Deer Park

“It’s Monday morning on the oceans peak

And to catch me mackerel that is what I seek

Once I’ve caught my fish that the seal’s don’t take

I will bring ‘em home for me mum to bake!

Cho: I can fish boys!

I can cast it out!

I can pull the lure!

I can catch some trout!

I can fish boys!

The mackerel’s on my line!

I’m a Rathbone lad and this here fish is mine!

Well the seals are tricksey -- I know they want my fish

When I reel the line they think they’ll have a dish

So I’ll pull the line to where they cannot swim

And they can catch their own fish when the light grows dim

Well the crabs are hungry, they all want my bait

First they grab ahold and soon it is too late

But I’ll keep it moving so they cannot chew

For to lose my bait, well that would never do!

I can fish in ponds and I can fish in Lochs

I can fish the seas and I can fish from docks

I can fish in surf when the waves are tall

And I won’t stop fishing ‘till I’ve caught ‘em all!

~The Rathbone Lad, sung to the tune of Collier Lad

Written by the Rathbone/Van Buren family in a time of bordom

The boat trip was pretty uneventful. I was sad to be leaving Skye, I was truly enchanted with it. I lost a pound or two in poker with my father (who seemed to break about even) and my brother (who cleaned up at mostly my expense). Once ashore we had a good drive to Back, a town just outside of Stornoway in the Hebrides. Along the way we passed a plant which sprung up leaves about half as big as I am. They were funny because the leaves resembled somewhat something you might see in a salad. But the leaves were not half as soft as they look, course, rough, with spiky undersides to their leaves. Not for eating, unless perhaps you boiled the leaves as you do spinach.

Native plants aside, we happened to encounter what looked to be a stone turret in very good condition at the top of a hill to the side of the road. We pulled over to look at it. When my father and I hopped out to look (my mother and bro didn’t have the energy) the plaque at the base of the path declared it to be a modern dedication to the Deer Park Revolutionaries. The Scotsman had been driven from a large chunk of land years past. Once it had been settled and a different lord ruled the land (still British) the Scots petitioned her to return the land to them. In response, she turned it into her private deer park. The Deep Park revolution occurred when 8 people marched into the land and informed the groundskeeper that the land was theirs. They then proceeded to camp in the woods for several days, killing every deer they could find, and generally wreaking minor havoc. All 8 men were acquitted in the trial that followed, and if memory serves me, the plaque said they got their land back.

Three doorways at the base of the monument signified the three communities the eight revolutionaries came from. To symbolize the 3 events of the revolution (Scots were driven from the land, Scots mess up Deer Park, Scots get land back), there are three stones standing out along the top of the turret. To honor each of the 8 that took part, there was a stone taken from each of their houses and used to create the turret-esque monument with inscriptions on each stone numbering them 1 to 8 (though why they wrote those numbers rather than the men’s actual names, I’m not sure). It was kind of a cool monument in any case, though not centuries old, it was filled with symbolism.

Back for the First Time

Finally we arrived in Back. Back is a rather weird city from what I’ve seen. Located just a short distance from the small city Stornoway, Back does not have the same oh-my-god-I-think-I’m-going-to-faint views that pervades so much of Scotland. That being said, it would be a disservice to Back to imply that it was at a lack for beauty, having its fair share of perfectly placed sparkling blue rivers snaking from the roadside deep into the green hills. It was also a coastal town, and any view of the ocean has me at hello. I love water.

All the houses here are made of stucco (commonly seen in Mexico) which gives them a cheap, unstable paper Mache feel. Back is a small town, but filled with houses, showing at least a few hundred people live there in a fairly densely populated space. Yet there is not one restaurant in Back, nor even a single Pub. The best form of entertainment within the town that we were able to find (albeit a good one) was the beaches, and though it was midsummer, the water was far too cold for swimming, and there was no one on them. In Back we found a total of three buildings that were not households, and one of them was a post office.

Back had a very impoverished, sad feel to it somehow. Perhaps this is because I have not much of an idea how these people could make a living. There were sheep, which meant some wool, but the squeezed together lay of the town is certainly not formed around a wool market. There were a few other Bed & Breakfasts like ours, but it certainly is not a town thriving off of tourism. Perhaps they mostly commute to Stornoway.

In any case, we arrived at the Brevig Villa (our Bed & Breakfast), talked to our hostess, Ms. Mackay, and quickly headed Back out (pun intended) to get dinner. Ms. Mackay had recommended a place called the Royal Hotel in Stornoway (recall there are no restaurants in Back). Sternoway is a very small city, mind you. I’m not sure city is even an appropriate term. All the shops were squeezed into a 5x5 block area (by my rough estimate) complete with a public library and tourist information center.

We found the Royal Hotel easily enough. They sat us down and took our drink orders, only to come back several minutes later and inform us that the chef was backed up, and could not take our order for the next 15 minutes. However they assured us that if we were patient and willing to have a pint, they could take our order soon.

So we waited.

About a half hour or more went by before finally the waitress came over to us and informed us that the chef had decided to “refuse to take any more orders tonight”. I wonder just how short staffed they could have been. The place was not even half full, and the restaurant hours had it open for another hour and a half. More than a little miffed, but unwilling to yell at the poor waitress they had sent out to deliver the news, we marched out without paying for our drinks. They didn’t ask and we didn’t offer.

We spent the next 20 minutes trying to find a place to eat at such a late hour. By this point it seemed that most places were already packed full or no longer serving. Thankfully, we were finally able to get food at a hotel restaurant, catching the tail end of their serving hours. A little bit expensive maybe, and the food was nothing special, but it was food. By this point, we were all pretty happy to see food in any form. That night I had a pint of McEwans. All was good.

Hebrides Day 1: A Trip to Town

We woke up early, as we had been want to do in Scotland, and were served a traditional Scottish breakfast. Actually we’ve been treated with this basic meal everywhere we’ve stayed, many times to my chagrin. Here’s the massive breakfast: Toast and bad coffee or good tea with cereal or yogurt if we desire, followed eventually by a half baked tomato (I love tomatoes when they’re raw but when I eat these I have to choke them down) a few odd sausage links (I’ve always hated sausage links. I think it’s the casing that makes me feel ill, because I’m fine when it’s ground sausage), and egg (mmm) and two strips of what they call bacon here, but would be called ham in America. Their “bacon” is kind of interesting. I suspect it’s cooked but not prepared in the same style as American bacon, because it does bear a slight resemblance to American bacon in the taste. Still, I much prefer the American version.

After breakfast we determined that a trip to the shops of Sternoway was urgently required. My father needed a memory card reader to save his pictures onto his computer, freeing up space in his camera. After such an amazing week I was hoping for some internet access being that I had not yet booked hostel reservations, nor indeed found hostels, for my nights in Munich and Geneva. Hell, I hadn’t even figured out how I was getting from Edinburgh to Belgium once my family abandoned me. My mother, the grand charter of our expedition, wanted to stop at the tourist office. For the record, She really did plan it all without much assistance from the rest of us, except where she insisted on having our input. We’ve all been quite happy to sit back and enjoy the Lorraine Tour guide. And naturally, my brother just plain enjoys shopping, especially in odd places, so off we went.

The public library in Scotland offers free internet access – not an uncommon thing in America, but a saving grace here, where internet cafés charge two bucks for 15 minutes of access.

After we’d all done our things, we wandered the shops and happened upon a lovely little wool store tucked away, almost hidden, in an alley. All three males of my family bought ourselves Scottish-style (perhaps better known as Newsies style) wool caps, and I think we all love our hats (and I think my mother is jealous that they’re definitely a male-only look). I also found and purchased a green sack-pack I found. For those of you who have seen it, it kind of reminded me of the style of Grindcore’s hippy-sack.

The man who owned the shop was the most insanely friendly person I have ever encountered. He taked our ears off about things I cannot fully remember, such as American football, fishing, and where we should visit in Scotland. This included running up his stairs and grabbing some fishing rods he owned to demonstrate for my father and brother (the fishermen of my family) how to use them for fly fishing. He also ended up bringing down maps from his upstairs for him to excitedly show us places and routes he strongly recommended, some for fishing and some just for their beauty. He spent a great deal of time ranting about Harris, how wonderful it was, and how we had to go. It took me at least 20 minutes to make him notice that I had picked out and anted to purchase my green sack. He was quite helpful and definitely a character. He’s the reason we later actually went to Harris, though we had earlier decided not to.

As a last stop we picked up a few baguettes and hunks of cheese as a picnic lunch (some at St. Mary’s may be aware just how much I enjoy this particular meal) and picked up a variety of meat pastries and a couple of varied bottles of beer for a later picnic dinner. Food, caps, and sack in hand (that’s not what I mean, pervert) we departed for our second destination of the day, the standing stones of Calanais.

The Standing Stones of Calanais

*WARNING*

Before I go on, I ought to inform the reader about my pre-existing relationship and fascination with standing stones. Roughly 6 years ago when I went to Ireland, I had my first experience with standing stones when visiting the Stanton Drew Stone circle, and I have never forgotten the feeling of intense fascination each stone inspired in me, nor can I accurately describe it, because it is somehow quite different than other fascinations. It’s a feeling of awe and reverence for these vertical rocks. At some point in time, for reasons suspected religious buy largely lost to history, groups of people risked death and expended vast amounts of time, energy, and planning to alter the landscape for thousands of years. They are perhaps both the oldest and most significant remnants of civilizations lost largely to memory and understanding.

In some cases, such as Stonehenge, the stones were not taken from a convenient location (note my sarcasm on the word convenient) but from obscenely long distances transported by means we can only guess at, so that they could have rocks made of the type they desired (in Stonehenge’s case, blue stone, possibly because blue stone is mildly warm to the touch).

Calanais is the only stone circle to rival the grandeur of Stonehenge. Stonehenge is known as well as it is because its stones are massive giants imported from far, far away, and because it is the only stone circle with intact capstones. That is to say, once they had built their stone circle, they hoisted other massive stones (as I recall many were well bigger than twice my size) and balanced them like a bridge with one end resting on each of two neighboring stones. Thousands of years ago they did this, and many of these capstones have yet to fall.

One can fault them for any religious or mystical beliefs or motivations one assumes the creators might have had. However, to create anything able to last a few dozen centuries in weather so harsh, you have to give them points for craftsmanship.

How many people died in the creation of these circles and why? Speculation will probably be the best answer we’ll ever have.

But I rant. Back to Calanais. Calanais rivals Stonehenge simply by the sheer size and number of standing stones. There are 47 stones still standing in Calainais. 47 stones, I mean damn! The majority of this stone circle, however, is not actually a circle, but an odd design. Though none of the plaques I read there suggested it, the design looks to me, from a bird’s eye view, like a stick figure. It has the biggest stones in the center, forming a circle, with a short few stones going in one direction (the head) and two long rows of stones going in the other (the legs) and two small branches of stones going off to the left and to the right (the arms). Most researchers compare it to a celtic cross though (despite that the celtic cross design is not half as old as Calanais).
The largest stone there is just off center of the actual circle, and behind it are the remains of a small, now dug up, burial caern. Historians seemed to think that because the stone formation is so very old, its meaning and use has changed dramatically throughout time to the locals. At some point they decided it would be a good place for burials of certain people for whatever reason. Later generations thought this was a terrible violation of the circle and dug the buried up and tossed them away.

I hesitate to describe my experience. A part of me thinks the awe stirred in me by these rocks is just plain silly. But a much greater part of me perceives the stones with a solemnity and respect reserved for very few things or places in this world. I have no doubt that my family thought I was acting weird.

Callanais was a thousand times less touristy than Stonehenge was. We couldn’t get within several yards of Stonehenge, and it was quite crowded. Callanais, by comparison, had a tourist center just by the standing stones and a few people wandering amidst the stones. Other than that, it was pretty private for such a significant site. Perhaps the coolest part of its display was that people were allowed to camp by the stones. In warmer weather it might have been a very cool (but not cold) experience.

I did not actually enter the circle itself for more than half an hour. I walked around, touching each stone, admiring it, feeling I had some obligation to understand each stone at least a little bit before entering the circle. When I say “understanding the stone” I mean that for each and every stone standing there, I cannot estimate how many people must have risked and perhaps found death to ensure the stones transportation and erection.

The first feeling I had when I began this process was to go straight to the largest and most important/interesting looking stones and pass quickly over the stones in seemingly less significant positions. But in a monument such as this, each stone must have been meticulously picked out, chosen for some reason and purpose (though admittedly the reason might be something along the lines of “here’s a big one”). I wanted to look closely and notice all the details and quirks of each stone.

Walking from stone to stone studying each stone, touching each stone; somehow it all felt like I was half in a dream.

Some stones in grain and in dimensions seemed to have a certain order and pattern, others complete chaos, colors streaking in every direction. If I tried, I could make out faces in some of their patterns (unintentional, I’m sure). One stones had a pretty distinguished heart shape, enough that I question whether it was crappily carved in at some point.

I was still exploring the outer stones of the group when my family wanted to settle down for our picnic. I told them to go on and eat without me. I was almost done with the outer stones, not having yet stepped foot in the inner circle, when my mother suggested it might be time to get going. Without much good reason I found myself fighting off an angry close to fury at her suggestion. When she added “if you don’t mind” (probably having seen a twitch in my facial expression) I answered pretty calmly that I did mind a little bit, and asked for a few more minutes.

By this time I had my heart set on breaking bread in the circle once I had finished exploring the stones. I hastily explored the stones of the inner circle, and finally the center stone. Honestly, none of them seemed as interesting as the stones of the two parallel lines I had named the “leg stones”, though they were much more massive. Whether purposeful or not, the “leg stones” all seemed to have a sunken in circle somewhere in the midsection of their surfaces, which struck me as the focal point of the stone. This feature was exclusive to the “leg” stones, however, and did not appear in the stones of the main circle.

The small ruined burial cairn in the off-center was just big enough that I might have lied in it if I had wanted to try, and just tall enough to make a perfect bench for lunch. I sat there and broke my bread and ate my cheese. Perhaps a bit slow for my mother’s taste, but it felt a good, if solemn, meal.

I finished.

We left.

The other 3 Stone Circles I saw that Day

There are two other standing stone circles close to enough Calanais to be seen from there. Both circles pale in comparison to Calanais, but are nonetheless ancient runes in their own right.

The circle closest to Calanais had the least intact stones of the three circles, 5 if I remember. Several places where stones had been were clearly marked, as was true of Calanais. Just as before, I walked around the circle exploring each stone before entering the circle. Inside the circle, as before, I ate a small chunk of my remaining bread.

The third circle was quite close to the second. Sillueted against the sky, the stones looked tall and gaunt, and there were clearly at least twice as many as there were in the second circle, and they appeared to stand as the tallest of the three circles.

Once we got there (well, once my father and I got there – my mother and brother stayed in the car) we realized what a comical illusion the view had given us. There were around 11 stones all told, and all but a few were shorter than I am.

This circle has quirks to it that the other did not. Inside the circle just off-center were three larger stones in a somewhat triangular formation, and further to the other side of the circle, opposite their formation, was the tallest stone. The plaque at the bottom of the road told us that the three-stone formation was a suspected tribute to the triple goddess. The stones here were all fascinatingly wild with their colored and grain patterns. In particular the four stones inside the circle were interesting. We could not take long (I had begged my mother into letting us stop at this last one, tired but feeling the need to see the whole set of circles, and we could not let her and my brother sit in the car forever).

I broke a hasty bread to eat in the circle, and we made our way back to the car.

Though it temporarily escaped my memory, this was my fourth encounter with a stone circle today. My first was incomparable to the rest, but significant enough to put to paper.

Happenstance found us driving by a sign noting the stone circle of Achmore. From the roadside we could see none, but we thought it was worth a try.

The wind was high. I left my cap in the car after the wind blew it off several times. I tried to keep my poncho from writhing and whirling around me, giving the illusion that I was some amorphous plastic blue mass (or so I imagine) by putting my belt on over the poncho. Unfortunately even this did not impede the wind from having its way with my poncho, and it continued to billow wildly, giving me a new sympathy and understanding for Spawn.

Unfortunately the “stone circle of Achmore” may have been a correct title, but one could not have called them “the standing stones of Achmore” as none were standing any longer. For all the harsh winds and boggy terrain we went through to get to it, we couldn’t tell the stones that had previously been standing from stones that had not. The terrain was boggy on its own merits, but it didn’t help that people had been peat farming all in and around the stones. I suspect it was only of note because the circle, when standing, must have been quite big in circumference.

I independently investigated a few of the further stones after my family had had the good sense to turn back. The best I found was an interesting looking stone which may or may not have been standing at one time. I took a pebble from it, for I did find it interesting, and two stones in Calanais looked very similar in grain to it; a mess of chalky white and black crevices.

the Brock of Carloway

In any case, after the stones were through, we took a sojourn into a town called Carlo way (a name I got quite a kick out of). We went to find the Brock of Carloway, a crumbled Pictish fortress and dwelling overlooking quite a view of the land.

Essentially, the fortress used to be a cylinder followed by a large space followed by another tall cylinder (the fortress height was about as tall as 7 or 8 men by my estimate.

In between the two layers were several levels of stone, so that there were roughly 5 or so floors to it, or at least there had been in days long past. The levels looked pretty intact still, but they were off limits now, and frankly I wasn’t going to test their sturdiness. The Picts must have either been really short or had lots of back problems, because all the entrance-ways were a little more than half my height. They were cool playground ruins though.

We went late back to our bed and breakfast following all this, for to picnic on the meat pies and varied baked snacks we had bought earlier from the bakery. The informal picnic feel was a nice change after eating out as often as we had been, and the meat pastries were all pretty good.

With dinner we all split two beers we had bought. The first was McEwan’s Championship. It was thick, dark, and very very tasty. It was gone quite swiftly, and I shall look for it in the future when I’m back in the US. The second was a dark beer called Hobgoblin. We got it because it was called Hobgoblin. It was drinkable for certain, but definitely not thrilling.

The Sands of Harris

We had a tall plan for our second and last day in the Hebrides. Mother felt we wasted half the day before, first having trouble getting ourselves out of the house, then spending half the day in town. So the result was trying to fit everything into the second day. We planned to visit the Butt of Lewis (Lewis was the area where we were staying in the Hebrides) and the Blackhouse Village, an ancient village restored and lived in from the 1700’s until 1975. As it turned out, we saw neither.

What we did see was worth what we missed. We decided first to visit Harris. There was little in the way of historical ruins or anything of that sort in Harris. What Harris did hold was a plentiful supply of breathtaking views, views that differ substantially from that of the rest of Scotland. It also was going to require several hours drive for the whole trip.

The drive was hard on my father I suspect, being exclusively more of these two-way one-lane roads with the occasional passing points. As the roads got worse, the views got better. This was not a happy combination for my father, who wanted desperately to look. But these roads had sharp, extremely frequent turns with (unless you’re Superman and can see through cliff faces) 99% of visibility blocked. Do you have any idea how scary that is on a one-lane road with cars going both ways?

The supreme accomplishment of the roads however, the feature that must have made my father, when he first saw it, think the roads were playing a practical joke on him, was this: At certain points along the road, the hilly nature of the road made it so that somehow there were times that we could be only feet from the crest of a hill, even a small hill, and entirely unable to see any part of the road past it. For all we could see, there could have been a steep drop off the cliff, or an extremely steep downhill slope, or just unpaved road. We had absolutely no idea, our imagination was the limit. Try driving over a hill that, even from feet away, could plausibly drop off into sheer cliff (basically half the terrain was sheer cliff). Try rushing that at 30 mph. Now try that periodically for a few hours. I’m glad I didn’t have to drive.

Was Harris worth 5 hours of this? Jessum Crow, if you think not, you clearly haven’t seen Harris. All the emerald hills, azure mountain lakes, and wild rocky peaks overlooking the unfathomably temperamental ocean -- none of that could have prepared me for what I saw in Harris.

Why?

Because what I saw in Harris, I didn’t really think existed outside the Caribbean Islands. Two large cliffs, if you can imagine, parted as we drove along our curvy road, to reveal a vast expanse of perfectly flat, white beaches stretching far and wide, with tides of the bluest of clear waters lapping at their shores under the pleasant sun. I think all our mouths were agape -- we hadn’t expected to find anything like this in Scotland. We parked near the beach and excitedly made our way to its shores.

Keep in mind this is Scotland, quite far north where the water is never warm, but I don’t recall if I even tested the waters before throwing off socks and shoes and marching in. There was a good long way to march before I would need to take off anything more than that; the shallows went out a great distance before becoming even shin-deep (and given the sparkling majesty of the beaches, I think it has been well proven to me that beauty can indeed be only shin-deep).

The water, when I first stepped in it, was surprisingly warm; easily swimming water. As I went out further though, the temperature swiftly and dramatically for the colder. I went perhaps 20 yards out before my feet informed me that moving forward was no longer an acceptable course of action.

Still, once I was back in the significantly warmer shallows, my feet were happy to let me wander the shallows for interesting stones and shells. There was a plethora of interesting things, and this paradises specialty was the most delicate of delicate beautiful shells.

The first I found was a pair of oval shells, perhaps half the size of my little fingernail each, joined at their midsection on one side. The two shells were a brilliant dark but vibrant ember red. Their thickness was definitely not that of a fingernail though, it was far more fragile. I was afraid of breaking the tiny thing simply by holding it. It was amongst the most beautiful shells I have ever found. Then, as I began to look, I realized that this beautiful pair of shells was not a braggable find on this beach -- shells just like them spotted the sands all over. Such shells were so common that I cannot imagine a person needing more than 30 seconds to find one from any spot on the beach. They were everywhere! Later I found the same shell, but a pearl white rather than red. The joining of the pair at the midsection of one side made them immediately comparable to angels wings.

We enjoyed the beach for at least a few hours. When the tide began to come in, there was no question about what was happening, and it was quite dramatic. We could actually see the tide creep inward. We could watch, with no effort, its constant progress. When it happened my mother was more on the ball than I was. We were sitting on the sand, a yard or so from the tide, relaxing when she began gathering her stuff, telling us that the tide would be on us in a moment. The waters were still several feet away from us, so I scoffed at her and continued to relax. I was almost very, very sorry. I just barely got my stuff out of tides way as it surrounded and almost engulfed me.

I quickly moved backward to where mom had already relocated. This new spot, picked to keep us safe from the tide for at least a little while, did not last 5 minutes before it, to, was taken by the water. It was after moving backwards the second time that we realized the tide was moving so fast that we could actually witness its passage, as the waters crept forward at a consistent pace. It was pretty cool.

A Time for Pondering

The rest of Harris was cool too, just not much by comparison. It held much grand, rockier terrain, hills, and mountains than anywhere we’d seen before. Most of Scotland is beautiful rocky terrain, I know, but most of it is also covered in green. In Harris the rock was exposed in a way that it wasn’t elsewhere. Dramatically different on a large scale, but hardly less beautiful.

On the way back, Scott caught a trout at a pretty lake we stopped at (which had, as always, a lovely view and serene atmosphere). More significantly we stopped at the well preserved (and in parts reconstructed) church of St. Columbus. I didn’t have much foreknowledge about this place before we stopped. The church was truly runes, but the preservation made it seem potentially still in use, so well kept it was.

The acoustics were wonderful, for one thing (I know, probably not what you expected me to rant about) especially in the staircase. There were other people about, so I didn’t sing too much, but when I did it was resounding. Just as we were leaving, a person bearing a harmonica entered the church in our wake, and we could hear the most beautiful harmonica I’ve ever heard (I didn’t think a harmonica could sound so lovely!) resounding from inside.

What the church might be most famous (or infamous) for, is that on the outside back of the church, a young lady is carved between the first and second floor. Her facial features are entirely absent; she had a blank face. But, because her skirts are lifted high, a pair of plump lips do indeed appear on the drawing. Apparently this scandalous carving was created by locals with the belief that it would distract evil spirits. My father suggested that the real reason may have been that they needed something to motivate men to go to church.

Also of interest to an anti-Cromwellian such as myself, was found in the church graveyard where a grave boasted a man who had died fighting Cromwell’s armies. I wish I could remember the man’s name.

When we finally got back, quite late, we ate at a place called the Sunset Restaurant. The food was okay, I had the Hebrides Strong Ale (local) and found it very much to my liking.