Vacation Day Thirteen-Are You Suggesting Coconuts Migrate?

Today I made the pilgrimage that lots of somewhat intelligent, socially inept malcontent teenage boys (and men) dream. I saw the castle where they filmed Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At least, the one at the beginning, with the guards arguing about whether a European swallow could carry a coconut. I think it was also the French castle ("now go away or we shall taunt you a second time"), which Arthur's knights attacked with the wooden chicken ("run away! run away!"). It was on the way from St. Andrews to Callendar, where I took a hike through the Trossachs.

Today was another gray day with lots of mist and later some outright rain. The drive west from St. Andrews would have been fantastic but for the weather. I drove past an RAF base, the towns of Dundee and Perth, and crossed the River Tay. Dundee was surprisingly large, and has a well developed waterfront where people were walking and jogging even in the bad weather. The Tay is quite impressive. It must also be wider than the Mississippi, though I didn't see any maritime traffic. Otherwise, I drove through a lot of fields on a two lane "highway" which featured more and more hills the further west I got. That's because I was headed to the Trossachs, which is a sort of border region between the Highlands and Lowlands. It and Loch Lomond together lie within a national park.

As I drove, I tried listening to the BBC Radio's Gaelic channel. Yikes! Was that ever interesting. And by "interesting" I mean "anesthetizing." I'd listened to RTE Radio, the Irish equivalent, and that music almost sounded like cajun music (replete with accordions). It was pretty lively. And as I wrote when in Galway, the Irish music struck me as being similar to country music. This, however, must have been some sort of Lord of the Rings soundtrack special. Song after song which sounded like Frodo and Sam crawling across Mordor, or the Elf leaders looking disapprovingly at Gandalf and his band of merry woodland folk (those Elves were pretty damn smug for being, well, elves), and Aragorn staring pensively at no one in particular (likely wondering whether he's going to wash his hair this week or next...Aragorn may have been one bad honky mofo, but he sure needed to wash, rinse, and repeat in all three movies). Or that sounded like something playing in a spa reception room.

Before reaching the Trossachs, I detoured to visit Doune Castle, as mentioned above. Its where Monty Python filmed many of the castle scenes. At one time, it was a fairly significant castle, dating from the 1300s, and is still fairly well preserved. Its adjacent to the River Teith. To reach it, I walked through about 400 yards of pasture, which had at one time been a Roman fort. So this is quite an historic area.

The park and surrounding areas include some really spectacular scenery-lochs, mountains, thick rolling forests, glens, moors, and a number of small towns. Ian, the Scottish guy at my Austin barbecue place, just about insisted I go there. Apparently its a pretty popular weekend destination because its very close to both Glasgow and Edinburgh, and features a wide variety of activities (fun for the whole family, as it were). Hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, fishing, boating...basically just about any kind of outdoors thing you can imagine (not too sure about hunting, this seems to be a fairly PETA-esque country). I was really looking forward to a good long hike. Unfortunately, I had to reach Stirling by 5 to meet the B&B owner, so combined with the time it took to get packed and out of St. Andrews, and the time to reach Callendar (and find the trail, get lunch, etc.) it didn't leave a lot of hiking time.

The "Information Scotland" office, or whatever its called, recommended several hikes around the area of various lengths and difficulties. I chose the "Callendar Crags" trail, with a side hike to see Bracklinn Falls. This trail is described here. Now, I never have been able to describe any of my hikes. It always reads like "and then I saw this stream, and it was totally awesome, and then I hiked awhile and saw a mountain, and it was awesome." Kind of like the Apollo astronauts describing their views ("well, its just really beautiful, really, really beautiful." Good job sending only engineers and pilots on a trip with such cultural and anthropological significance.). But I'll try. Basically the first 45 minutes or so, you go straight up (switchbacks every now and then) through a forest that looks like the home of the Knights Who Say "Ni," appropriately enough. With the rain and the mist, I thought any second now three witches were going to pop up and tell me I'd be King of Scotland. No such luck. At a certain point the trees thinned out some, giving way to ferns and other grasses. At the top of the crags (basically, bluffs), I could tell it would have given a spectacular view of the town and surrounding farmland. Today, however, fog and clouds obscured most of the view. Hiking onward, you have to leave the official trail for a more primitive trail leading to the road that brings you to Bracklinn Falls. This takes you over a lot of exposed rock, which gave me some footing difficulties (Hey Theresa, here's your ground description). This proved the old adage (I think its an old adage) that going up the mountain is not the problem). Today, with footing issues and the steep descent, going down was the problem. It took twice as long going down and coming up. [Feel free to make your own sex jokes here]. At one point, I passed a cairn erected in 1897 to honor Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. No word on whether Vicky was impressed.

Eventually I got off the crags and onto a one lane road that took me to the trailhead to see Bracklinn Falls. I wasn't expecting much, but you can see from the photos (on my flickr site) these were really impressive. Not in a Nigara or Iguazu Falls way, of course, but they were surging hard through a pretty good size canyon.

Afterwards I trudged back to my car in the town, then back to the B&B. Obviously I'm not in good hiking shape. Too many "Full Scottish Breakfasts" these past few days. Not enough Aragorning it out in the hills.

One final thought for the day...roundabouts are the devil. Here in the USA, we rely on traffic lights, just like God intended (no, really, I think its in 2nd Corinthians). In Brit countries (this was a problem in New Zealand too by the way), when streets cross, they just plop down a roundabout and leave it for everyone to deal with the "who goes next" problem on their own. But if the Brits are good at anything its waiting in line, so this must appeal to their natural sense of no adventure. For Americans like me, however, it makes driving on these two lane roads even more tense, making sure that its ok to get in the roundabout, that you're in the correct lane, and that you exit at the right spot. Hey Great Britain (and Ireland). Here's an outside the box idea. Just, just go with me on this one. Buy some traffic lights. They don't cause cancer or steal your mojo. Then fix all your sinks (see yesterday's post). You are very welcome.

Next-Glasgow, good times capital of Scotland.