Date: 4 September 1999 Subject: The Highlands
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The ferry ride back to Thurso was much smoother. That night we stayed
in a microscopic village (1 pub, 1 store, about 10 houses!) in central
Cathiness called Rogart (pronounced like Yoghurt). The hostel was right
at the train station and we slept in first class train cars! It was a very
very nice hostel in a beautiful, relaxing place. Again I got a bike and
pedaled in the rain, around the hills. In Inverness, after a very
interesting police action on the train to remove a drunk passenger we changed
to a bus which went right past Loch Ness.
It was gorgeous with the rain and clouds and mist mixing with the lake and
hillsides. Wow. We went right past Urquhart Castle and its parking lot
We stayed at an apartment in Fort William run by a family of mountaineers. They run classes, and hikes and rent out space. It was very comfortable -- it felt like a ski lodge (but without the sauna!)... The next day we met my friend Justin (who we stayed with in London) and we all went out for a 'walk'... we climbed the hill next to Ben Nevis (the highest mountain in Britain... 4004 ft almost exactly the same height as Mt Si, in the Cascade foothills). The weather was not right for climbing Ben Nevis, which I guess can get pretty hairy in bad weather. In fact, when we summitted the nearby peak, the summit of Ben Nevis, and half the mountain, was immersed in clouds and rain. From the top of Cow Peak we saw the steam train chugging into the tourist town of Fort William.
This is a center of the Highlands and there is a lot of stuff about the
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full of tour busses. The bus ride was worse than the first ferry ride!
ug. I will keep to the train thank you very much!
Clans floating around... some of it focused on tourism, and some of it
more historical. I found it rather interesting -- I had no idea that the
Clan period was in the 16th - 18th centuries. I always thought it was much
earlier. The historical information tended to suggest that much of the
touristy stuff about the Clans was extensively embellished, and everything
was quite frustrated with the completely inaccurate Mel Gibson movie that
came out a couple of years ago. Unfortunately we did not make it to any of
the Clan cultural centers that were around.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PRESENT PHYSICAL LOCATION: Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms Univ, Bonn _________________________________________________________________
