SCOTLAND’S NATURAL BEAUTY

 

If an aspect of Scotland’s rich heritage draws as much fascination as its legendary castles, it’s the natural beauty. Scotland’s nature and its history are one, after all, the beauty of the former cloaked in the legends and mystery of its past. The Highlands bore as much witness to the nation’s growth as did its ruins.

Of the animals that inhabit the Scottish woodlands I saw mostly the red deer, but on the 24th of October I arrived at Chanonry Point hoping to see the bottlenose dolphins that frolic on its shore. The day started out misty and I had much driving planned. With wildlife a viewing is never guaranteed and on its own terms. My own time was limited so I arrived with adjusted expectations. Sure enough, I saw neither dolphin nor seal, which Chanonry Point is also known for. Nonetheless, visiting a place shared by some of the marvelous creatures we share the world taps on primal energy.

True to Scotland’s love of rotaries, the viewing points of Chanonry form a circle around the lookout overseeing the North Sea. While there I saw several tourists driving up and a few locals who came about to sketch the birds that nest near the shore. As it turns out, this was the off-season as dolphins, although common throughout the year, are more active in the summer following the salmon migration from the Inverness Firth.

                                                                   Chanonry Point

After a while I stopped looking for the dolphins and simply took in the view. The sea, disappearing into the horizon beyond our vision, is nature’s clearest reminder of the expansiveness of our world and, in a sense, a connector of our diverse lands.

My next stop was more typical of my journey through Scotland thus far. And yet, Eilean Donan Castle felt like a logical follow-up.

Although built in the early 13th century as a defensive look-out post against Vikings and other invaders, Eilean Donan stood overlooking what would come to be known as the Sea Kingdom of the Lord of the Isles, when the waters it overlooked were the battleground of feuding clans. The castle continued changed throughout the centuries until its destruction in 1719 by three frigates sent by the English government when it discovered a Spanish garrison sympathetic to the Jacobites was using the castle as an armory. What the cannons failed to bring down was ultimately felled by the explosion from the very gunpowder the Spanish fleet was storing within the thick walls.

It was not until 1911 that Lt Colonel John Macrae-Gilstrap bought the island outright and began restoration on the castle, which was completed by 1932 and to this day continues to be the home of the Macrae family.

                                                                   Eilean Donan Castle
        

Time, as Thoreau observed, plays games with the human mind. We are often mesmerized by observing human progress throughout the centuries, hence the fascination with ancient ruins, but often forget that the entire history of Homo Sapiens is but a fraction of the history of life on earth. If Eilean Donan took me back centuries, the rocky shores of An Corran took me back to the prehistoric past long before man walked the earth. In itself An Corran is a sight to behold, reminiscent of the black sand beaches I saw in Iceland. But within the muddy rocks lies evidence of a world long since vanished, 166 million years ago to be exact. Here, the giant Megalosaurus once stomped what is now the Isle of Skye, the fossilized footprints on the rocks now the only relics to its memory. Making my way over the rocks trying to spot the giant footprints made me forget, for a while, that I was in Scotland and instead in the world as a whole; a world that started without nations, without languages and without us. After millions of years of migrations, progress and evolution we developed tongues, customs, religions as well as territories, nations and laws. And yet, places like An Corran remind us of the superficiality of human boundaries. We evolved into this world as one species and left out mark in it just as our primitive ancestors had done. And yet, the air we breathe and the land we walk on are part of one planet which houses us not as a world of nations and territories but as one of the many species that have called it home.

                                                                  An Corran Beach

                                             

                                                       Kilt Rock, icon of the Isle of Skye 
                       

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