Driving on the left side of the road was nerve wracking as hell. The roads in Scotland seem to be much more narrow than the roads I’m used to, and Anne kept telling me that I was veering close to the left shoulder, almost letting the wheels go off the road.
It took me nearly two full days of driving, but I did get used to it, and I even figured out the proper way to navigate a roundabout, which was not the victory it may sound like, because it was the final roundabout I used before we returned the rental car.
Scotland was the most beautiful place I’ve been that wasn’t in the South Pacific. The highlands were just breathtaking, and for some reason we got perfectly clear skies and sunshine the whole time we were there. The thing I wasn’t prepared for at all, though, was how dark it got at night. There weren’t any streetlights. Now, Americans, let me be clear: I don’t mean that there weren’t a lot of streetlights, or that the streetlights were dim. I mean that there were literally zero streetlights. When we drove back to the house we were staying in after dinner in Portree one night, I could only see as far as my car’s headlights, which wasn’t even 30 feet, before the darkness swallowed up the light.
“I keep imagining what it must have been like to live here a thousand years ago,” I told Anne, as we drove slowly through the absolute pitch black of the moonless night, “like to be a spy, or to be a bandit, and to be just moving across these fields and trying to not get lost.”
“It was probably the same as it was a hundred years ago, or ten years ago … or like right now,” she said.
We had GPS on the car, which is the only way I was able to drive around without feeling massively stressed out and constantly in fear of getting lost.
We got back to the house, and got ready for bed. The house is like 800 years old and allegedly haunted (there’s no such thing as ghosts, people) so walking through it in the dark was fun for my imagination.
In fact, just being in Scotland was fun for my imagination, but that’s not what this is about.
This is about how Anne woke me up in the middle of the night and said, “I just looked outside and there are a billion stars!”
I got out of bed and we walked outside, stepping as lightly as we could on sharp stones that made up the driveway. I looked up, and saw, as promised, a billion stars. The Milky Way ran straight over our heads, and the air was so clear and still I felt like I could reach out and grab a handful of stars to take home with me.
“This is unreal,” I said.
“It’s like we’re on another planet,” she said.
“Except the stars are exactly the same as they are on Earth because if we were on another planet the stars would be in a different position,” I said.
Then: “Sorry. Pedantic. It’s a nerd thing.”
“I know.”
We stayed outside for several minutes, then went back to bed.
The next day, we went to look for the ruins of a castle our friend had told us about. The ruins aren’t on a map, he told us, so we were to go to a house, introduce ourselves to the owner as friends of his, and ask for directions.
So we drove down tiny, winding roads that made their way across low, rolling hills, dividing sheep pastures, stopping for the occasional herd of cows to make its way across. Around the time I was certain we’d gotten lost, we saw the little house he’d told us to find. There was a dog in front, and a man standing on his porch, drinking out of a mug.
I parked the car, and as I opened the door, congratulated myself on getting as far out of my comfort zone as I’d ever gotten. That part of my imagination that Scotland woke up? It was busy telling me that this guy had a cellar full of ancient spirits who demanded the souls of tourists in exchange for the lifeforce they’d been giving him for two centuries.
We got out of the car and introduced ourselves. “I’m Wil,” I said.
“I’m also Will!” He said with a smile. We shook hands. His was huge and soft where it wasn’t calloused.
“May I say hello to your dog?” I asked.
“Aye,” he said, “she’s a good dog.”
I reached down and let her smell my hand, avoiding eye contact so she knew I wasn’t a threat. She sniffed me and then began wagging her entire body before she licked my hand and crashed her head into my leg, just like Marlowe does when I come home.
“I think she likes you,” he said. It came out: Ah tank she lakes ye.
“We were hoping to walk up to the castle ruins?” Anne said.
“Ah, ’tis nothin but four walls,” he said. “It’s just a wee thing.” Et’s jest ah wee tang.
“We’re easily impressed,” I said. “Being from America, and the young part of America, at that.”
He laughed. “Okay. Go to that road and follow it for about twenty minutes. You’ll see it. But it’s just four walls.”
“Thank you,” I said. I realized that I’d been speaking as slowly as I could, and wondered if my accent sounded as thick and inscrutable to him as he sounded to me.
“Yeah, thank you,” Anne said.
I pet his dog again and she looked at me like she was going to go with us on a walk. That would have been fine by me, but he called her into the house. When he got to the door, he said something to us, but the distance and the thickness of his accent made it impossible for me to understand. But he said it with a smile and a wave, so I imagined that it wasn’t, “when the spirits rise from the bog to eat your souls, try to face North so it goes quickly.”
Anne and I walked up the road, and followed it across and around and over some small hills. There were sheep everywhere, and these short, stone walls that could have been hundreds of years old. We were close to the sea, and the smell of the salt was heavy in the air.
After about twenty minutes, we came up the castle. It was, as described, just four walls, a small square not even twenty feet tall, sort of like something you’d build to survive your first night in Minecraft. It was across a field, about two hundred yards, from where we were.
“Do you want to walk over to see it up close?” I asked Anne.
“Yeah,” she said, “it seems a little dumb to come all the way here and stop this close to it.”
So we started across the field, and that’s when my foot sank into the bog.
It happened slowly, then all at once, as the saying goes. My foot came down on some grass, it squished underneath me, and then in a sporp of mud and a splash of water, it sank.
“AHH!” I shouted, convinced that I was going to sink into the bog and drown. I planted my other foot and yanked my foot out of the mud, jumping back in one motion that I’d like to describe as fluid, but was anything but.
Around this time, Anne was sinking into the bog a few feet away from me.
“Shit shit shitshitshit!” She shouted, dancing her way out of the mud in a manner that I am confident was more graceful and elegant than mine.
“Are you okay?” I said.
“Yeah. My shoe is soaked, though.”
We looked at each other. Each of us had one mud-soaked shoe, and we were out in the middle of this field that, in my imagination, was the dead marshes from Lord of the Rings. The sheep all around us were laughing at us.
“What do we do?” Anne said.
“Well, we can go back the way we came,” I said.
“No, let’s just find a way across that’s dry.”
“And watch out for the ROUSes.” I said.
We looked around and saw that maybe we weren’t in the middle of a bog, but were on the edge of some soft ground that was covered with slowly running water. We saw that there was a fence to our right, and we could walk along it, as it was in ground that was slightly raised and at least looked dry. So we did, and in short time got to the castle ruins, which was just four stone walls, each not more than thirty feet to a side. It didn’t look like a castle as much as it looked like a small fort, probably to look out onto the sea, but it was older than the oldest thing in my entire country, and I could put my hands on it, and that made it worth the whole muddy bog thing.
We walked around it, took a bunch of pictures, and then noticed that there was an entirely dry field, full of sheep, that we could walk through to go back to the road.
“I can’t believe we didn’t see this on the way here,” Anne said, as we walked through it.
“Counterpoint,” I offered, “we did get to walk through a bog to see the ruins of a castle, and that’s a story we get to tell for the rest of our lives.”
“I don’t know if stepping into mud actually qualifies as walking through a bog,” she said.
“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” I said.
Really enjoyed reading this. Star gazing sounds really peaceful. I could use some soul peace.
LOL ~ I LOVE SCOTLAND, and have made 3 trips there while my daughter is in University. SKYE is especially brilliant, and the walking we did, and the driving! Lay-bys, roundabouts, stars, and sky. You think it’s dark….you should go in summer when it NEVER GETS DARK. Love love love it there. Glad you had a good time!
I live in the south of England. Why haven’t I visited Scotland again for twenty years? I’m stupid. Glad you had a nice time, soggy feet and all. 🙂
I’m a Scottish ex-pat, and that made me miss home a little. Well done :).
I will say that the street lights thing depends a lot on where you are. I’d contend we have a significantly higher (than the US) density of them in the lowlands, but out in the highlands it is much as you describe, and I do miss seeing the milky way in the sky.
Brilliantly described and funny – reading this lit up my day.
BTW, you can get that exact dark with no streetlights (or houselights) many places in the US. I grew up in one of them. You just need to get pretty rural (or even densely forested). How rural? – try “my HS graduating class was 42 folks – with three small towns feeding into the school”. That rural.
I encourage you to come explore the quiet ways in your own “younger” country 😉
Beautiful journey, Wil.
Great entry. Remember the Bog. Never forget the bog.
Brings back lots of fond memories of that area … thanks for sharing them. 🙂
Wonderful story. I love your blog posts about things like that. And I love Scotland. Been there a couple of times and I will definitely go back several times more. Was it tough to stay off the alcohol with all the Whisky distilleries around?
Excellent story. Want to visit Scotland even more now!
Am so glad you had good weather enjoyed your stay in the wild bits of our land and the ROUSes didn’t get you :). Come back and enjoy it again someday. Bring the kids. Thanks for sharing your adventures with us x
Glad you enjoyed our wee country and that you got the good weather. All of it 😉
If it’s stars you like to see, Kielder Forest, which is just south of the Scottish border, has the least light pollution in Europe. The night sky’s are alight with stars. We went to a stargazing event at the beginning of the year thankyou to Kielder Forest observatory which was magical.
If anyone gets the opportunity, I highly recommend it.
I’ve lived in the UK my whole life, Mr. Wheaton and am still “massively stressed out and constantly in fear of getting lost.” wherever I go, even after twenty years of driving here.
Scotland is incredibly beautiful. I’ve driven from the Midlands to Edinburgh twice, and it’s gorgeous. Next time you’re this side of the planet, give Edinburgh a go if you haven’t done so already.
Ah yes, the feeling of descending slowly and unexpectedly into a bog is VERY familiar to me! I’m glad you managed to escape!
There really is nothing quite like the Highlands – I’m from Glasgow and visited the north west coast for the first time this year and although the weather was a bit iffy, the night sky and beautiful beaches were more than worth the trek north!
My God, it’s full of stars. Sorry, just had to. Great story all around. The driving brought me back to a trip to Ireland a decade ago. I captured video of driving since it was so jarring.
I had a similar peat bog encounter in Ireland. It felt like we were standing on a bouncy sponge. Never been to Scotland but it sounds great.
Ok, now I want to go to Scotland…
Loved this. I have the highlands of Scotland on my bucket list to visit.
Wil, I have been a fan since your “next gen” days. This was beautifully written and evocative. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it here, my girlfriend and I had hoped to see you at Birmingham, but we were too pressed for time unfortunately. We made you a little gift to commemorate your trip to Scotland, hopefully if I see you in future I will be able to give you it!
Wonderful tale, beautifully written — thank you. If you haven’t yet discovered the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, you might enjoy it. It’s also being made into a series on Starz, which is excellent. I highly recommend both the books and the series. Reading the books made me long to visit Scotland; your trip has just reinforced the desire. I expect it will be a dream that never comes to fruition, however. Jealous, I am!
Nodding in agreement re the narrow roads and the absence of streetlights! This is true in many English villages as well. I’m finally able to drive on the left and navigate roundabouts (which I LOVE) in England but still pretty freaked when it’s one lane going either way and the cars coming at me from the right are just a Little Too Close. Also, in my late in-laws’ village they not only had no streetlights until just recently but it’s farm country and this city girl got a bit freaked out by the sound of Cows Chewing in the Darkness.
You sure do have a way with words, Wil Wheaton! I’ve been wanting to visit the Highlands ever since Outlander came out. It figures that you would get there first!
My wife and I moved from Liverpool in the UK to the tiny Danish island of Bornholm in 2012. Street lighting here is something they use very sparingly so I know that feeling of truely seeing the night sky for the first time. The night sky much of the industrialized world has since lost. Even after four years here I still often just stop and look and wonder at all the life out there looking up at their skies and wondering about us.
nice story love how your imputing the truth about your stresses , We all have moments like that but , many will not admit to it
We lived in Scotland for five years, and spent some of that time in a small village called Hayford Mills, outside of Stirling (which is not too far from Glasgow). The night – the blackness – is just breath-taking at times. And the sheep, which I could see from the kitchen window. Oh, I miss it – it’s so beautiful – and green. And rainy and freezing cold. But, still – a level of beautiful that the soul at time just needs. So glad you had a good (albeit soggy-shoed) trip.
Glad you enjoyed it. We have a lot of light pollution in the central belt of Scotland, but up where you were must have been really nice. The hills near me are high enough, and remote enough, to allow a decent view. The clear weather you referred to is not usual for this time of year, so you lucked out – If you come back (when you come back) choose the summer months. This is a pic of just part of the Milky Way from last week from much the same viewpoint as yours was. https://www.flickr.com/photos/82093621@N00/29788272170/in/datetaken-public/
Great story!! I love how the stars look when you leave the lights of the city—-just amazing, and good for the soul to see them in all their glory instead of faded out. So glad you both had a lovely time in Scotland, and because of a bog have a unique story to tell as well!
My husband and I went to Scotland last year (even stayed a night in Portree). I kept telling him he was too close to the left of the road. Then he popped that very tire (er, tyre). He also led me into a bog while we were walking and refused to turn around. So I enjoyed reading this!
Wil,
Glad you enjoyed your time in Scotland. I live in Belfast in Northern Ireland and you’ve made me feel embarrassed that I’ve never visited the highlands! I want to second the recommendation of Diana Gabaldon’s ‘Outlander’ series. It’s a very romantic view of Scotland in the 1700’s but it’s a good read.
I’m glad you got to experience Scotland in the good weather. Good weather is incredibly rare up here but there’s nothing quite like a good clear crisp autumn’s day when the leaves start to change colour. It’s good for the soul to remember that there’s still beautiful things in the world.
I also want to thank you for coming all the way to Birmingham for the Convention. Your talks were fantastic fun and it was so obvious that you were passionate about everything you said. It was an amazing weekend filled with awesome people. I had such a great time and getting a high five from you was the highlight. My husband got an extra million husband points for convincing me to wear my Tabletop backer tshirt on Saturday. 🙂
Thanks again.
Molly
Wil, you are welcome to come visit the Oklahoma Panhandle. We have some of the darkest skies in the US. And every year, we have a week long astronomy event that takes advantage of it.
What a fun read. The only thing that caught my eye, intitially, was this: is there nowhere within reasonable driving distance from where you live in LA that doesn’t have any streetlights? I’ve only been to LA, once, for an afternoon (we decided to leave the airport since we had a long-ish layover), but surely you wouldn’t have to drive too far away to get to a place with no streetlights at all? Obviously you’d have to drive a good bit away to get away from the light pollution of the cities to see all the stars, but just the streetlight detail is something that totally stood out to me as odd.
Wil wrote, regarding the cool little fort, that it “was older than the oldest thing in my entire country,”
Parts of the Cahokia Mounds would disagree with that assessment, as would many Native Americans. Check out a little pre-European American history; you might be surprised by what you find.
Wil, I understand the innocent awe you were trying to express with your comment, but please think of what it says about how you’ve been socialized as a European-American. Don’t be blind to the amazing pre-European stuff that is still findable across North America, just under the Wal-Mart or down the road from the gas station. Your country is a cute little pup compared to much of the planet, but it’s the caretaker of some much older stuff IN it.
Also the California redwood forest. But nobody actually built that, so I guess it doesn’t properly count. Still a lot cooler than bangers ‘n mash or Wal-Mart, though… and every American should go SOMEWHERE, at least once, where the entire fucking starry sky is visible.
I didn’t say my land, or the people who were here before my ancestors settled it. I said, “my country,” which is what I meant. I am not ignorant of the amazing history of the indigenous people of North America.
From the other side, it’s nice to hear an American acknowledge their country’s relative youth, and appreciate the depth of history here.
Hearing a description, written with an amazing level of enthusiasm like yours, about a trip to Scotland helps to lift some of the veil of indifference those of us who take it for granted. Thank you.
A guy writes a story. It’s a beautiful story. It is full of sentiment that uplifts, informs and entertains its readers. At no time is any reader of this story in danger of becoming suddenly ignorant or disrespectful of any culture.
Then you come along and take up the lecture podium because you significantly overestimate the value of your own opinion and you’ve taken up the cultural sensitivity banner because it is in vogue right now and it makes you feel empowered. Well no one is impressed. A lot of people have felt empowered while marching under one banner or another, and it always ends the same way. Genuflecting always leads to saluting. Look in the mirror and admit to yourself that it’s not equity that you seek, but rather attention.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LHDxqigCco4/TpeLXt1w0GI/AAAAAAAADf8/4_aWa4D_QEE/s1600/fry.jpg
Sorry Wil – the troll got under my skin. I should have just ignored him.
When I was in college I did a study abroad summer in London. My friend and I took a three day trip up to Scotland. It was amazing, It was a Highlands bus tour. I instantly fell in love. So beautiful up there. I’d love to go back again some day.
Um, actually 😉
If you were on a planet in the Alpha Centari system, there’d be one fewer star in Centaurus and one more in Cassiopeia, but the other stars would not move noticeably.
-DB, Pedant also.
Fantastic. I remember driving up through Skye many years ago and stayed in Dunvegan. The best time was driving a little north of the town off the beaten path and walking up a massive hill (not even a mountain). Just to experience the atmosphere with no-one around. Except sheep… and a sheep’s carcass just sitting there. Spooky.
Part of my family originated in Portree as legend tells.
And now you have to come down to the southern hemisphere and enjoy the stars down here.
There is plenty of scenery in New Zealand and some nice isolated lightless areas, (as seen in LoTR).
Heck,see if you can make it a working holiday and grab a role on the next Shannara or evil dead season 🙂
Or the local convention scene would love to have you.
So, you where nearly assimilated by the Bog?
It always helps to check spelling when trying to make a pun. Were not where.
I see your Scotch Traffic Horror card and raise you…
I’m commuting by bike in a Chinese city of 10,000,000.
You haven’t known terror until you dodge cars on the sidewalk, while a family of three on a silent (and brakeless, I shit you not) electric scooter bears down from behind, all while dodging shoulder-to-shoulder pedestrians. Did I mention the random sidewalk fires and toddlers squatting for a shit? Dogs on leashes? You’d think so, but no. Cray cray.
Moderated!
I got my swagger back.
I did say a poo-poo word two times, so understood.
Loved this, evety bit! Especially the part where you said never let truth, etc…Bardmaste, Kimo Sabe, bardmaste…
Love all the geek references! Almost the only thing on my bucket list is to see the milky way in the night sky with my naked eyes. No photography, not on tv or on a screen. Not through a telescope. Just like you and Anne did – standing outside, looking up at it. Thanks for sharing that Wil.
Great story, Wil. Your writing shines best when you relate real moments like this.
I love that you’re gallivanting around my country, and that you’re finding it just as tremendous as those of us born and raised here, but you are completely and utterly unable to accurately describe our accents 🙂
I envy your roundabout expertise (well a lot of other things also). My left eye is classified as legally blind so I avoid roundabouts. For me they resemble more obtuse angle than circle. All I know of Scotland is its scenic beauty and ghost population. I know that you ran into the beauty, wonder if you saw anything supernatural 😉 Glad it was a good vacation.
glad you had a great vacation.
be well,
me
Looks like it was a lovely trip. Too bad it ended so quickly. I wish you might have stayed for Essen 2016, which is this week. I know you have billions of con-s in the States and you guys in the US might be jaded about them, but I wish we could see some of the American ‘heavies’ in EU, too…
Thanks for sharing this, Wil. Sounds like a great time.
I spend a week every March in (well, around – where I go has no address, only latitude and longitude) Fort Kent, Maine. Lovely place where “on parle francais ici” signs predominate and you can see so many stars it’s unbelievable. Sigh…I miss it now. Soon, north woods. Soon.
I love this story. Your posts are getting me so excited for my visit to Scotland next June!! I need to start collecting fun and unique sights to see!
Enjoyed reading this post. Thanks Wil.