A Day in Glasgow

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Glasgow (if indeed you ever think of Glasgow at all)?

Ship-building? Slums? Buildings covered in centuries of soot?

Forget all that, Glasgow is beautiful! And in fact is the cultural hub of Scotland I venture to suggest.

When I hop off the Hop-On bus at the Kelvingrove Museum and Gallery, well that's it, I just can't leave. It is the most wonderful collection of paintings, photographs, statues, stuffed creatures of every kind (including a stuffed elephant!), a spitfire hanging from the roof, all manner of antiquities, design styles, clothing through the centuries, rooms of French art, Italian art, Dutch art, on and on.

All the usual stuff you say?

Well maybe it's the magnificent Edwardian building housing this collection that makes it different. Or perhaps the presentation which displays just enough and never so much to be boring. Then at one o'clock an organist arrives and seats himself at the gigantic organ in the upstairs gallery and begins to play so the entire building is alive with music which draws everyone to the balconies to listen and applaud.

There is a special exhibition running featuring the work of 'The Glasgow Boys' a group of artists working in the period 1880 to 1895. Wonderful stuff.

I have only one day in Glasgow so after three hours I drag myself away to find the Mackintosh House.

The Mackintosh House is a recreation of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow home the original of which was demolished. You access it via the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery. It is easy to see why this revolutionary architect, artist and designer was ahead of his time. I'm sure art-nouveau was all too much in the Britain of the1890s. As with many great 'artists', they're long dead before someone notices their genius.

The 'house' reflects his work in every detail. It is light, bright, mostly white, geometric, modern, arty, simple, uncluttered, just about the polar opposite of the Victorian house.

Fortunately enough people appreciated his work to keep him busy architecturally until 1914, leaving a legacy of outstanding buildings which are now the Glaswegians pride and joy. The latter years of his life were devoted to his innovative furniture designs and art work.

No Mackintosh-Glasgow experience would be complete without afternoon tea at the Willow Tea Rooms, designed from floor to ceiling by the great man, and still to be seen in all it's glory. The waitresses wear black with white collar and apron. You feel like you've stepped off the street and into the 1920s. The Devonshire Tea I think, thank you so much.

My feet are now ready to give up and go home but there's one last item on the list: The Tenement House administered by the National Trust for Scotland. By some stroke of luck this house, which was the home of an unmarried lady, shorthand typist, Miss Agnes Toward, who lived here for over 50 years, was left exactly as it was when she vacated it (in the 1950s I think) and came into the possession of the National Trust in 1982, after her death.

Glasgow is famous for its Victorian era tenement houses which were the homes of respectable working class people who rented them as a long term arrangement from a landlord. This particular tenement was built in 1892.

The house is a treasure trove of early 20th century domesticity. A most interesting feature being the bed recesses, cosy, curtained alcoves containing just a box bed, off a main room in place of bedrooms. Don't ask me what they did with their stuff, if indeed they owned any stuff. I've left my run too late and only have a half hour to take in the well preserved detail of this exhibit before they close for the evening.

So much to see, so little time in which to see it.

A New Twist on the Water Wheel

And now a leap into 21st century Britain. As part of a millennium project the 230 year old Forth & Clyde Canal, which was originally built to link the Irish Sea with the North Sea, has been restored and now provides 35 miles of boating, cycling and walking opportunities for thousands of holidaymakers.

A splendid feature of the project is the is the engineering marvel, the Falkirk Wheel. My photo does not do it justice. Try Googling it.

The Wheel is the world's first and only rotating boat lift and takes the place of eleven locks to transfer a vessel from the Forth & Clyde Canal to the Union Canal. When it opened in 2002 it linked the two canals for the first time in 70 years.

The idea is that a boat (or boats) motors into the lift from the Forth & Clyde at the bottom, and another motors in from the Union Canal at the top (assuming there are boats wanting to go in both directions). The gates close behind them, the water in each gondola is equalised and the massive wheel rotates thus transferring the one boat up and the other boat down using no more energy than it takes to boil eight kettles! The trip from bottom to top takes only four minutes and the boats motor away along the connecting aqueduct to the Union Canal, grateful no doubt to have avoided a substantial number of locks.

Having decided I must have a ride in the tourist boat, Archimedes (named for obvious reasons), that does regular trips up and down, I buy my ticket and wait for the next trip. A large number of American tourists (from a cruise ship I discover later) are milling around as we line up to board.

There is a gentleman who looks for all the world like Dracula in a flowing black cape, black stockings and a ... kilt, and has a Transylvanian accent (sort of like the Count on Sesame Street). He's at the front of the queue taking tickets and when I get mixed up in all this lot he says bus 16? and whips away my ticket. No says I, and there follows a rather protracted discussion where he thinks I belong to the bus 17 group, while I try to wrestle my ticket back and get it into his head that I'm not on either bus.

Another character appears in the crowd, he looks rather like Toad of Toad Hall. Same sort of dimensions as Toad, and wearing a flowing tweed cape, a tweed deerstalker, stockings and a kilt. It turns out he's in charge of bus 17. Between them they manage to herd their charges on board with no loss of life, I've grappled my ticket back, and we're ready to go.

Our captain, Fred MacGregor, gives up a few interesting facts and figures about the Wheel: It boasted a construction staff of 1000 and cost 17.5 million pounds; we will travel 24 metres up in the air and then go through a 180 metre tunnel under the Antonine Wall, built by the Romans 20 years after Hadrian's Wall.

I've positioned myself where I can watch the massive cogs turning as we go up. It's all very smooth and quiet, and because the water around you stays in place it's rather strange to see the countryside and the people on the ground getting smaller as you travel up.

Next thing we're motoring away through the tunnel to a sharp bend in the canal where boats going on will negotiate two more locks to take them up an extra 11 metres to the Union Canal while we turn around for our journey back to base.

This state-of-the-art construction is a joy to behold as well as an marvellous engineering feat. I'm snapping away with my camera, capturing it from all directions.

Then it's on the bike for a closer look at the Roman Wall and the remains of the Roughcastle Fort.

The bus group and their eccentric guides are off in that direction too. I reach the 'wall' before them (they are old and on foot, where I'm … on a bike) and am sitting on a stile eating lunch when they arrive.

I've found it's very handy, one way and another, to tag along with a tour group, you get to hear the interesting snips of information but don't have to actually travel with them.

Dracula tells us that this wall, as we can see, is a turf wall rather than a stone wall like Hadrian's. It looks now like a rounded grassy mound running in a straight line towards the fort. Apparently by the time this fortification was constructed the Romans were loosing their enthusiasm for the far flung reaches of their empire, having more pressing problems closer to home no doubt. The forts along this wall were abandoned twenty years after construction.

We all troop off the see what's left of the fort, not much, and then they must away as their bus is waiting. Toad suggests they might like to stage a re-enactment of a storming of the fort: Bus 16 rushing up the hill shouting and hollering, Bus 17 hurling missiles at them.

Dracula who likes to be in charge and do all the talking (and get all the laughs), looks scathingly at poor Toad, the Americans just don't quite get it (possibly think he's serious) where I think it's hilarious then discover I'm the only one laughing.

They set off for their cruise ship where tonight's cocktails will be doubly welcome after all this hill climbing, and I set off for a delightful afternoon cycling along the Union Canal.

Edinburgh at One O'Clock

Here I am in Stirling, and I've given the gutless Peugeot back to Eurocar and will be on the train for the remainder of the week. You'll need to look lively if you're coming to Edinburgh with me in the morning.

Here we are on the train to Edinburgh with all the early morning commuters. When we arrive I seek out the Hop-on-hop-off bus for a getting-to-know-you tour. I do the full circuit and, as in London, money well spent.

Next stop the Australian Consulate with the intention of voting but, no sorry, you can only vote in London. Okay, I surrender. Tried to vote in Australia before I left: papers not out yet. Postal vote? No fixed address to receive mail. In London: too early. Now no voting in Edinburgh. I shall send an apologetic email.

I've wasted at least thirty precious minutes doing that so I hasten on to the business of the day: Castle, Royal Mile, Holyrood House Palace, and the best I'll save for last.

The queue at the Castle is long. I'm entertained by a pair of Americans, a young man and a young woman, behind me in the line. Actually they are pointing out to each other that they are Texans first and Americans second. I discover that Texas used to be part of Mexico and the predictions are that by 2050 it will be 90% Hispanic. They are related somehow but I can't quite figure out how. They're delving into family history. Cousins perhaps? If we're in this queue much longer I'll just have to ask them!

At last, we're in. Not long until the One O'clock Gun which has been fired every day, except Sundays and during the two World Wars, from the Half Moon Battery since 1861. My audio guide answers the inevitable question of why one o'clock? The suggestion is that, being Scots and famed for their thrifty ways, a one o'clock gun will use a whole lot less gunpowder than any other o'clock!

BANG! Oh, wow, yes, that was fun!

Around the castle grounds I see the simple little chapel of St Margaret, the oldest building in Edinburgh; the enormous Mons Meg cannon which is over 550 years old and fired stone cannon-balls weighing 150 kilograms; Scotland's crown jewels and the great wooden box they were sealed inside for 100 years; and finally the ancient Stone of Scone, Scotland's pride and joy returned to its rightful home.

Then it's off for a stroll down the Royal Mile to the Palace which is situated at the opposite end from the castle. But who the heck are all these singers and dancers and street performers cluttering up the roadway, and their audience filling every other space?

Ah, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. All very entertaining I'm sure but I can go to Adelaide for this sort of thing.

I pick my way through the crowds and head for Holyrood House. It's quite a domestic size for a palace and you can imagine the Royal Family comfortable ensconced here when they visit Edinburgh. The most outstanding feature of the decorations to be seen here are the wonderful and enormous tapestries which cover the oak panelled walls.

And now, strangely, the best bit of the day, was a detour to the Greyfriars Kirkyard to visit the memorial to Greyfriars Bobby, the little Skye terrier who lingered near the grave of his master, John Gray, for fourteen years.

He became a legend in his own time, his picture was painted (now hanging in the church) and, not long before he died the Baroness Burdett-Coutts asked permission to erect a granite drinking fountain with a statue of Bobby in bronze. It stands at the corner of Candlemaker Row just outside the Kirkyard. It is the second most photographed attraction in Edinburgh after the Castle!

Bobby's story has a link to the One O'clock Gun at the Castle. It seems that a sergeant of the Royal Engineers trained Bobby to go for his dinner at the eatery in Candlemaker Row each day when he heard the one o'clock gun.

When Bobby died in 1872, he was buried in a flower bed near the church wall because it was not deemed proper to bury him in the consecrated ground of the Kirkyard. But today the first stone you see as you enter the Kirkyard is a red granite memorial stone for Bobby erected by the Dog Aid Society of Scotland in 1981. Was this when it came to the attention of the movie-makers?

A matching stone was erected marking the site of John Gray's grave by 'American Lovers of Bobby'.

The story of Bobby is also the story of the people touched by it, those who offered him food and shelter in the cold of winter, and those who parted with their cash to erect memorials that would ensure the faithfulness of a little dog would always be remembered.

Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...

Several recent dispatches from the antipodes have inquired as to how I was getting on with the driving.

Modesty prevents me from going on and on but I have to tell you that I'm a STAR!

I've whizzed past countless bicycles (and even a little white van one day), and I haven't had more than ten vehicles queued up behind me at any one time! When they do manage to get past they're still quite cheerful and give me a little wave. It's a funny sort of a wave though, it's done with the fingers closed. Must be a local thing.

For those hapless tourists not as skilled behind the wheel as myself, driving in the UK can be a hair-raising and frustrating experience.

I mean to say, you can be driving along a perfectly normal road, white line down the middle, adequate shoulder, not too many curves, when suddenly some malevolent engineer has decided to play funny buggers and turn this ordinary road into a bitumened goat track wide enough for a small car going in one direction or the other with a six foot hedge on either side.

Every so often there's an elbow sticking out into the hedge where you can seek refuge from on-coming traffic, but no opportunity to turn around, retrace your steps and catch the first plane home.

So here you are, sneaking along this winding country lane telling yourself that this is what England's all about, when suddenly you round a bend and coming towards you down this green tunnel is the biggest tractor you've ever seen!

The owner of this agricultural monster is evidently late for an appointment (to rake the hay perhaps?), because he's hammering down the lane like the Grim Reaper is after him.

Just as you're wondering how quickly death will come under those giant wheels, you spy one of those little kinks in the road and in you dive.

When your heart stops hammering in your ears you realise that good old St Christopher has done it again!

I could devote the rest of my life to having him reinstated? I foresee an internet campaign, signatures, marches, placards, a trip to Rome even!

Oh, um, none of that happened to me of course, it was a story I overheard on the train.

Sail Bonnie Boat...

We are going to fly swiftly now, perhaps on the wings of the red kite I saw from a hilltop, high above the Royal Burgh of Dingwall, and look down, as we pass, on the beautiful Glen Affic with its lush greenery and the lovely Dog Falls. Then the dark and mysterious Blackmuir Woods and on to Rogie Falls where we'll hover for a moment to watch the salmon jumping before sweeping away down the stunning west coast of Scotland with its towering peaks and beautiful lochs and views of the coastline.

Having bid farewell to the kindly folks at Lodge Barn in Fodderty, we finally alight in Mallaig a tiny fishing village on the coast best known as a stepping off point for the Isle of Skye. That isle is my destination on the morrow.

My accommodation here could be described as adequate. It is, after all, a B&B and I'm used now to a whole cottage to myself.

Breakfast at the B&B is a communal affair and my hostess seats me at a table with a gentleman in his late forties perhaps. We chat about what we've been up to and I discover he's staying here for a fortnight! He can evidently afford a slightly better room, with a sea view perhaps.

I ask him what he does for a living and after a slight hesitation he tells me, in what I think is a slightly apologetic manner, that he's a Catholic priest from a big parish in London. A 'late vocation' as we say, says he. Oh, says I, endeavouring to put him at his ease, I know all about those, I'm one of the faithful don't you know! (Didn't actually mention how faithful but.) Best priest I ever knew was a 'late vocation' says I. Irish fellow by the name of Joe Dargan.

He says they have a Kenyan priest on loan in their parish because 'vocations' are a bit thin on the ground in England these days. I assure him that we're in the same pickle in Australia, and resist the urge to say that if we were to embrace a married clergy and women priests then the current problems may not exist. We are, after all, just having breakfast, not a deep and meaningful theological discussion.

I'm diverted from the possibility of moving into these potentially turbulent waters by the arrival of a young German couple. She's studying medicine (loves it, can't believe how lucky she is for the opportunity) and he has qualified as an mechanical engineer. They're very sweet. They are loving Scotland and plan to return. They've been walking in the Trossachs and around Glen Coe and are enraptured. I may check out Glen Coe (where those previously mentioned pesky MacDonalds got their comeuppance from the Campbells) on my way to Stirling tomorrow, thanks for the tip.

But it's off with me and my bike, I have a ferry to catch 'over the sea to Skye'.

Nessie Where Are You?

Loch Ness is possibly not the most picturesque of all Scotland's lochs, but for shear hype and razza-mataz it takes the cake.

The Visitor Centre at Drumnadrochit has an audio visual tour which pretty well debunks the 'Nessie' myth. Hey, we're here to see that monster, how dare you let science get in the way of such a good story! Oh well, it still might be true. Maybe. The gift shop is doing a roaring trade in 'Nessie' paraphernalia, so I'm not the only one who thinks those scientists are a bunch of spoil sports.

Eclipsing everything in the Visitor Centre is what's going on in the car park. I'm parked next to a gorgeous cream coloured Morgan sports car belonging to an ageing German couple. They say yar, I may take a photo. Strapped on the back is real leather luggage! The whole affair is terribly Gatsby! I'm hoping to visit the Morgan factory in Worcestershire when I'm in that direction. You can watch them at work on these hand-made beauties and put in an order perhaps? Delivery time ? One year!

A little further down the loch is the romantic ruins of Urquhart Castle situated right on the loch-side. A piper in full kit is setting the mood and you can almost imagine yourself back to the 15th century when feasting and banqueting were interspersed with fighting off enemy attacks from those pesky MacDonald lords of the Isles.

A trip to Loch Ness would not be complete unless you did the whole length of it and the A82 keeps it in view from top to bottom. Fort Augustus is situated at the southern-most tip of the loch and, leaving Urquhart Castle to watch over the loch for another few hundred years, I proceed forthwith in that direction.

In line with my policy of never paying for parking I ignore the Pay & Display park and sniff around until I find a quiet street to leave the car and haul out the bike.

I cycle along the road that takes you around the bottom of the loch, and there I find a most beautiful picture looking back up the loch where the mountains form a V down to the water. The only residents enjoying this view are a field of sheep and I doubt they appreciate the value of this piece of real estate.

Cycling back into town I cross a bridge which I discover is crossing the Caledonian Canal. Adjacent to the bridge are the Caledonian Locks and I am beside myself with excitement because the roadway is about to be swung out of the way to let a large yacht into the lock. To see a lock in operation is high up on my list of things I must do before I die and here it is, all happening!

The boats motor into the bottom lock, the lock gates close and water pours in until it's level with the water in the next lock, the gates to the next lock open and in go the boats and the process is repeated through five locks until they have 'stepped' up the canal and can sail away out of the top lock and off up the canal. The process is reversed if you're going in the other direction.

The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast near Fort William, 100 kilometres in all, utilising lochs as well as man-made canals. Over the length of the canal there are 29 locks, 10 bridges and 4 aqueducts.

I am just one of many onlookers watching this fascinating process. Eventually I cycle away up the canal tow-path keeping pace with the first boat out of the top lock. Holidaying on the canals is very popular and I can understand why, the countryside is quiet and peaceful and the pace leisurely.

Reluctantly I turn back and with a fair breeze aft I hoist the spinnaker and set sail for home.

In Search of a Local Hero

I am determined to see the tiny fishing village of Pennan which was the site for the filming of the 1983 film, Local Hero, featuring that wonderful music by Mark Knopfler. It is located on the north east coast of Scotland near Banff.

I get slightly off course on the way and stop for lunch at Forres where there is a beautiful park teaming with flowers. This country is a floral delight, every other house and business has baskets of trailing petunias, lobelia, tuberous begonia, geraniums, barcopa etc., hanging from decorative hooks on the front of the building. There are wine barrels full of flowers, window-boxes, troughs, barrows, all a perfect cornucopia.

A sign to a Pictish stone has me off on the bike once more, and after marvelling at this huge and ancient relic, I just have to cycle on a bit further, to the next village in fact. And then back along a quiet road with farmland on either side. How easy it is to get distracted!

I arrive back at the car to find there is now a piper playing under a tree in the park. It's all a big story book!

Off again to find Pennan before they turn the lights out.

I have been warned that Pennan is at the bottom of a very steep hill but when I see just how steep my courage almost deserts me.

No, I've come all this way, I'm going down! And I do. When I emerge at the bottom of this treacherous descent, in the tiny village which consists of one street backed into the cliffs, I find the place full of visitors. Hardly a parking space left. Someone has even driven a boat on a trailer down that hill!

It's all here, just as it was in the film, with the exception of the telephone box which was moved for the filming and then put back in its rightful place afterwards. The beach scenes (Ben's beach) were filmed a long way away on the west coast near Mallaig.

I stroll along the beach and poke around the little harbour and look at all the picturesque houses then pour a cup of tea from my Thermos and sit beneath towering rocks looking out to the North Sea and wonder what it could possibly be like to live in such a remote place.

My landlady tells me later that the village was almost wiped out in a landslide in recent years. I can well see how that could happen.

I make it back up the hill without meeting anyone coming down, a piece of good fortune for which I am most grateful. The thought of having to back down to let someone pass was giving me palpitations.

On the subject of hills, I must report that this Peugeot 207 is a gutless affair, I'll be glad to return it at the end of the week. I think Jeremy C. would be scathing in his criticism.

I crawl exhausted into bed after twelve hours of driving, cycling and dilly-dallying around. Tomorrow it's off for a bit of 'Nessie' spotting at that most famous of all lochs, Loch Ness.