Dear Everyone, when I finished writing on Tuesday, we were
waiting for the rain to settle down so we could head off for a big drive, main
destination, Watten, which is where Viva & Jennifer’s Munro forebears come from. Jennifer
and her daughter, Leigh, had done lots of detective work some years ago and
armed with that information, we decided to find what we could. Watten is a small inland
village between Wick & Thurso, about 90 minutes’ drive from where we are staying.
We followed Jeff’s directions and found the Old Mill, which is still standing,
although in ruins. As the weather was being dictated to by the hurricane in
this area, we didn’t linger long at Watten, which was bigger than we expected, but headed off to Wick
in the hope of a hot drink and a break from travelling.
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Windswept Karen outside the Old
Mill and below a house for Leigh to buy while she does up the Mill…the estate
agents are also relatives
The big joke in Scotland is that everyone drives through Wick and we fully understood after we
had parked the car, used the toilets (under 5cm of rainwater) and gone for a
walk. We found the answer after we left, without the hot drink, as we
discovered a huge Tesco’s on the outskirts of town. It is clean, easy to get
around, and petrol prices were reasonable as well. I hadn’t wanted to go into a
Tesco, but nothing would have dragged me into most of the few remaining open
shops in Wick. The petrol station
manager had married a Munro and moved here and Wes was able to tell him the
history of the Old Mill, which he
didn’t know! Serendipitous. He advised us against driving to John O’Groats, but we decided to go
ahead, as we have visited Land’s End.
The sea was wild and crashing over the pier and we could
just see the Orkneys in the distance through the mist. There were no ferries
going over today. We are so pleased we went – it is very different countryside
and although the Lonely Planet guide suggested there was nothing here, there is
a lovely new building offering meals, a few shops and respite from the wind and
rain.
We decided not to stop as we had a long trip home and we did
want to detour at the little village of Doll.
My grandmother, Viva & Jeff’s mother, was always called Doll as she was
born so close to Christmas her brother Frank thought Santa had brought him a
doll. Her real name was Mary Magdalen, but I don’t think I knew that until she
had died. As you can see below, the landscape is wild & woolly, but there
were lots of friendly sheep & cows and even a house with a maze in its
front garden.
The bad weather was punctuated by bursts of blinding
sunshine, but mostly it was wet, windy and didn’t get above 6° while we were
out. We stopped at the Storehouse of Foulis, a delightful
small farm shop and purchased a few more bits and pieces to tide us over until
we left for Skye.
One thing that made the driving very pleasurable was
listening to BBC Classic FM and particularly in the morning when the presenter
is John Suchet, brother of David. We could pick similarities
in his voice and I googled him to be sure. The only downside is the ads, which
we are not used to on our ABC – however they come in bursts of 6, played in
random order, so I just turn the radio off for 4 minutes and give them a miss.
It is that or recite them all off by heart as there only seem to be 6 different
ones!
We are constantly amused by the difficulties we encounter
when we want to stop. Certainly there are plenty of Passing Places, especially on single lane tracks and we are very
appreciative of them. However, occasionally we need to stop and change our
destination on the Tom-Tom. If Wes pulls into a bus stop, up looms a bus from
out of the mist; if he swerves into a disused yard somewhere, someone is trying
to reverse out of it; if he pulls into a large driveway, the next car wants to
go up it, and if he turns into a side lane with a view to stopping, the next
three cars all turn into that same lane.
All the beaches we saw on our trip along the coast were full
of stones, except for the lovely area around Dunnet and Dunnet Bay, where we saw sand, and even sand dunes,
although they were covered in long waving grasses. This mostly harsh,
unforgiving area must have been very difficult to live in and no wonder lots of
Scots decided to try their luck in the new worlds. How brave they were!
The flow from the Watten Loch to the Old Mill, which is in the distance
on your left
We decided to make today a rest day, as there is lots of driving
to do tomorrow. I did enjoy not getting dressed, drinking umpteen pots of
Jasmine tea, while Wes lit the fire and worked on the laptop and read and slept
in no particular order. I had been anxious about our friend, Jane Knox, who is
not very well, in spite of her pacemaker and it was good to get some emails
from her and to find she & her husband, David, are definitely coming to Melbourne for Days 2 &3 of the
Boxing Day Test. I was able to get us some good reserved seats in the MCC area
even though the tickets had been on sale for some time. Australia is playing
India, so it should be a lively, colourful and loud affair!
We are heading off tomorrow to spend 4 nights in Portree on the Isle of Skye, with the very special excitement of
meeting up with cousin, Leigh and her husband, Simon, who are spending Friday
& Saturday with us. We haven’t seen them since July last year when we
caught up with them, Jeff, Kevin, Mike, Kelly & Archie on the occasion of
Mike’s 40th birthday in London while we were doing the disastrous
Ashes Test at Lord’s.
Our accommodation is a vegetarian B&B, where we are the
only guests, which should be a fun experience. However we don’t know what the Wi-Fi
will be like, so I thought I would send this off to you and will be in touch
again whenever I can.
Thanks again for emails, Facebook likes and comments, Viber & Skype messages – we both love staying in touch with
everyone while we are away and we are both thrilled that so many of our friends
and family are following our journey and adding to our enjoyment.
P.S. I have finally seen the Caulfield Cup – what a win by Admire Rakti – looking forward
to having a bet on the Cox Plate this Saturday. It does seem strange to be
missing all the excitement of the Spring Racing Carnival.
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Dinner beckons –
smoked salmon, Shiraz, dill herrings, crusty bread & cheese
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