As penance for spending the majority of last week feeding on the oh so tasty MHam, it falls upon me to give you a tour of the West Coast of Scotland, an incredibly beautiful part of the British Isles.
Now I first met MHam outside her tent in Inver Coe, at the foot of Glencoe, right on the banks of Loch Leven. The Highlands of Scotland are famous for two things, having really big hills, might even call them mountains and loads of Lochs (that’s Lakes for all you English folks out there). The loch, as with any stretch of water, is very moody. I am at my happiest having fed on all the naïve tourists who don’t wear any of that horrid smelly stuff that makes me go away, flying along the loch at dusk, watching the reflection of the mountains and the sky changing the colour of the lake and then back to the campsite for pudding.
Loch Leven is in the shadow of Glencoe, so as with the rest of the area it has history, as you look out onto the loch, you can see the island where it is said that some of the survivors of the Macdonald Massacre buried their dead. It is hard to fly through the valley without thinking of the fateful night in 1692 where my ancestor Angus Mcmidge witnessed the lowest point of the taming of the clans. The Campbells spent two weeks enjoying the hospitality of the Macdonalds, knowing that they had letters from Edinburgh to put the whole village to the sword, then murdered them while they slept. It wasn’t just Clan warfare though, the trail of blame led right into the inner sanctums of government. They didn’t like Iain Donald and when he made a mistake and went to Fort William to sign his oath of allegiance instead of Inverlochy so missed the deadline to swear allegiance by 7 days, it was a perfect excuse to rid the world of the Macdonalds, who were thought to be thieves and murderers.
‘You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the McDonalds of Glencoe, and put all to the sword under seventy. You are to have a special care that the old fox and his sons do upon no account escape your hands. You are to secure all the avenues that no man escape.’
And these humans think we are barbaric, us midges just eat you for food.
There is a visitors site at the base of Glencoe, which I sneak into occasionally, they really look after the kids as well, giving them puzzle books to work through while the mums and dads read all the interesting info, it costs them £9.95 for a family ticket, but if you join the National Trust for Scotland, its free and that only costs £3.60 per month for a family membership. The visitors centre does not concentrate solely on the massacre but on the geographical and natural area. It’s a beautiful area, originally created volcanically and you can learn how to balance nature and running a national park and all about the wildlife there, great stuff.
Further on up the Glen are many, many walks that these humans tend to do, all seems like far too much trouble to me, they put on their boots and off they go. I’ve seen people not take proper care around these hills though, not wearing the boots and they get stuck and have to get a helicopter out to save them. It’s much easier being a Midge. The Glen leads upwards passed three huge hills called the ‘Three Sisters’ and there is a beautiful waterfall at the top, then you come across the rugged beauty of Rannoch Moor, very desolate place, perfect for me and my family.
I am now going to hand over to my cousin, Madge McMidge, who lives a bit further south than me, I don’t like going down there, but as MHam went down to Oban for the day, it seems only polite to tell you about it.
Thank you Mungo… I’ll start with the Ham family’s first stop, the Sealife Centre in Oban, now this is a very small place, but the kids absolutely love it, and it has been built solely for conservation. Unfortunately, no one ever goes to any trouble to conserve us midges. They have two resident otters, who are both from foreign shores, Canada. That’s a good thing because it means they play all day where as all those British otters only come out in the early evening, and they can’t expect people to pay to see sleeping otters. The biggest conservation they do though is with Seals. There are loads of Seals who get stuck or injured around the British Isles and they feed them up, bring them back to health and then release them back into the wild. There is also a small aquarium which has some bigger fish like sharks and manta rays in it. Overall it’s not a huge centre but it is set up for the conservation aspect, not for the tourist aspect. The tourists are very much secondary to their work and it will never become anything like Seaworld but it does retain a very intimate Scottish Charm.
So on into Oban. Oban is a lovely little town with a lovely little harbour. I think we were very kind to the Hams that day, as we didn’t worry any of them, a midge free day. It’s great to sit overlooking the harbour watching the boats coming in. There is also McCaigs Tower, which if you’re feeling energetic you can walk up to. If not, most of those tourist people just take the car.
Now I’ll hand back to Mungo to take you into Fort William…
Thank you Madge….
Fort William is a typical little Scottish town at the head of Loch Linhe. It is in the shadow of the Ben, and I notice the littlest Ham having a strop because her parents said she was too little to climb Ben Nevis, it’s the tallest mountain in the UK you know, great for us midges, all those sweaty bodies, especially on the day of the run where people do it in an hour and a half, loads of people … mmmm people, sorry, moving on … Fort William has loads of little shops. Obviously selling kilts to tourists and things like that. I think MHam was a little surprised when they went to the cinema. It didn’t take credit cards, only had two screens and certainly not reached the realms of on-line booking yet. Those English people – ha. We also get loads of tourists looking for the Hogwarts Express these days, as the Jacobite Steam company do daily trips to Mallaig which goes over the Glenfinnan Viaduct where they filmed Harry Potter. Its £25 return for adults and £14 for children. You can also see the beaches where they filmed Highlander and Loch Shiel, the home of Connor Macleod as well.
So moving on Northwards, we get to the infamous Loch Ness. Now Nessy is an old friend of mine and I let him know when people are out looking for him, so I can guarantee you people of ciao – you may search, but he’s way too clever for you and will just give you little glimpses to keep you interested. So you just keep to the visitors centre at Drumnadrokit (lovely name) and watch the history of all your failed attempts to find him and go and buy yourself a green fluffy bagpipe playing nessy. (As if a sea creature would be green and fluffy for goodness sake) and leave Nessy in peace.
The Loch is very beautiful, the deepest freshwater lake in the British Isles, created millions of years ago in a glacial valley. They keep testing the layers in the water and the layer of the time of the Chernobyl disaster the radiation levels go up then gradually decrease as time goes on – so you humans are getting better at conservation as they can pick out the number of pollutants by these tests.
Inverness is the town at the head of the loch, and a very pretty town it is too. Much bigger than Fort William from here you can go and look at the battle field of Culloden and many more areas of Scotland’s bloody history.
The wildlife of the whole area is also amazing, for ornithologists among you, you can see so much more than in the towns of the UK, Oyster Catchers, Skuas, Guillemots are the more common ones to find in Scotland, and if you’re really lucky and know where to look, Ospreys and Golden Eagles. We have Red Deer grazing on the side of the road, Otters playing in streams and even our cows are different, all are called Hamish and are big and fluffy.
So there you have it, a very small taste of a beautiful majestic area of the British Isles. There is so much more to see around here, especially if you do put on a pair of walking boots.
But I will end with a word of warning – don’t go in August or I and my friends will eat you alive.
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