Karen Maloney's Dispatch: Scotland Autumn Dispatch

Dear Everyone, as those of you reading this will realise, my efforts to email my Dispatch to its usual recipients was a huge failure before we left Edinburgh, and those who belong to the Daylesford Breakfast Group received anything up to 4 emails, with or without attachments. So far everyone has been far too polite to complain to me – perhaps you understood what I was going through – thank you. The minute we walked through the door of our cottage here and turned on the laptop, the Dispatch went through. However, email replies that I sent to Carol, Caroline & Eureka Kennels absolutely refused to launch themselves into the ether, so I went into webmail and sent them from there.

We had a lovely day driving here, although it was a lot of driving for Wes. We had hoped to be on the road shortly after 9am, but it was an hour later, by the time we found a taxi, got to Avis, and filled out a second lot of paperwork when the clerk discovered that we weren’t intending to return the car on 20^th October and that she was giving us someone else’s vehicle. At the desk next to us, a second lot of paperwork was being done for that customer as no-one could find the keys to his car.

Thinking of Celia & Cory as we cross the River Isla

We have a black Vauxhall Corsa and so far it is going very well. Wes has mastered the controls, we eventually worked out reverse and if we could just find the cruise control we would be very happy indeed. We were amused when we filled up with petrol on Sunday and looked everywhere for the fuel release to discover it was opened from the outside!

We stopped at the picturesque town of Blairgowrie for two reasons – one because Blairgowrie, Victoria means so much to us, (our family spent their February holidays there for many years, and later Wes and I shared a wonderful holiday house there with Paul & Sherryn Danaher). Secondly because the last of the Pitlochry plays which was called The Yellow on the Broom dealt with a travelling family who visited Blairgowrie to pick berries. We visited Bradberries Tearooms and enjoyed their wonderful local raspberry jam so much that we bought a jar to keep us going at the Black Isle.

Just loved the strawberry tea cosy & toasted tea cakes & Wes had a very decadent hot chocolate

We drove on, out of our way, to Aberdeen, to remember Joe Anderson, a much-loved Daylesford friend, who was responsible for unlocking the mysteries of Cryptic Crosswords for me, and in return I drove him topless in Teddy5, our black MX5, to the MCG one day to watch St Kilda play Collingwood. Sadly the Saints didn’t win, but he was tickled pink with the experience and I felt I went some way to repaying him. We found the Information Centre, bought a postcard and posted it to his wife, Marie, and can only hope she receives it before we get home!

After some false alarms we eventually found our cottage nestling in the gardens next to Kinkell Castle. For some reason there is no signpost to help you, just a bollard by the entrance which is on a major road, and rather difficult to meander down looking for bollards on the off-chance that the next one is yours!

Wes left me to unpack and went in search of food to get us through the next couple of days – he came back with tomato soup, bread, butter, cheese & red wine, while I spent my time unpacking our suitcases. The ensuite bathroom has a large claw foot bath, but no shower, and the small bathroom with the shower has nowhere to put anything, so we are moving between both to manage. However the cottage is warm, roomy and full of idiosyncrasies, built and furnished as it was by a man about 50 years ago, and not looked at much since then by his descendants.

We were thrilled to discover a Queen Size bed which is most comfortable, with a warm doona. The pillows aren’t too flash, but we’ll manage. The advertised laundry facilities involve a cement trough in the kitchen, which doubles as the kitchen sink and a single small plastic washing line outside. We were unable to turn on the heated towel racks, until Wes accidentally met the gentry on Sunday and they explained to us colonials that we needed to pull down a string in the boiler cupboard – silly us, looking for switches.

Just loved this signpost – none of the advertised places was open by the way!

We got going slowly on Sunday – which was a driving day again, and after a long chat with Leanne; we headed for Wick, where there once were Munros (Viva’s maiden name). However we got waylaid at Dorloch, which is a very pretty town, and completely closed at 11am as everyone was at Church. We headed for the Museum, but it doesn’t open on the weekend, ditto the Information Centre, so took ourselves on a walk instead.

We had read about Helmsdale in our Lonely Planet Guide and decided we just had to have fish and chips for lunch at La Mirage, which was frequented by Barbara Cartland and celebrates her style. It was also recommended by the late Clarissa Dickson Wright, as one of the 5 best fish & chip cafes in the United Kingdom.

Wes having breaded sole with salad, mushy peas and chips – I’ve got the breaded haddock and we both have little bowls of beetroot! Our waiter, Joseph, wants to get involved in music so will spend next year either in Australia on a working holiday or in Thailand staying with monks….as you do.

After lunch, which we enjoyed very much, we headed down the street to the Time Span Museum, which has an interesting illustrated timeline showing what was happening in this little town while major events were occurring in the rest of the world. There was also a very moving tribute to World War I soldiers and sailors from the town; each celebrated with a simple wooden cross made by the local equivalent of a Men’s Shed.

After Helmsdale, we headed on the road to Wick, but were waylaid by the remains of a Clearance Town, Badbea, which was a site to which workers were evicted during the 18^th & 19^th centuries, on very short notice. After that we realised that we were too tired to drive another hour or so to Wick and then face a 3-hour drive home in Scottish mist, so we turned around and drove back here where we could relax for a while instead.

The gentry didn’t think to mention to the Colonials that when they looked out of their windows yesterday morning they would find a large truck and three workmen within spitting distance of their ‘secluded’ cottage. We were having a lazy start to the day, drinking pots of tea and coffee, reading, listening to BBC Classics and enjoying the serenity, before embarking on the day’s planned events. If we had thought to stay inside we very quickly made other plans, and set off for an exploratory tour of the Black Isle and surrounds.

We started off at the Urquhart Old & New Cemeteries, which produced one very interesting headstone that I wish I could show Viva! Two of the people died at Balloan, the first time I have seen that word apart from where I spent the first 8 years of my life @ 34 Balloan Street, Coburg. There is no place called Balloan now, but a Balloan Road in Inverness still exists, so it will go on our list to visit before we leave here I am sure.

Next stop was at Cromarty, where we had morning tea at The Pantry, the same place we stopped last year. We walked by the harbour, bought a second-hand book and set off for Rosemarkie and the Fairy Glen. This is a beautiful walk that we fell in love with last year and it was just as special in Autumn.

After our walk which took about 1.5 hours, we headed off again and turned down a side road offering Chanonry Point.

This delightful detour took us through the golf course and to the beach where there is a disused lighthouse and dolphin watching tours are available. The absolute highlight for us both was meeting Sandy, a 17-week old yellow Labrador full of joie de vivre and happy to make new friends.

Finally we drove to Dingwall, which is the nearest town to where we are staying. Sadly it is a sad little place full of empty shops with a huge Tesco’s on the outskirts no doubt responsible. We did drive up as high as we could to see Hector McDonald’s Monument and discovered it was the cemetery. Lots of the graves were of people who had died too young, including this very sad one.

As we headed for home we found a Farm Shop and indulged in smoked salmon, herring, crusty bread etc for a very decadent early dinner with a bottle of Australian Shiraz.

We woke early to the sound of a storm lashing our cottage – strong winds and rain that eventually died out by 8am. We had decided to travel to the North of Scotland today and provided the roads are OK we will go ahead with that – perhaps not as many single lane roads will be explored.

We were very sad to see the news that Gough Whitlam had died overnight, aged 98. What a wonderful, inspirational statesman he was and we have so much to be grateful for except perhaps the incorrect pronunciation of kilometre!