Saturday 10 August 2013

Fog, fire, fiddles and a phonograph

It's still Wednesday, 26th June 2013, so far today I left the B&B at Cape North, drove a couple of miles to Dingwall, returned the same way as far as the North Highland Community Museum , just half a mile from the B&B.  All about that initial part of the trip was in the last post.

Now I head south on the Cabot Trial for Inverness, via Dunvegan, but my destination tonight is still over 200 miles away.  There's a problem, I haven't gone far on this remote Highland road before I'm in fog, thick fog, and can only just see the sides of the road !  Sometimes there's forest to the side other times I can't see anything beyond the road side.  I'm crawling along until I come up behind another vehicle which is going even slower, after a while I decided to pull off onto a 'look off' point, except over the walled edge I could only see fog !

I headed off again on this high level road and it wasn't until I reached the downhill stretch towards the sea that I came out of the fog / cloud, it had been over 30 miles of fog.

If you go to this link on Google maps street view  you can see the same view but also move the camera view around and look up and down the road too


Looking back up the hill, you can make out the line of the road cut in the hillside the I have just come down

A short distance further on at the next 'look off' point, in the misty distance I can see the road over which I will be driving.


Again if you go to Google maps street view you can see the same scene including the road


Just by where I took that picture is this memorial, there's a close up of the text below



















There are scattered settlements which I would have liked see, but I had long way to go today. 
I drove on through Dunvegan and Cheticamp, until I eventually reached Inverness, but as you may spot, the Gaelic version does not match the one for Inverness in Scotland !






















( click on small pictures to enlarge)



All these pictures were taken within a few hundred yards along the main street, not sure if the Inverness Volunteer Fire Department has more vehicles behind the closed doors, but they do seem a little limited for parking space!



This was a mining area and has several museums, but sadly I really didn't have time to stop any longer, by now I had realised over recent days there's far more to see than anticipated ! However, Inverness is a county as well as a town, this link is to the history of the town  but there's also a lot of information about the area too.


Maybe ten minutes drive out of town where the road goes inland for some miles is the Glenora Distillery which has an impressive entrance off the main road, then down a treelined driveway to the beautifully located property





I went through the door into the reception area and gift shop to the left,  I waited a while, tried to attract someones attention in what seemed an unattended building, but I failed.  I went through to the other side of that double doorway, below is the view.  
Considering they have a gift shop / reception, restaurant & accommodation, there were no further signs that I could find as to where to go !  It may have an impressive entrance from the road, wonderful grounds and beautifully kept, but staff too may help?    Obviously I wasn't going to get a meal there, so it was back on the road for me !

Fortunately only another ten minutes drive away in Mabou I spotted The Mull Cafe & Deli, a great and friendly place where I got chowder soup and a roll, as well as tea.




Another half hour drive and I spotted the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre, at Judique  A very welcoming place that at lunchtime and evenings has a restaurant and live music.  However that's just a tiny fraction of what they do as you will see on their website

Whilst around the north of Cape Breton the main road is the 'Cabot Trail' , I left that part way down the west coast as that goes inland and back towards St. Ann's to complete the circle. On the stretch of coast I'm now on it's the 'Ceilidh Trail'    (See maps on the links)   Throughout this trail you are likely to find live music and ceilidhs in many establishments, although it wasn't something I was seeking out but came across in my brief drive through.

At the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre I was invited by the CEO to look around their collection and take some pictures.  As you will see it's not just musical instruments but radio, record players and a phonograph too.

(Click on small pictures to enlarge)







There's still 80 miles to go to my B&B, the first 20 miles is to the Canso Causeway where I leave the wonderful Cape Breton Island.  From that point onwards all but the last few miles is on the Trans Canada Highway, so I'm heading for Vancouver !

I regret not having time to stop by Antigonish which is home of the first ever Highland Games in Canada held in 1861 and continues annually to this day.  The link will tell you its history from over 2500 ago.  As the town website explains:

Antigonish is a Mi'kmaq name and, depending upon whom you ask, has two quite distinct meanings: 
1. The place where the branches are torn off by bears gathering beechnuts. 
2. Meeting place of five forked rivers.
(West River, South River, Brierly Brook, Wright's River, and east Wright's River)

Tonight I'll be staying at Egerton, which is not far away from where the Rev Norman MacLeod and his followers landed at Pictou after sailing from Assynt in the NW Highlands of Scotland. That was way back in 1817, before they moved on to St Ann's on Cape Breton Island that I visited earlier (reported here)

My B&B emailed driving instructions for the last leg to advise me not to follow either a map or satnav because junction 27 on the Trans Canada Highway had been moved !  It's now a mile away from where it used to be, which is not a problem obviously, it's just all the roads from that junction have changed.  

Well it wasn't as easy as anticipated, finding junction 27 is no problem, it's just that once you go of the slip road it's into a double roundabout.  For the likes of me driving on the 'wrong' side of the road it's the first roundabout I have encountered, and it's got to be a double one ! There's something unnatural driving around anticlockwise, and when there's a double one that makes it even worse.  Trying to check sign posts, places and road numbers was a bit beyond me, going anticlockwise was as much as my brain could cope with at the moment. I made two complete circuits of the entire system before I aimed off in the right direction.

My B&B 'Sea Kindly' was maybe a mile along an unpaved road, on a slight hill by the sea.  My host appeared to greet me, carried my case in, it proved to be a splendid and very homely place.

















The total route for 26th June 2013 on Google maps

I was offered a tea in the lounge, I sat there checking messages.  One was a shock, it was to change the final part of my road trip, but that will have to wait until the next post  ....





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