HVM Moment
Trip Start
May 11, 2011
1
174
188
Trip End
Jun 11, 2011
Bridge of Orchy, Scotland, United Kingdom
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
We’ve been lugging a bottle of Talisker around since Skye but that’s the easy part, arranging the storm is going to be more tricky.
Or is it?
As we disembark from the evening Corran ferry south of Fort William the clouds are gathering in Glencoe and as we start driving into the Glen it begins to rain. (Oh joy!)
We pass Glencoe village and note that the 'grotesque’ signpost that HVM described [ISS 10.2] has been replaced with a far more correct one which doesn’t refer to the Glencoe Massacre in the same breath as the availability of tea, cakes and fags.
As we go further the rain becomes torrential and it gets dark. This is so brilliant! I half expect to get overtaken by a Bullnose Morris going hell-for-leather with the hood up.
A few miles further on we identify The Kings House Hotel as the ‘inn gazing out over Rannock Moor’ [ISS 10.3]. The new road passes a couple of hundred yards away but the remains of the road that HVM would have travelled are still there and go right past the place. It looks very inviting and is probably stuffed full of Dianas but we’re on a mission.
By my reckoning HVM came out of the storm and stopped to drink his Talisker south of Rannock Moor but short of Crainlarich. By a lucky chance there’s a section of the old road in this area which connects with what is now the West Highland Way and is supposed to be passable for cars as far as the Inveroran Hotel.
We take it and after stopping to collect some water at a suitable burn we reach the hotel. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to pitch the van but a wild site is flashing up about half a mile further on despite the fact that this is supposed to be the end of the road.
I’m so fired up with the complete success of our recreation at this point that we just keep going. Beddie’s a commercial truck in motorhome clothing after all. What’s the worst that could happen? We’ve got the whisky and the burn water, it’s raining like the world’s going to end and we’re driving on the actual road that HVM was on – maybe even the actual stretch where he stopped with Mr Campbell to toast their survival of the storm.
Excellent. Victoria Bridge. There’s a small gravel car park in the trees and it looks mostly legal. In fact there’s another van here already - an old Mercedes truck conversion with nearly as much character as Beddie. Nearly.
I stop, put the snorkers in the oven and pour a good measure of the Talisker with a couple of splashes of icy water from the burn.
Success.
So here’s to H.V. Morton. I know we haven’t always followed in his exact footsteps on this trip but here and maybe at Bogle Burn too I’d like to think he’d approve of our antics.
The Talisker is superb, it’s still chucking it down outside and we’ve got snorkers for tea.
Good-oh!
