Trip to Scotland 1983: Four and half months in the Highlands and Islands

[DCampbell16B]

£1.12 wash and soap [laundrette]
30p dry
£2.22 pack [parts to repair it]
80p milk and biscuits
£1.10 pictures
£ hostel [Oban for tonight]
24p chocolate
£4.95 Gaelic book
75p Gaelic book

Airfare NWOrient Standby £136
TWA. £148 to end of October (withdrawing standby at end of October)

Saw Canadian Girl off. She's evidently sticking with Aussie Girls and car. Heading for Ardgartan.
Need lunch. Washed clothes.

Oban Engineering Co Ltd
38 Combie St
Oban

Washed clothes [and dried] fast enough to get back and change before the hostel closed. Took pack to Ironmongers, Shoe repair, Garage (Repair) Ironmongers, the Oban Engin, bless their hearts. Manager NIrish. No charge (send Christmas card). Checked airfares. Not promising. Check anytime w/ In'ness Bank. Afternoon walked along Kerrera Sound, not all way to fort. Huge cliffs. Skipped Pulpit Rock. An Comunn Gaidhealach [shop] in time to be out of the rain. Talked to street cleaner who comes from Kerrera. Man in An Comunn from N Uist (Loch Maddy). Got picture from Oban Times, paid for 5x7, the rest were free. [Pictures from the Clan Campbell Gathering] Ordered one of march [to the Inverary Games]. Tea then read in library. Evening quiet. Few people.
Weather - some sun, wind SW-W. Warm.

[My backpack broke at the bottom from being set down with all the weight (sleeping bag, clothes, food, pipe case). I got a pair of stainless steel tubes and small nuts and bolts at the Ironmongers. Oban Engineering, once they understood my problem, let me use a hand drill and hand tools. No problems. They gave me the tools and asked "Do you know what you're doing?" "Yes" and so they turned me loose. I can't imagine that would happen today. With some trepidation I broke the other side, although it was also cracking, then slid the tubes over the broken frame tubes, then drilled through and bolted them in place. Worked great, and I used that pack backpacking until my sons were out of Scouts a few years ago.]

[DCampbell16B]

30p Dunstaffnage
£2.30 hostel [Glencoe]
70p folder

Wind shifted back S. Warm, very dull.

Allister Campbell of Airds
[phone number here]
(Campbell-Preston, brother-in-law, gave me his number, info, referred by Argyll)

Got number from very helpful man at Dunstaffnage.
Rain held off walking there. Started going away. Two rides to nearly Barcaldine. Got ride with truck to Ballachulish. Driver from Huntly? Knew a bit about Appin. Heavy rains and floods over road. 3 tiers of sheep getting wetter from rain and heavier in back. Walked Bridge to Hostel Glencoe.
[Missing pictures]
● Castle Stalker (very slow uphill)
● Sgurr na'Ciche, just after sun shine on it.

Long talk in evening w/ Canadian. NZ, Australian, English. Read Marg. Allingham.

[I'm surprised, looking at this entry, that I didn't add more about the sheep lorry ride. The driver crawled down the road at maybe 5 or 10 miles an hour. We were heading south on the A828. The rain was coming in sheets, and it was dark for what have must have been only mid-afternoon. But just as we got to that bend to the left as we got to Castle Stalker it cleared. I took a beutifully atmospheric picture (missing, of course, due to the camera failing). He saw my pipe case strapped to the top of my pack, and asked if that was in fact a pipe case. It turned out he was a piper, and that lead to a long discussion about piping. I told him I had had a chance to sit down and have a long talk with Ronnie MacCallum. He said he competed against Ronnie, which told me about the level of piper he was.]

[DCampbell16B]

7p
26p
70p Urquhart
75p Urquhart
£2.30 hostel [Inverness]
92p lunch
17p

Up and out early. Walked not quite to Ballachulish. Picked up by Kiwi couple. He works RAF Swindon. Lots of fun [unclear, but probably correct!] alway to In'ness. Stopped Glengarry Castle. Urquhart Castle.

● Urquhart Castle [another missing picture]

Rained heavy morning. Some sun In'ness. Stopped Ft. Augustus for lunch at Brae Hotel. Got sandwich. Heard great deal of NZ. Also Glen Roy viewpoint. [Parallel Roads].

[If I remember correctly, he was a senior sergeant on secondment with the RAF. He has a very nice Jaguar touring car. Real wood on the interior. One of the nicest cars I've ever been in. Sort of a shame it happened so soon in my life...]

[DCampbell16B]

36p chocolate
96p batteries
£2.60 hostel Inverness
£1.65 flashcubes
65p chocolate [OK, so I had an addiction. Have an addiction...]

[Spent quite a while in the museum in Inverness. Made drawings of 17th and 18th century powder horns and a dirk. Photos attached. Also took pictures of Waite's Highlander]

2 dirks with haunch design like Inverary p41.
flat brass cap, piece of cloth underneath.

Get picture Highlander! Flash

[3 pictures numbered of lost pictures]

Brown bonnet, flash not working.

Inverness Museum 1st, then shopping. Nosed around. An Comunn Gaidhealach closed to move to Mod. Read books in library. [Sometimes I just had to sit and read. Of all the things I could have done, seen or visited with that time....] Bought batts, went to Museum and found camera didn't work. Heartbreak, many shots can be replaced, but some scenery cannot. [Now many museum paintings and clothing photos can now be found on line, as well as some of the scenery photos I lost]. New used 35mm camera cheaper than film. Also rainproof coat? Started reading Mansfield Park.

Loch Lochy, Ratagan, Broadford, Uig, Glen Coe, Torridon [list of hostels, I don't remember why]
Coat, Camera, Newsagent (Scots Mag - address of Morrison) Museum [something unclear here]
Dingwall or Beauly tomorrow. Cleaned out excess from pack and put in closet. Possibly ceilidh here tomorrow, or west again?

[The Inverness hostel had a closet where you could leave things at your own risk. It was not locked. It was a few feet wide and 8 or 10 feet deep. And it was literally piled full. It was lower by the door, so I climbed up onto it and left my stuff high in the back of the pile.]

[DCampbell16B]

£12.50 camera
£1.80 books
£2.30 hostel [Inverness]
36p chocolate [I have a problem]
2.50 kilt pin

Money way low! Bought camera. Weather clear, cool, one shower.

1 Unknown Highlander
2 Flared drone pipes
3 Pipe collection

Changed $50 $150 left. Need cash from home. Highly depressed about leaving. Poked around in various shops, particularly book shops because they're free. The job center. Job position Kincraig, must get courage to call. Need German speaker. £40 [unclear- Live?]/week. Back to hostel and some mediocre ceilidhing. Evening, watched movie with R Welch 100,000 years BC. PB.

[With my Grandfather Campbell's 35mm SLR camera with a telephoto and wide angle Zeiss lenses out of commission, I needed a replacement. I got a uses 35mm camera at a pawn or charity shop for £12.50 and used it. The kilt pin was a claymore style with the shop initials in a circle in front. I thought that maybe I could get my maternal grandfather the cut and polish the piece of snowy quartz I got off the beach in Lewis to fit the front. He was a man with many skills, and that was one (also ham radio operator, and he built them, amateur astronomer, and built telescopes, including grinding mirrors, birder). He cut, polished and mounted the stone for me. That kilt pin is a piece of Lewis, Inverness and my grandfather.]

[DCampbell16B]

£2.30 [Hostel Inverness]
£1.96 [spam or bread]
25p [bread or spam]

Try for Boar Stone? [I wanted to see it, one possibility for the day] Call Kincraig today. Buy bread, spam.
Pringle - small blanket for Mom Douglas?
T-shirts >=£3, pullovers, Cheaper Kiltmaker. [In spite of my increasingly limited funds, I still had to buy some gifts for people back home. My mother's mother was a Douglas.]

Back early. Group of kids in from Nicolson Stornoway on way to Mod. Made me homesick to hear Island English and some Gaelic. Talked to leaders (Mr. Scott Mrs. McPhail). Pep talk told them speak Gaelic in the streets and don't tell people you traveled on Sunday.

[DCampbell16B]

£2.60 [Hostel Inverness]

● No good

● Hills down Glen Mor

● Stone Circle


Up "early" to be off w/ Abel (Aussie) and Peter (American) to Boar Stone. Nicholson kids off today (morning). Snow on Ben Wyvis. Day clear, cool. Motte [unclear?] Was mostly overgrown. Boar Stone carving clear on standing stone, but fenced in. Stone circle very nice. Chamber Cairn large, but fallen in, big stones. At lunch by river, some showers. Watched Avengers vs Remington Steele. Walked around.

● Inverness Alley

Spent evening in. Watched some football (Euro and American) then Gone With The Wind. Commercial free (BBC1) except 10 minutes news at ½.

[It was interesting to me in the evening to sit and listen to the teens from Barra, the Uists and Lewis comparing dialects. The bainne vs boinne conversation stuck in my head as it one of the first things pointed out to me when I got to Ness.

A murmur was going around the hostel that there was snow on Ben Wyvis that morning. I was sitting by the window of the hostel, enjoying the view of the Ben and the snow. But as I did the sun came over the horizon. The top of the Ben was hit first by the light. The snow lit up like beacon. The murmurs turned into "Wow". I'm afraid the photo doesn't do it justice, but it's all I have.]


● Ben Wyvis and the sun on the snow