Foggy
Mysteries of Scotland
By Lisa Pane
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At 4,406
feet, some climbers might sneer at the cautions
that natives impart. But the meaning of its name
-- widely believed to be "shrouded in fog"
-- and the quickly changing weather that can swoop
in with little notice should be heeded seriously.Our
plan was to hike the 41/2- mile trail to its summit
and back down, starting at sea level, and also
to do some of the epic rock climbs in the area.
But Mother Nature had other ideas. In the three
days we stayed in Fort William, the town at the
base of the mountain, we never got a weather-worthy
day to summit.
On the one day we attempted, a sign at the trailhead
offered this ominous warning: "Not a |
good weekend for
venturing onto the mountain. Do not become another
accident statistic!
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Turn
back if unsure." We turned back about halfway
up after getting reports from hikers coming back
down that gale force winds and blizzardlike conditions
had moved in.
Giving up on hiking "The Ben," as it is
known, we rented a car and headed north past Loch
Ness, driving five hours or so up to Thurso on the
northern tip of Scotland's mainland.
We made two stops along the way: the Clava Cairns,
a group of cairns and stone circles dating to the
Neolithic period, roughly 4000 B.C. to 2000 B.C.
They're a short jaunt from Culloden.
The other stop was in North Kessock on the Black
Isle, where the North Kessock Hotel offers tantalizing
promises of seeing dolphins in the water from a
seat in the restaurant. Though we spied no dolphins,
we ate well, then continued north toward Thurso,
a town of about 9,000. We arrived in early evening
and headed to a campsite on the coast just outside
of Scrabster, the town where we planned to take
a ferry the next morning to the Orkney Islands.
The P&O Scottish ferry takes close to two hours
to get from Scrabster to Stromness, the second-largest
town on the southwestern tip of what is called the
Mainland island of Orkney.
You first see the Orkneys about halfway there, when
you spy the Isle of Hoy -- the second- largest island
of the 67 islands that make up the Orkneys. Most
breathtaking is the Old Man of Hoy, a 449-foot spire
of rock seemingly chiseled away from the rest of
the island over time by wind and sea.
There are more than 1,000 prehistoric sites on the
Orkneys, making it the greatest concentration of
any place in Europe. Since wood is nearly nonexistent
on this wind-swept cluster of islands, about everything
is made of stone. Unlike other prehistoric sites
in Europe -- most notably Stonehenge in England
-- most of the Orkney Islands' monuments from the
past are extremely accessible.
Our first stop was Skara Brae, an ancient village
built below ground. It is a collection of eight
dwellings that are linked by a series of narrow
tunnels. On the Bay o Skaill, this Neolithic "subdivision"
is made entirely of stone and is topped with short,
nubby grass.
The floors are covered with sand, and each dwelling
has a large room with a fireplace, beds and a dresser,
all made of stone. It was inhabited between 3200
B.C. and 2200 B.C. and abandoned at some point when
encroaching sand dunes threatened the area.
The site was discovered in 1850, when a great storm
uncovered traces of the structures. Historians believe
Skara Brae was inhabited continually for more than
seven generations and that no more than 50 people
lived there at any one time.
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Our
next stop was the Ring of Brodgar in nearby Stenness.
We arrived at about 10:30 at night, and, since the
Orkneys are so far north, some light remained. The
Ring of Brodgar resembles Stonehenge. It is a series
of stone arranged in a perfect circle. These days,
just 27 of Brodgar's original 60 stones remain standing.
Some have been wiped away by weather, others have
been taken by farmers who needed them as gateposts
or for repairs to other stone structures.
Historians believe it was built between 3000 B.C.
and 2000 B.C. and that the ring was probably part
of an enormous complex of prehistoric circles in
the area. Brodgar is bordered on one side by the
salt water of the Stenness Loch and on the other
by the fresh water of Harray Loch. It's believed
to have taken 85,000 to 200,000 hours to build both
the Brodgar ring and the Standing Stones of Stenness,
another nearby ring of stones.
We saved Maeshowe, a chambered tomb, for our final
day on the islands. You can easily get there by
grabbing a bus from Stromness that heads to nearby
Kirkwall, the capital of the Orkney Islands. The
ride is about 15-20 minutes. Tours are fairly frequent
from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and cost about $4.50.
Maeshowe was built around 2700 B.C. It has a diameter
of about 116 feet and is about 25 feet high. A unique
features is the entrance. The passageway, which
is aligned with the sunset in midwinter, requires
visitors to crouch down until reaching the center
chamber. Off the main chamber are three small side-cells
carved into the wall.
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Although
Maeshowe was a burial chamber, when the tomb was
originally excavated only fragments of a human skull
and some horse bones were found in the smaller side
chambers. Our guide said the speculation is that
Vikings who broke into the tomb through the ceiling
in the 12th century may have raided its contents.
But what they left behind is priceless: early versions
of graffiti. Carved into the stone wall, using the
runic alphabet, are such ditties as: "Thorni
bedded Helgi Carved," "Many a woman has
walked stooping in here" and "Haakon alone
took the treasure from this mound."
Unlike the Vikings, we left nothing behind but memories |
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