Wanderung 21

Lands Ho! Scotland, England, Shetland, Iceland, Newfoundland

August - September 2009

Saturday, September 5th, 2009: Ft George and Urquhart Castle, Scotland

After breakfast, we drove northeast to Inverness and then a bit further eastward to arrive at historic Fort George. Fort George was built shortly after the Battle of Culloden to discourage any further Jacobite uprisings in that area of Scotland. Although the fort is now militarily obsolete, there were some token military staff still stationed there.

As we entered the main gate, we were very impressed by the state of perfect preservation of much of the fortress. The parade ground was quite large and beautifully kept. Across from the main gate we saw a line of nicely symmetric Georgian style buildings where the remaining military staff are quartered. Those areas were not, of course, open to the public.

We did tour, however, three rooms in an old barracks building that depicted a soldier's life as it had been in the 1770s and 1870s both for officers and enlisted men. Barracks life in 1770 for enlisted men was a crowded and rather nasty experience, I gathered. For example, only 1 out of 100 soldiers was allowed to have a wife in the barracks, and even she had to work for her allottment of half-rations.


 

But by 1870 the British army was making a real effort to promote education, savings accounts, and marriage for all their enlisted men. In fact, any leisure time activity other than drinking was encouraged. I suspect they had a continual problem with drunkeness as armies often do.

Next to the rear wall of Fort George we found the fort's chapel. It was in some ways a simple building but really very pretty. Regimental flags from the all the units that had been stationed in Fort George in the past were hanging all around the chapel and those flages were a poignant remembrance of all the young men who had served and often died in military service.


 

From the chapel we climbed the ramparts and circled back around to the front gate. The rear wall, facing North, gave us a great view of the Moray Firth. They had several old cannons stationed there. Even the oldest muzzle loaders could fire 2 miles or so and thus effectively controlled the entrance to the firth. That in turn prevented any sea attack on Inverness which was located further up the firth, which was one strategic reason for the fort's location.

Driving out of Fort George we saw a small sign for an aviation museum. Since I'm a sucker for aviation museums, we followed the signs and finally stopped by a small aviation museum just across from Inverness airport. The museum consisted of a trailer with exhibits and a set of static displays of parts of real aircraft outside.

The manager gave us the (short) grand tour of the exhibits in the trailer, showing us pictures of aviation history in Scotland and the Shetland Islands. While some of the history concerned the development of ship-launched aircraft in the pioneering years, most of the photo albums he discussed concerned WWII and the defense against German air raids.

A map showed a string of airports along the edge of the Moray Firth near Inverness which formed the backbown of the fight against the Luftwaffe. Since the Royal Navy's main fleet anchored at Scapa Flow was a natural target for both U-boats and the Luftwaffe and the Russian supply convoys ran past Scotland to the North, there was plenty of need for aircraft surveillance and protection in the area.

Driving west back past Inverness, we finally arrived at the shores of Loch Ness. Loch Ness turned out to be at least 10+ kilometers long but quite narrow, on average only a kilometer or less I would estimate. The very narrow lake with steeply sloping mountains plunging straight into the dark waters was pretty in a dramatic sort of way, but I honestly thought some of the other lochs we saw in Scotland were quite a bit prettier. We did not, of course, see any sign of the much ballyhooed Loch Ness Monster, but the guy who perpetrated that stunt has long since passed away as I recall.

We stopped once along our drive the northern shore of Loch Ness, and that was to visit Urquhart Castle. Urquhart Castle was home of the local clan lord for several centuries (Clan Grant, for one) until the castle was finally destroyed during the later phases of the Jacobite rebellions. The castle is beautifully situated on a small promontory that commands an absolutely stunning view of Loch Ness. Militarily, the castle controlled the major route crossing Scotland via Loch Ness and was thus strategically quite important.

Nowadays, of course, the castle is just a set of ruins, but very pretty ruins they were indeed! We clambered all around the remaining remnants of the ramparts to enjoy both the magnificent views of the loch and the intriguing shapes of the castle ruins.

While we were visiting, a Scottish wedding party suddenly came ashore and then paraded into the ruined castle lead by a bagpiper in full regalia playing "Scotland the Brave" and other tunes I could not recognize. However, all the men were in kilted formal wear and the women were wearing beautiful gowns but also high heels, which looked awkward on the uneven footing of the castle ruins. But the whole party made for an impressive and, for us at least, an unusual display of wedding finery.

All us visitors were politely herded away from the one place in the castle that still had an intact room, as that was where the wedding ceremony took place. We persevered and stayed around until the wedding ceremony ended and the party re-embarked onto a small flotilla of boats to proceed back down the loch in the direction of Inverness. I'm very pro-marriage, so it was fun to see how the Scots do it, and I must say they do it with style.

Driving on past the end of Loch Ness, we decided to stay for two nights at the very nice Invergarrie Hotel in Invergarrie, Scotland. Invergarrie was a bit past the end of Loch Ness but before the next loch. There really was not much to Invergarrie proper except an road intersection, a bridge, and the hotel as far as we could tell.


 

Copyright 2010 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Map of Scotland Map of England Map of Rest of Lands Epilog

August 2009
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September 2009
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