressed all in black with an umbrella counts as obvious, but i'll not be taking any chances of having to walk along that road in the dark so i'm off.
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i spent half an hour standing on the edge of the frozen road chewing gum and playing with the robin who seemed keen on flying and hopping around me while i waited. by the time i was back in Inverness i had a gaping hole where my stomach used to me - the hot chocolate and steak slice back at the Castle cafe having filled it not at all. i felt like an old pair of boots - soles ground thin on strange pavement and starting to crack, leather faded to grey, crinkled and soft. i managed to not trip out of the bus when it stopped and dumped the broken remains of my umbrella (stalk cracked while waiting outside the Castle) into the first bin i found. too early for the All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet, so i headed back to the hostel, dumped my bag and spoke to a pimp who seemed keen to talk to me, then wandered back and stuffed my face while i watched the river trickle its way past beyond the window.
tonight has been designated a "dead" night. i'm not in the mood to go and sit in a pub on my own, so i'll be sitting around the hostel, working on my writing. i have a few things to get out if i can get them together properly. tomorrow i'll try to make an early start and head up to Cromarty where i'm told there are wild dolphins, seals and maybe even puffins. i'd have liked to have wandered around somewhere indoors, but what the hell - i might as well make the most of the situation, and if that means bothering the wildlife then so be it. i won't be going hell-for-leather anyway - it'll be my last day in Scotland since i'm now rushing back to London on Saturday (thankyou EasyJet)... but that's an explaination i think i'll tell out of sequence.
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