LEJOG Day 85: Inverness to Culbokie

Weather: Sunny and warm with a freshening northerly

Distance covered today: 24.5km (15.2mi)

Last night's B&B: Creag View (£30)

Cumulative distance: 1757.9km (1092.3mi)/ % Complete: 91.9%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 85 (click!)

It was always to be expected.  Right at the moment, I can’t work out whether I am elated or depressed. My emotional state is turmoiled! I had a number of delays this morning before I set out and I just couldn’t wait to get on the road, even though I knew I would soon be doing battle with the dreaded A9, which will be my fairly constant tormentor all the way North from here. I couldn’t sleep last night, almost at all. Why?  My mind was turmoiling away about this journey, what’s left of it, wanting not to miss a moment of it, but at the same time hugely excited about seeing Veronica in just over a week’s time!  I’ll be a wreck by the time she gets here.

I’m staying in a wonderful old farmhouse at the moment. My hostess, Romy, is a very interesting person. She seems to live here alone, but there are three men around who do various jobs for her. The old house is full of wonderful books and classical music. It’s all a bit chaotic, but in a very civilised way. Apparently, her father sold the house years ago so that he could hang on to the farm around it. Romy went off and earned enough to buy it back.  She even has wired Ethernet cables to the bedrooms!!!  The walls are too thick for wifi.  I haven’t seen that anywhere else on my journey, and there I was thinking the connections up here would be awkward! Of course the socket in my room turned out to be damaged and within minutes, I was on my hands and knees with her screwdrivers in hand, fixing it for her, as if I had been here for weeks rather than minutes.

Part of the turmoil is of course that again I am in transition from an organised national trail to my own route on an OS map. This is the third time I’ve made the switch and every time the change has been affecting.  After both Offa’s Dyke and the Pennine Way I found myself suddenly a free agent again; deciding my own route, finding little paths and side-roads, staying in B&Bs where my fellow customers are not walkers, and coping with traffic.  Every time, it’s been an adjustment. It reminds me of how tramlined my life has been for the most part.  In a way, I suppose that is what I chose when I rejected the circus in favour of the lift with the trucker.

We had an interesting discussion about this earlier, though not directly.  One of Romy’s men, about my age, was telling me that he was moving from organic farm to organic farm, working to pay for his board, not unlike Richard and I in Wales all those years ago. This is now a recognised international movement.  He said he loved the freedom of his life. I asked him whether he worried that ill-health might ultimately constrain him and then not having a home could be a problem. His response, in my view a bit myopic, was that he was perfectly fit and well.  I dropped the subject, but later, when Romy was giving me a lift up to the pub and I was extolling her circumstances, her reaction was surprising.  She agreed that the old house was fine but that the financial responsibility of all her little businesses was a real burden. There lots to be said, she insisted, for earning a salary!  The grass is, of course, always greener….

Not that my own working life was always that uniform. One amusing incident, in particular, was quite unexpected. As a young and newly married man, I had just been identified for a new job in London. This was considered a development opportunity and I was delighted at the prospect of an all-expenses-paid transfer for Veronica and I to the international headquarters of the company, to live the life of Riley in London! When I arrived, however, I was dismayed to find that the job which had been identified for me was to be the company’s technical marketing expert in marine fuels. I had absolutely no technical experience in the field, and of course no knowledge at all of the marine market.  The company regularly did this sort of thing. It was a question of throwing young things in at the deep end to see if they sank or swam.  The trouble in this particular field was that lives could be at stake. A ship foundering because of a fuel mistake would be a maritime catastrophe.

My new boss was horrified at my selection; he claimed that it was all done above his head. There wasn’t much I could do about it, except learn at top speed, and the boss decided that the right thing for me to do would be to go to sea and learn the ropes. Accordingly, strings were pulled, and I was instructed to proceed to Rotterdam to join the enormous MS Bilderdijk, a Dutch managed LASH ship (Lighter Aboard Ship. It is a specialized container ship carrying very large floating containers, or "lighters." The ship carries its own massive crane, which loads and discharges the containers over the stern) bound for the Thames Estuary, Bilbao and Saratoga on the US East Coast. My role would be to monitor the performance of a new fuel that the company was planning to market and which was being trialled on this ship.  I’ll spare you the technical details.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but as I boarded the Bilderdijk, it quickly became obvious that the officers and crew of that vessel were outraged to be saddled with this inexperienced “civvie” in their midst. I was summoned to the Chief Engineer’s quarters where I was informed that the ship did not have the capacity for a “passenger”, that they were perfectly capable of monitoring the fuel trial themselves and that I was not welcome!  I was told there was no bunk for me, and that I could use any crewman’s bunk, provided I was out of it before he came off watch and that I left it as if no-one had been sleeping in it!

I had a choice: to get on my high horse, or to muck in and make the most of it. Probably Father Johnson was whispering in my ear, but I did choose the latter. For a week or so, I was neither seen nor heard. I spent most of my time in the great engine room, listening to that huge Sulzer slow-speed diesel throbbing away, propelling that enormous ship across the Atlantic. The job of monitoring the fuel trial was, as the Engineer had insisted, trivial, but I kept such detailed records that in the end they did learn a few things. Meanwhile in the many hours of boredom, I read vast amounts about the subject in all the literature I had brought with me, and started asking all sorts of silly questions, some of which the crewmen couldn’t answer.

The worm turned. The Captain got to hear some positive things about his unwelcome guest, and I suddenly found myself invited to join the Captain’s table for dinner. A permanent berth was somehow miraculously uncovered and my next test was to consume as much Grolsch Lager as the Chief Mate. Fortunately, my university training kicked in and I passed that test with flying colours!  I was invited to leave the engine room and go to the bridge. I was told later that no-one had ever asked as many questions over a three day period and that only the Captain was delighted, because he was interested to know that many of his seamen didn’t know the answers! My star rose even further.   I found myself taken even further into his confidence, until one evening he informed me that we were bound for the Bermuda Triangle and that there was a hurricane in prospect. Alarmingly, he told me that the Bilderdijk’s sister ship, the MS Munchen had sunk in just such a storm in the same area, with the loss off all hands. Not even an emergency SOS had been issued! In fact they suspected that it was the design of the LASH ship that was responsible, and some modifications had been made.

I was surprised to discover that even huge container ships of that kind actively use cyclonic wind systems to propel them forward and the Bilderdijk made excellent progress towards Saratoga, being blasted onwards on the strength of a very serious hurricane. I spent some exhilarating hours outside on the upper deck in that hurricane, watching the rush of the huge, wild seas and listening to the screaming wind. I won’t ever forget those elemental experiences.  We made port without incident, and I disembarked into the United States without even being asked to produce a passport!

A little later I had reason to return to that part of the world, because the lights went out in Haiti!  They were using our fuel to power their marine diesel engines which powered their electricity generators. There was a problem with the fuel and all the lights were out. I was summoned at short notice. Only as the jet was landing late at night did I realise that because they didn’t have any electricity, there were no landing lights on the runway!  For the first and only time in my life, I landed at an airport in a Boeing 727, which was guided in by very dim paraffin lanterns!

I spent the night with our General Manager there at the time, a wonderful, gay man who loved Wagner and who lived in a house right at the top of a mountain. He made me listen to the whole of the Ring Cycle, hour after hour, while consuming a marvellous French vintage. Next day, to my credit, I solved the fuel problem. I was though completely shattered by the poverty that I saw on that benighted island and by the difference between the haves and the have-nots.

Even as a South African, I was amazed, and I am still.

The incredibly fast flowing waters of the Ness River

Inverness is as prosperous as the other Scottish cities I have seen. Such a stark contrast with the cities of the South.

Lovely homes looking out on the Ness

After crossing the Kessick Suspension Bridge, my first introduction to the dreaded A9. We will do battle for many miles!

An unexpected inhabitant of the Highlands- an Ostrich!

My last view of Inverness

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Quite!

Marvellous forests on country roads

Storm clouds in the distance

Munlochy, an unusually attractive village

I found this lovely little path through Partridge Wood

A view of Munlochy Bay, off the Moray Firth

A truly lovely farmhouse caught in a beam of sunlight!

I can't help it!  I really like these flowers! At every dimension, they are exquisite, despite being ubiquitous!

In which case, I'll go to Tore instead....

A lovely fungus growing on a birch tree (I think!)

I am still amazed at the Scottish housing stock! It is more American than English! (And very posh!)

Approaching tonight's objective: the Cromarty Firth. That is the bridge I will cross tomorrow

The kitchen in tonight's B&B. All AGA and homeliness...