In search of Nessie, Whiskey and Gowf

Though I visited the UK several times I did not find time to see Scotland. This time I made sure I fulfilled that desire. Thanks to the power of the internet (and the Indian credit card) I could plan out the complete schedule and also make all the bookings and payment sitting in Bangalore.

Three destinations were definite. My wife wanted to see Loch Ness. My Shangri La would be the whiskey trail and St. Andrews old golf course. The challenge would be in drawing up an itinerary that would not be cumbersome or tiring.

The easiest would have been to make Edinburgh as the base and take tours from there. That seemed boring. After a lot of permutations and combinations it was decided that the journey would start in Inverness.

Day 1

Flight: London to Inverness. The cheapest flight was the 7.00 am easyJet from Luton airport. I booked that. Sitting in Bangalore I did not realize that the airport was 54 miles from my son’s place. It took us over an hour to reach by car, even at 4.00 am. We saw a lot of well-dressed young people on the road. I was pretty impressed at their diligence and activity on a Sunday morning till my son told me that it was the Saturday night party crowd returning home.

Inverness airport is a sleepy little place that reminded me of small town Indian airports, only much cleaner.

Visiting Loch Ness is slightly confusing. The lake is so huge that every little village claims that it is closest to the Loch. Inverness would have been the first choice, but then it is boring staying in a town. At my son’s suggestion, I booked a room in a small hotel at a quaint little village called Drumnadrochit. In the compound there was a knick knack store that also did booking for a Loch Ness cruise. The lady there was friendly and immediately booked us on the next cruise aboard an impressive sounding boat called Nessie Hunter. Later we found that the boat was piloted by her husband, George Edwards, who in 1987 recorded the greatest known depth of Loch Ness at 812 feet or 248 metres.

During the one hour cruise the skipper makes you feel that Nessie may pop up any moment, so the expectation is palpable. I am sure this happens thousands of times with gullible tourists straining their eyes toward the horizon.

This is exactly the feeling one gets at Masai Mara in Kenya. The Land Cruiser driver keeps on feeding you with the expectation that a lion will spring out of the bush at your vehicle for a photo op.

After the cruise there is nothing else one can do except walk around the village. In Drumnadrochit every one seems to be related to somebody or the other.

  We were not keen on the four course dinner at the hotel so I asked the receptionist whether we could get some simple veggie items.

The girl said she would persuade the cook to rustle up something for us. Later we found that the cook was her mother !

Day 2

We took the 9.00 am bus to Inverness railway station. My wife and I were the only passengers. Later the train took us to Keith, the nearest town to Dufftown, our base for the whiskey tour. Most of these places can be described, like in the old westerns, as ‘one horse towns’. Back in Bangalore, I had thought that everyone knows everyone in these places. I was wrong. The woman taxi driver from Keith had no idea where the impressive sounding Fernbank House (the B&B where we were staying) was. We ended up getting lost around Dufftown, till a neighbourhood store set us on the right path.

I must confess, the B&B was pretty luxurious and the landlady very hospitable. 

As it was raining she even dropped us to the nearby Glenfiddich distillery.

Glenfiddich welcomes visitors to their facility and has a full-fledged hospitality team that handles visits.

It is a very clean distillery except for the smell of cooking ingredients of the whiskey. The highlight of the tour is the free sampling of 12, 15 and 18 years Glenfiddich single malt.

Dufftown is unique in the world. There is nowhere else, even in Scotland, with such a concentration of distilleries.As the saying goes:

"Rome was built on seven hills,
Dufftown stands on seven stills"

My wife and I got lost on the way out of the distillery. Instead of walking towards our B&B we ended up at the town centre. 

Our landlady again bailed us out by coming to pick us up.

We had a quiet dinner in a quaint little eatery called Noah’s Ark, run by an ex-advertising executive. 

Standing outside the cafe I had this brilliant view of two parallel rainbows. A first in my life.

Day 3

Day 3 started with a hearty breakfast and then it was off to Keith to catch the train to Aberdeen, where we needed to change trains for Edinburgh. 

At Aberdeen my wife got stung on the leg by a bee. The station staff was less than reassuring. They told us that if she was allergic then her face would immediately swell up and she would have difficulty breathing and would need to see a GP ! The alternate solution was to get vinegar from the cafe and rub it on the affected area. That’s what we ended up doing.

The rail journey to Edinburgh was along the coast. We had a spectacular view of the sea right till we reached the station. 

On their websites most hotels claim that they are just across the road from the railway or bus station. I was taken in similarly by information provided by the hotel where we stayed, Radisson Blu. My wife and I had to wheel our cases uphill against a high force wind. In fact my cap flew away twice. Finally we reached our destination. 

A quick check-in and we were back in the station to catch the train to Leuchars, the station to reach St. Andrews golf course.

St. Andrews is basically a village that gained international fame through its excellent championship golf courses.

For a golfer, visiting the Old Course has the same status as Tirupati, Mecca or the Vatican. It was my dream for a long time to breathe the air here. After a few photographs of me against the background of the course (to prove to my pals that I actually visited the course) it was off to the shop to buy some mementos to give to my golf pals. Like in any other tourist spot the prices were a rip off. 

After a final longing look at the clubhouse it was back to the station to catch the train to Edinburgh.That evening we just walked along the Royal Mile and saw the sights.

Day 4

As our hotel was located in the Royal Mile we just had to walk up the hill to Edinburgh Castle. We were warned that paying money to see the inside of the castle was a big waste so we made do with a photo op near the entrance.

The 4 1/2 hour train journey back to London was uneventful. One good thing about rail travel in the UK is that if you are in First Class then you reach your destination well fed without having to shell out more money. Obviously I took full advantage of the choice of beverages on offer.

Sitting opposite us was a woman with an interesting choice of jewellery and hair clips. All were in the shape of a butterfly.The lady in the next seat was elegantly dressed indicating she had returned from a party. It turned out to be true.We could hear her talking on the phone complaining about some girl in a polka dot dress with a wine glass in her hand dancing with someone called Mark, presumably her son.She was pretty disapproving about the whole episode. Just when the conversation was getting interesting the conductor intervened and asked her to disconnect as our compartment was designated to be a quiet one.

At London’s King Cross station I wanted to take a taxi home. My wife bring more adventurous (and more prudent with money) insisted that we take the Underground. In the end this proved more practical and we were back in the warmth of our base in about 20 minutes.

Sometime in the future I would like to plan a cruise along the Norwegian fjord. I wonder what the internet will have in store for me.