Scotland Day #10 - Nessie

09 July, 2009 Writing at 21:34 in Drumnadrochit, Scotland
Posted on 10 July, 2009 from Portree, Scotland

Today I got offered a job! The Beauly Fire Station in the Highlands and Island Fire Rescue Service has a position for one more firefighter on retainer (what we know as a paid on call or volunteer firefighter). More about that later.

Today was great day! We started off the day with a traditional Scottish breakfast, which also included brown bread. This was a reminder of Friday suppers with Dad - brown bread, baked beans and hot dogs. The eggs, rashers, sausage, mushrooms, tomato, toast and cereal were also present. We had a great chat with Carolyn and visited with one of the cattle - Taggert. Taggert is named after a UK detective show because he is very nosy and always wants to know what is happening. As such he was more than willing to come over to the fence, visit and allow us to feed him some grass. Carolyn and her family raise the cattle, but they do not slaughter them, they sell them and allow the new owners to decide what is next.

We did a little logistics work at the travel information center, got rooms for the last two nights in Edinburgh and went out on the 11:00 Castle Cruises Loch Ness voyage. Gordon is the owner, captain, shuttle bus driver and tour guide. He was very knowledgeable about the loch and had knew the Nessie stories and had been an active participant in a lot of the work / research that had been done, including the filming of an ad about Nessie, the recoveryof a well preserved WWII bomber and several attempts by divers, sonar and small subs to find Nessie. We learned several things including that one of the challenges is that the water is very dark because it is tinted by peat as it comes down from the hills and flows into Loch Ness. There were about 13 people on the boat and more than half didn't speak English very well so a couple of us got to dominate Gordon's time. I believe he thinks there is something there, but that it isn't a monster, I think our host has a simlar beleief.

Today we stopped for a lunch break (great idea!) and then headed further into the Highlands to Glen Affric, a national nature reserve. Once we got there it was gorgeous, but we missed a turn and drove way up into the highlands on a single track road. The pictures do not do it justice - it was wonderful and reminded us both of the movie Braveheart. We got our bearings, turned around and found the park. This was also beautiful, but there were more people here. We had a terrific couple mile hike along a river and falls and then up into some highlands.

We headed out of the park and over to the town of Beauly. We had heard that Beauly had Highland dancing and a marching piper band at 7:30 on Thursdays and they do. At 7:30 a fella plays the accordian until 8 and then the dancing starts, which was students from a local dance school showing off their skills. The pipers marched in around 8:30 and we left around 9. It was a good show and fun to watch.

When we arrived in Beauly we were going to walk about, look in shops and get something to eat so we drove through and looking for a place to turn around ended up swinging into the fire station lot. As we were leaving, a fella pulled in and he was wearing a uniform, so we turned back around and met Malcolm. Malcolm is the captain of the Beauly station, part of the Highland and Island division of Scotland's fire service. The equipment on the apparatus is pretty similar, a little older than what we have in Lakeville, but the structure is different. They are not run by the city, but instead run by the Scottish government as a civil organization and the assigned to municipalities. Malcolm runs the Beauly station and reports to the chief who is stationed out of Inverness. Beauly has 9 retainer firefighters (they get 3,000 pounds each year, pay for each call and a pension) and one 6 person 400 gallon pumper rescue (similar to Engine 22 @ Lakeville FS2, but smaller). Malcolm is looking for one more firefighter. Because they are all part of the same organization each station supports the others, but the closest station is 12 miles away, and it is through the narrow windy roads that I can't seem to get above 40 mph on! They also provide fire coverage for the islands (where we are headed tomorrow - 10 July) and Malcolm told us a story about trying to load pumps and equipment on to lifeboats to fight a house fire in a million pound house on a small island. When they have a structure fire in Beauly, Malcolm and his crew are on their own for at least twenty minutes, they only do offensive work if there are people to rescue. Beth wasn't surprised to learn that they respond to a lot of car accidents and he had photos of some of their calls to share. Each year he and his crew find a bagpiper and hold a ceremony to remember the vitims of 9/11; I told him I would pass this along as it would mean a lot to his firefighter brothers in the US. We left Malcolm with a Lakeville duty shirt and he passed on a uniform belt buckle and his email address.

Another interesting bit we learned from Malcolm was that Beauly is Fraser Country! We were looking through the station scrap books and Beth noticed a letter that was signed from a Fraser. The Lovat line of Frasers. There is a Beaufort Castle nearby that we had not known of earlier. Malcolm said that had he known we were coming, he could have gotten us access to the castle which is not otherwise open to the public. Oh well, next time? He also mentioned that there is a big celebration each year for Clan Fraser; he initially thought we were in the village for that. It is within the next week or so, it appears. Who knew?

Tomorrow will find us headed towards Isle of Skye with a detour to Eilean Donan Castle. We're staying in the city of Portree. We hope to do a little shopping and visit the Talisker distillery. Talisker is one of my favorite whiskys. We've heard lots of great things about the Isle of Skye and we look forward to enjoying the sites.