On my recent trip home to Scotland my brother and I went on a few road trips...he wanted a companion on the drive to the ski areas and I wanted to see and hike the countryside...perfect!
On the first of these we drove to Glencoe......
Each time, off Jonny would go to ski the good stuff at the top of the mountain leaving me to explore the lower mountainside.
I loved just hiking my way up to wherever we had decided to meet up....usually some half-point which included food and beverage!! Camera in hand I was totally happy.
On the Glencoe trip I reached the little 'chalet' early and, having had a hot chocolate and a bridie, I decided to head up the ski trail a little to video Jonny as he skied down. I found a small outcrop of rock with no snow and thought this might be a place to sit and wait.
Despite the cold air and surrounding snow, I myself was feeling warm from the hike and the sun was shining...yes, in Scotland! I felt the mossy-looking rock before sitting down on it, expecting it to be either damp or sun-warmed but it was cool and dry. I sat and looked around me. So this was Glencoe, and this was the Highlands.
It reminded me of our summer vacations to Scotland when I was younger. We had driven into the Highlands many times but we really just seemed to drive...stopping to eat lunch, stopping at an outlook to take a picture, and stopping at the next B&B. Almost as if driving was the destination for my parents! And it possibly was. It's entirely possible that simply to get four kids and themselves into a car and 'going' somewhere was enough.
Don't get me wrong, the drives were fun enough. My Dad is good, fun company and I loved how fast he drove compared to the 20mph speed limit in Bermuda.
And Mum always tried to make the journeys exciting. We never did go to Loch Ness but passed plenty of other lochs, and on passing one such Mum announced that we were passing Loch Ness and ought to be on the lookout for Nessie. Being the oldest I was in on these little diversions (unfortunately!) and we would drive around the loch with Mum, Dad and me saying "There!", "No, look over there!" and "Wait! I see something...I saw Nessie THERE!" The boys would be jumping around the back seat trying to get a better view and desperate for a glimpse of the Monster!
Those drives through that wild and beautiful countryside were pure magic. Winding roads with small streams coming down the mountain on one side, right over the road and down further still to the loch below on the other side. It always amazed me how these streams widened and flattened enough for us to simply drive right through!
We would stop occasionally at the odd touristy look out spot but we never explored, never hiked or climbed, and as it was summer we didn't ski, toboggan or sled. Which, since these were foreign activities to a bunch of island kids, we never missed. But looking back it seems a shame and certainly must have been severely frustrating to the as-yet-unleashed-extreme-wintersportsman in my brother Jonathan!!
And so, here we were, I'd accompanied Jonny on a ski day to Glencoe and we were finally doing the things we'd never dreamt we'd love doing all those years ago.
Jonny was way at the top of the mountain skiing to his heart's content. And I, a little hiked-out for the moment, resting on a bracken covered rock surveying the beauty of the Scottish Highlands.
It really was a beautiful sun-shiney day and I was feeling warm in my layers. Large patches of snow surrounded me and, while I reminded myself to thank Jonny for thinking to give me his spare ski poles for the climb (and thank goodness, they were very necessary a number of times!) I used one pole to poke at the closest patch of icy snow, fully expecting it to melt in the sun. And yet it didn't. As much as I poked and broke it up it clung to it's sparkling crystalline form as if to say "NO! I will NOT be reduced to mere water!!"
