Cairngorns National Park, Aberdeen. June 18.
The sea and the rain the provided an excellent lullaby for Nic and I. I felt like a princess when I woke to the sea right outside my window. It was possibly my best sleep yet in the UK.
We woke to a bike race, a sheet of rain, a lot of sympathy for the aforementioned cyclists, and pretty low expectations for the day.
But we had expected the weather and planned to zoom another quick four hours back across the country to Aberdeen for the night. Think west coast to east coast and a little swerve on the way. We decided to watch the weather and play it by ear. As we got more to the center of the country, the sun popped out, and decided a trip to the Cairngorns was in order.
Quick side note from yesterday: I asked Nic before we went to bed how our experience rated in his books, if it reached the level of a 'thrash.' I thought it was maybe a mild thrash. Nic responded, 'Oh no, it was just a pleasant afternoon walk.' So there you have it. It was a pleasant walk - not a thrash. Anyway, back to Saturday.
Remember how Nic has never really seen Scotland? The universe smiled on him today, and the clouds cleared to unveil more of Scotland's beauty. We jumped out into the sun and did a quick tour of the Rogie Falls. This is a famous Salmon hatchery. Nic has a hard time driving past rivers or water of any kind without taking a quick look. The falls were lovely, even without fish.
When we made it to the Cairngorns, and the trail I selected, we stopped for our traditional picnic lunch on the side of the road. We are starting to run low on food so another trip to the store is in order in our near future. We bought this handy cooler in Bedford to cart along with us. Ice is rather hard to find in England and hard to fill your cooler with. Instead they sell coolers you plug into your car to cool items as you drive. This is great except when you park the car for any length of time. It does not easily plug into hotels or outlets in a home. I love it in principle, I hate it in application. It has worked moderately well because Nic has an incredible ability to eat really questionable food, and I don't eat meat.
This picture serves as photographic evidence that people do tent camp in Scotland. They also swim in freezing cold lochs practically naked. None of this means it is a good idea.
I chose Meall a Bhuachaille for our hike. There were some prerequisites for this hike. It needed to be about 5-6 miles long, in the Cairngorns, preferably with an ancient wood, a green loch, and folklore of fairies. Lucky me! I found just the thing. It is tradition to wear green for the fairies to see you on this hike and bring you good luck. I wore my hat and Nic has his trusty jacket. We need all the luck we can get! But seriously, I am superstitious and I try to appease any and all gods, fairies, or mythical beings I encounter. We slapped on our green and headed up the hill. I kept my eye out for fairies!
This hike and its fairy lore really made me revisit my ideas about fairies. First and foremost to be a fairy in Scotland, one must be sturdy and hearty. These flimsy fairies from my youth would have been blown into the sea. (Did I mention we saw the sea again, but from the other side of the island today? The North Sea. We did). Back to fairies, I have met some women in Scotland, and not to make generalizations, but if the fairies are like the women, we are not dealing with frail, shy violets. Scotland has some women/fairies who can handle some shit. I can't quite envision what I see these fairies looking like, or how they might behave, but I think some serious revision is in order. We also saw fairy houses, or rotting stumps, as Nic would say. They were beautiful, but I don't think the hearty, full women I imagine would fit in there. Time to upgrade, my fairy friends. I'm working on it for you.
It was super, super windy on the top of our hill - I tried to capture the intensity of this day. It was quite literally blowing me off of my feet. We zipped down and out of the wind as fast as we could, only to be greeting by a spat of rain. At the bottom of the hill we found a bothy. We were both pretty tickled with the discovery. We have seen bothies in many Youtube videos and discussed the possibility of including them in our plan, but were not quite organized enough to put it together. On our way out we saw a tiny, baby brown trout. Nic's goal had been achieved! Did I mention we saw a Golden Eagle and a polecat? The polecat is quite rare and a very special spotting.
I pass my time in the car talking to Nic about every little thing and knitting.
At last we got back to the car and jumped in for our trip to Aberdeen.
We were somewhat shocked at what we found in Aberdeen. The town is rougher than we had expected, but we found a good, cheap place for a quick bite. And we had a drink in a church-turned-bar, which felt a bit weird, but wild and creative too. Tomorrow promises to be interesting as we hope to catch the highland games.
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