The First First Hole

Scotland never ceased to surprise us. When we arrived in Aberdeen, we found ourselves surrounded by massive grey walls in our neighbourhood. We soon learned that Aberdeen is also known as the Granite City because so many of its older buildings were built out of granite. And yet the city has a reputation for being the greenest city in Scotland. Must be the suburbs.

We drove south along the coast towards the Dunnotar Castle which was another one of those 'oh wow' sights that are becoming quite common for us. All along the way we kept commenting on just how green and prosperous everything looked. We never realized how much of Scotland was rural with farm machinery constantly turning up on the roadways. When we arrived in St. Andrews, I had to take a walk along the road beside the Old Golf Course (which is known as the First First Hole in golf) and see the famous bridge on the 18th hole. After a few pics (which every group of golfers as well as tourists stopped to do on the bridge) I watched some golfers try to handle the infamous Road Hole (the 17th).

We stayed outside of Edinburgh with our first Mennonite Your Way hosts of this trip. Stewart and Jan McIntosh were so welcoming and allowed us into their home for a few days. From their hometown of Kinghorn, we took a bus into Edinburgh where the world largest Fringe Festival was taking place. We walked through the crowds and enjoyed some of the street theatre. The Edinburgh Castle is quite imposing as it looks over the city and is the head of the Royal Mile which leads down to the Queen's residence of Holyroodhouse. Climbing up to Arthur's Seat is a great way to get a fantastic view of all of Edinburgh. Although the city was packed with people, the beauty of the city especially the architecture was easy to see.

After our day in Edinburgh of wall to wall people, we decided it was time for something completely different. We went to visit the Doune Castle (site of Monty Python's Holy Grail movie) near Stirling. It was fun imagining the different scenes from the movie being filmed along the outside walls of the castle. From there it was a short hop to William Wallace's monument which towers over the countryside at 67 metres. He is the biggest hero in Scotland together with Robert Bruce who during different eras fought to keep the English at bay. By the way, Braveheart (the movie) is seen by the Scots as being a very loose interpretation of the real story. Stirling Castle was at the centre of every Scottish government and was constantly fought over. The Stirling Bridge was a crucial connection between the two main regions in Scotland and therefore very strategic. Scottish history is everywhere and they are very, very proud of it here. It seems like the whole Scottish identity is wrapped up in their struggle to be free of the English.

We said good-bye to our wonderful hosts Stewart and Jan and headed south. Before we left Scotland, we stopped in at a few more sights. First we visited the Falkirk Wheel which is an amazing engineering feat. In order to raise or lower boats in the intricate canal system throughout Great Britain, many locks had to be built. Instead of using a series of locks in Falkirk, they created a humongous rotating wheel that consumes the energy needed to boil eight kettles of water to power its motors! It's the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the world and, of course, when we were there, it malfunctioned and so we didn't get to see it in action. Tied in with the canal theme, horses named Kelpies used to be used to pull the barges. As a tribute to them, two 30 metre 300 ton stainless steel horse heads were built in Falkirk. The term kelpie actually originated in Scottish mythology as a shape shifting water spirit that looked like a horse.

People have always believed that walls create security (sound familiar?) so during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, a wall was begin in 122 AD across the northern border of England. Hadrian's Wall stretches for over one hundred kilometres and most of it is still visible (although not as imposing). We visited Hadrian's Wall and the Roman fortress that was guarding it in the quiet countryside. Today only sheep seem to be guarding it.

We stayed in a wonderful Airbnb in Eaglefield just north of the Scottish border. The next town over was the small town of Lockerbie which became famous on December 21, 1988 when the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed there following a terrorist bomb attack aboard the flight. We paid a quick visit to the memorial.

As we prepared to leave Scotland, we thought back to all we had seen and realized just how much we had learned about what Scotland really is like. It is not all highlands although they are pretty significant. It is very agricultural and the fields filled with sheep are everywhere. We found the people to be extremely friendly and proud of their heritage. And we were glad to have driven through it so we could see it up close (although those one track roads made it a little too close at times).