... in Islay and Ben Nevis

The Adventures of the Anonymous Two in Islay and Ben Nevis

 

It was at Christmas that Boyfriend and I discovered that not only did we both drink Laphroaig, but were also the only people we knew – other than family – who had heard of both it, and its originating island of Islay.

Back then we had tentatively decided that one day we would go to Islay. We were both Friends of Laphroaig – which meant we had a lifetime lease of one square foot of Islay land, and were entitled to annual ground rent from Laphroaig, in respect of this one square foot, of one dram of whisky - provided this was collected in person.

We had been planning to climb Ben Nevis at the end of August with my training group, but this trip was cancelled due to not having enough people to go. So we decided to do the climb ourselves try and include this in the same 4 day trip to Scotland that would take in Islay.

As I had a birthday imminent with a zero at the end, and had been making various subtle murmurs about getting a big present, Boyfriend decided that I could have an early present of a GPS device, having rather envied the one Rod had for our Bavaria trip. This is a Global Positioning System and uses satellites to locate your position with a 10 digit grid reference, which basically pinpoints your position on the globe to 1 square foot. The GPS can also direct you to a destination if you enter a grid reference to go to, or simply pan the map to find, and mark, where you want to head for. It includes an altimeter and barometer, gives details of your moving and stationery time, distance travelled and speed. It can even draw pictures of your route and height changes.

We flew from Southampton to Glasgow and collected our courtesy car – a silver Vauxhall Astra – before driving to Tarbet for the night. This was only a few miles up the road from Kennacraig port where the ferry to Islay sailed from but is reached from a long a circuitous driving route.

Quite early on we needed to cross the Erskine Bridge, which has a toll. As we had to pay to go over it, I commented that it had better be a good bridge. The drive took a couple of hours along windy roads that hugged the shore line of lochs. When going through Inverary we went passed the old jail as well as a rather spectacular castle and wished we had longer to look around.

We wound our way on, arriving at Tarbet at around 7pm. We quickly found the hotel (there awas only one street and about 8 buildings in the town) and settled in. Dinner was a high priority. As it was raining we fortified ourselves with a drink at the bar, and then headed off round the harbour to find food. On the other side of the harbour was a restaurant that we had read about – The Anchorage. Apparently the food was excellent, and feeling that we well deserved this, we went in.

 

It was a small and wonderfully cosy restaurant with very pleasant and attentive service. Boyfriend had herring with wholegrain mustard to start followed by sea bass. I started with smoked salmon served with crème fraiche and horseradish. This actually compliments the salmon remarkably well – but is probably a combination that would never normally occur to you to try. Although on the banks of Loch Fynne and therefore heavily into fish, I veered away from this for the main course to indulge in mignons of fillet beef instead. The food was indeed superb. We also had wonderfully tasty and fattening desserts. And this is how the problem began. On the back of the dessert menu was a list of available whisky.

It included several single malts we had never heard of, as well as some Islay whiskies that we had never heard of.

A small tasting session was in order. We started with the two new Islay ones – Lagavulin and Bunnahabhain. They were very different. The Lagavulin, like Laphroaig, is a south coast whisky with a very strong peat flavour. The Bunnahabhain was unbelievably smooth and gentle. Now feeling like connoisseurs, we moved on to a taster of Springbank and Talisker.

At this point we discovered that the man on the table next to us was also working his way down the list. His wife, however, didn’t like whisky at all. Between us, we then started comparing notes.

We had already had the Islay whisky Ardbeg, but decided to have some a shot anyway and, based on a recommendation from our host, Highland Park. This wasn’t even on his list, and was reputed to be the best whisky in the world. It was certainly an incredible drop, mixing the familiar warmth and kick in the back of the throat associated with whisky with a smoothness like silk. It was an Orkney whisky, and we felt a trip to the Orkneys coming on. The host, presumably with one eye on the increasing bill, was bringing bottles out of the cupboards, brushing off the dust that had settled on them as they hadn't been requested or on the menu for such a long time.

While we were still capable of reading, he produced Michael Jackson’s malt whisky companion. This man has tried every malt there is – and, judging from the picture on the cover, certainly looked like a man who had drunk a lot of whisky. He gave intimate details of each whisky, even for each age that was available.

After a few more samples of our favourites, we staggered back to the hotel where Boyfriend had the enlightened idea of a nightcap.

We went up to the room, and I woke up some time later with the lights and TV still on, and both of us lying on the bed in a state of partially undressedness.

The following morning, feeling a little worse for wear, we went down for a full Scottish breakfast. The table was wooden and rather cleverly built so that there were gaps in which starfish and shellfish had been put in Perspex. The dining room overlooked the harbour, which was being beaten by the rain.

We devoured our fried breakfast, which included the obligatory black pudding, and prepared to head off to the ferry port. Finding someone to pay was unnecessarily arduous and Boyfriend wandered all over the place trying to locate someone, anyone. Eventually a lady appeared who was willing to relieve us of some money.

As we drove to Kennagcraig it was still raining. Hard. The ferry port was tiny – not much more than a conveniently placed outcrop of land. The rain eased, and we watched the ferry approach.

 

I took my GPS onto the boat – the ferry crossing is two hours long and I decided that it would kill some time to learn how to use it. We also purchase a couple of books about Islay and its whiskies which also helped to fill the time. Despite the changeable weather the crossing was remarkably smooth and uneventful.

 

We went outside as we saw land approaching. During the crossing you can always see land, but it’s going past rather than coming to you. The ferry was going to Port Askaig which is at the top end of the island. We had decided to land at this one and return from Port Ellen on the south coast in order to force ourselves to travel across the island, rather than just park up in a distillery for the day. The arrival and departure ports was also slightly dictated by the limited sailing timetable - which was currently the more frequent summer service.

 

Having tasted Bunnahabhain the previous evening we decided to visit their distillery. We accidentally took a wrong turn and visited Caol Ila distillery instead, but corrected ourselves and moved on.

 

The Bunnahabhain distillery is in a beautiful location at the end of a tiny, windy, single track road that is only maintained so well because of the regular tanker traffic. We visited the shop and parted with vast amounts of money on a bottle of whisky as well as a few novelty products.

Islay has two ‘legs’ to the shape of the island and we decided to go down the non distillery side to Portnahaven just because it would be rude not to. The Bruichladdich distillery is part way down this road. According to our information it was no longer in production. Driving past, we saw that this information was out of date.

Beyond the distillery the road deteriorated incredibly - a clear indicator that there were no more distilleries beyond. As all that lay at the end were a couple of struggling fishing villages, for which maintaining the road was not an island priority. Islay’s population has decreased considerably, and many houses and villages contain several derelict, crumbling properties as people left to seek their fortune on the mainland. These twin villages had many such buildings. It made the quiet towns seem somehow more remote, more desolate.

On the way back we drove past cows wandering in the road and calves suckling. We decided that we would have to pop in to the Bruichladdich distillery. It was a little difficult to find the shop from where they directed us to park, but we did eventually stumble across it.

The distillery was bought several years ago by a large conglomerate that almost immediately closed it. But when they locked it up, they left all the casks of whisky there. For seven years it was mothballed. Then the local people emptied their piggy banks and bought it. The lady in the shop was married to the former - and now current - master distiller who had had a wonderful time re-discovering all the old whiskies that had been locked up for all these years.

We asked if we could sample some of the product. She gave us a 10 year old, which was very nice, and very different to the other Islay whiskies we had tried. She then said we must try the 15 year old. She was mindful of the fact that Boyfriend was driving, but still gave him a hearty helping. The 15 year old was wonderful. In support of the local distillery, we parted with yet more money as the crowds of tourists came in.

I should perhaps mention at this point that we were bunny hopping around the distilleries with the whisky drinking populations of Japan and Sweden.

I should also mention that just for fun, the whole journey was being clocked by the GPS.

We headed for Bowmore where there was a whisky shops that we wanted to visit.

There was also, of course, Bowmore distillery. As we had never tried Bowmore we only bought a miniature, just in case we didn’t like it.

 

The whisky shop turned out to be a Spar that happened to sell spirits. It was cruelly disappointing.

As it was well passed lunch time, we bought a couple of pasties and flapjacks from a local baker and wandered in the sun along the harbour eating them. But time was pressing on. Our ferry back was at 6pm and we still had three distilleries to visit.

The road from Bowmore to Port Ellen is long and straight. According to our Islay book there is a temptation is to put your foot down. However, it advises against this as the road is built on peat, and has several areas of subsidence, which seriously tests the suspension of your vehicle. As it was not our vehicle, Boyfriend thought it would be fun to see just how bouncy the road was. Let’s just say, the book was right.

There were occasional swerves to dodge sheep that had wandered into the road, but quite soon, shaken and also rather stirred, we arrived at Port Ellen and followed the road round to Laphroaig.

Our purpose here was simple. We wanted to visit our respective plots. We went into the visitor centre to claim our rental fee of a dram of whisky, and were given instructions about how to find the plots. There was also a box of national flags so that you could plant a flag on your designated spot.

The plots are in a field opposite the distillery. The basic principle is that you go to the top left hand corner of the field. This is plot 1. If you take a step back toward the distillery this is plot 2, but if you took a step into the field away from the distillery this would be plot 1001.

 

My plot was 187944. I therefore had to take 187 paces towards the distillery, followed by 944 into the field. It was not an exact science. I also ought to mention that the field has possibly never been mown and was full of knee high grass. Slightly damp grass.

The whisky drinking populations of Sweden and Japan were also wandering about the field, taking very precise steps and with very serious expressions. They were obviously more concerned than we were about getting the exact spot.

It was hot and the field was full of flies and midges. Eventually we both found what we thought were our plots. I have since discovered that Friends of Laphroaig can look on the website, put in their plot number and as if by magic an aerial photo will appear with an arrow marking the exact spot. Had we known this before it would have saved a lot of trouble. It also showed that we have planted our flags in the wrong place in the field.

 

We returned to the distillery to collect the certificates acknowledging that we had claimed our ground rent for that year, and headed off to the next distillery, Lagavulin. At this point I realised that a midge had bitten me on the forehead resulting in a large, red, hugely swollen lump which quite naturally bothered me enormously.

We arrived at Lagavulin to discover that it was closed. We felt cheated. Boyfriend was particularly disappointed as he rather liked this whisky and was hoping to avail himself of a bottle.

Thinking that we had approached distillery closing time, we hurried along to Ardbeg – the last unvisited distillery on the island. The sign outside said it was open from 10.00-4.00. It was now 4.15. We wheel span into the car park – and saw the door was open. Determined to get there before they shut we catapulted ourselves into the shop before they had time to say 'och no'. The day had been saved.

 

We drove back to Port Ellen to wait for the ferry where I also wrote out some postcards. While waiting we arranged our collection of whisky, glasses and water jugs in the car to prevent breakages. It was at this point that I wondered how exactly we would fit all this in the suitcase for the flight back. The thought had also not previously occurred to Boyfriend.

The weather had been very kind to us all day – having rained that morning, our day on Islay had been warm and sunny. As we waited for the ferry the rain started again.

 

On the ferry ride out Boyfriend photographed the three south coast distilleries from the water. We were due to drive up to Fort William as soon as we arrived back at Kennacraig. As the ferry crossing was two hours we decided to eat on the boat to both get it out of the way and save time on the onward journey. Boyfriend opted for the fresh fried fish. He had to wait for this and when it arrived, although very nice, realised that it was freshly fried rather than fresh fish.

We retired to the bar for a drink and wrote some more postcards.

The crossing went quickly and we were soon back at Kennacraig. Looking at the map to decide on the best route up to Fort William we opted for the most direct way, straight up the coast. We had also reasoned that this would be scenic. According to the GPS sunset was not due until 10.12pm so we would even get most of the journey completed in daylight.

The journey along the coast was beautiful, and did not in fact take as long as expected.

We arrived at Fort William and found our hotel. As we had changed our plans shortly before leaving for Scotland to include Ben Nevis, I had tried to find a hotel in Fort William rather last minute. Everywhere I tried was either fully booked, or could only do one of the nights that we needed. Finally one place came back with availability. It was horribly expensive, but having little other option, I accepted.

July is obviously a peak walkers month – you can never guarantee good weather in Scotland, but have a slightly better chance of it in July.

We were shown to our room which had the most enormous bed I have ever seen. There was an adjoining bathroom which had a sealed letter box on the door for reasons which Boyfriend and I could not fathom. There were also several lamps, and in order to create some ambience, we decided to turn some of them on.

The first one I tried had a switch and I assumed that one way would be off and the other way would be on. In fact, in the middle was on, but the switch wouldn’t stay in the middle. I passed the problem to Boyfriend expecting him to also struggle with this, but he turned it on without the slightest problem. And even grinned slightly at his achievement.

I then attempted the standard lamp. I turned the switch – nothing happened. Boyfriend’s grin became a slight laugh. I sighed and slumped slightly. This was an easier problem to solve – the switch at the plug was turned off.

I refused to try and create any more lamp ambience.

We ventured into town to force down a few drinks, and get our bearings for when we finished our climb up Ben Nevis. I tried to find the pub we had gone to when I last climbed Ben Nevis in October. We went to the wrong one first, but eventually got to it – it was called The Ben Nevis, which really should have been all the clues I needed.

It was here that Boyfriend discovered Lagavulin 16, and we were therefore pleased that the distillery had not been open as we might have bought a younger Lagavulin instead.

On the way back to the hotel we found where the whisky shops were, our plan being to shop first, then mountain climb as this would ensure that we weren’t being rushed for time on Ben Nevis.

We breakfasted early in order to make the most of the day, opting for a full Scottish breakfast which included both white and black pudding. We also had scones, and I had porridge while Boyfriend had cereal. Boyfriend had been reading my Monroes book the previous evening, as a result of which he had selected the route up. The chosen route was up the back of the mountain, rather than the usual ‘easy’ path up. This also had the added benefit of bagging another Monroe on the way.

We headed into town to stock up on whisky, postcards and gifts before driving to the foot of the mountain at 10.20am. We had decided to do the initial part of the walk quite briskly in order to get some time under our belts. We therefore went at an unnecessary speed up to the loch, just over 540 metres up. The walk starts at about 45m above sea level, so this was quite a pacy hike.

Once at the loch our path separated from the main track. As navigation was required for the rest of our climb, I put in the grid reference of the point where we needed to cross the river. We then headed off down the ravine, losing over a hundred metres in height which we knew we would have to make up and tried to keep our eyes off the very sharp, steep hill on the other side of the ravine. We were walking in particularly boggy terrain, boggier than usual following recent rain. The ground was covered in red moss that was beautiful but also very strange looking.

We got to the river and quickly discovered that the stones we needed to walk across were extremely slippery, not helped by our boots being very wet already and therefore having less grip than normal. Boyfriend managed to slip into the water up to his knees. We were a little further up stream than the grid reference suggested in the Monroe book for crossing. So we went downstream a bit and did in fact cross very successfully at the advised point.

Once over we both attended to calls of nature next to the stream before filling our water bottles from it. In hindsight this was probably all done in the wrong order.

I also took advantage of the stop to apply some lip gloss, a glittery one no less – not because of any particular desire to look good while mountain climbing, but because my lips were getting dry and I had forgotten to bring any lip salve to Scotland. Boyfriend laughed.

Having crossed the river, we were now faced with the very steep up on the other side of the ravine to get onto the ridge.  I put in a new grid reference and we headed up into the rain and mist.

The ground was this side was equally wet and marshy. Occasionally you could hear torrents of water passing through peat channels underneath your feet, and could sometimes even find a gap through which this could be seen. We had seen some people going up stream at the level of the river, but had seen no one else on this side of the mountain. Vast numbers had been climbing up the normal path.

 

The grassy slopes soon became rocks, which were actually easier to climb, although there was the risk of them being slippery. We both agreed to be careful and not break any ankles. Ben Nevis is a very poor mobile phone signal area. For such expeditions there should really be three people as minimum, the theory being that if you have a casualty one person can stay with the casualty while the other goes to get help. We did however have a hip flask of  Laphroaig. We decided that in the event of injury, the injured person downs the whisky, their wound is bound and they keep going – although we did also have a well stocked first aid kit with us.

At times we must have been close to the top of the cloud, as there were moments when it was still misty, but also sunny at the same time. A very curious, ethereal light. We got to the grid reference which indicated that we were now on the ridge, and I put in the reference for the top of the first Monroe.

The mist was very thick in places, so I used the compass to confirm our direction of travel. We then picked a visual point a few metres ahead, go to that and then repeated the process. We were aware that on either side of us were increasingly high and sheer drops and that confident navigation was vital.

The GPS is better than a normal compass in one major area. You can quite easily set a bearing on a normal compass. However, if you stray off the direction of travel, even slightly, the bearing given by the compass immediately loses accuracy.

Furthermore, you need to be very sure about where you are on the map in order to get an accurate in the first place. With the mist obscuring your view, this can be very hard to do. The GPS gives you a 10 digit grid reference so you can find exactly where you are on a map. Also, as the altimeter gives your height, you can locate yourself quite well up the contour lines. Once you have put into the GPS the grid reference you want to go to, the compass will indicate your direction. But with the GPS if you do move away from the straight line between the two points, the compass will re-adjust to take you to the destination grid reference as the device always knows exactly where you are currently are, as well as where you want to go and can therefore constantly re-adjust your direction of travel.

Boyfriend and I were very good at continually checking the direction given by the compass, and sticking to that. One of the major reasons for people getting lost is that they don’t believe the compass, and go in another direction.

As we headed up towards our first Monroe the mist lifted for a few minutes showing us the path ahead. It was up hill, but with quite a sheer drop down one side. On we went.

 

We had bought a couple of pies in Fort William and planned to have a pie on the summit of each Monroe. The hill we were climbing was one of those disheartening ones that has several false summits. We got to a cairn and stone shelter that we were sure marked the top of the Monroe, but on checking the altimeter, we were 100m short. We settled in the shelter, and ate one of the pies anyway, needing a change from jelly babies before heading onwards and upwards.

Now and then we saw the slightest suspicion of a path, which we would follow until it ran out. There were also occasional cairns, which helped to confirm that we were going the right way. I headed towards one of them only realising at the last minute that it indicated the edge, and that in fact we needed to take a sharp right hand turn to stay on the ridge.

We did at last reach our Monroe and rewarded ourselves with a sip of Laphroaig.

 

It was slightly unclear where the onward path was. We were on the top of a spiky mountain. All around were steep down hills. However, the compass ruled, and we also saw another slight hint of path and headed down it.

Here the ridge really did start to become a ridge. Although the ridge was reasonably wide, the bit that could actually be walked/climbed over was considerably narrower.

We were losing more and more height, knowing full well that this implied an unpleasant amount of steepness at some point in the future in order to get up Ben Nevis.

 

The ridge obviously became too impossible to continue over the top, and the path directed us onto the outside edge of the mountain. This was an incredibly dangerous part of the climb, and it was probably a good thing that the valley below us was full of mist. The slope was very steep and there was no path. We had to clamber along over slippery grass and equally slippery boulders. We kept heading round them, aware that any slip down the hill could be very serious.

We also had no idea where the ‘path’ was meant to get back onto the top of the ridge. As were taking the alternative way up Ben Nevis there is no clear path either on the ground or marked on the map. Eventually we did come back round onto the top of the ridge and saw on the route ahead a very narrow, sheer sided ridge linking our current mountain to Ben Nevis. For a moment we were unsure if that was where we were heading, but soon realised that was going to be the way.

 

This ridge was only a couple of metres wide with the ‘usable’ part very narrow. Nor was it flat on top, but quite bouldery, and we needed to clamber across it was best we could. Again, the mist frequently lifted affording us a clear view of the mountains, and drops around us. We sat in the middle of the ridge and ate our other pie being much in need of sustenance.

 

We were soon over the ridge and on the back of Ben Nevis. According to the GPS, the summit was not far away. It was however, 200m up. And the way ahead was a wall of huge boulders. We crab-climbed up them and had gone some way when I noticed that there was a path next to us. We needn’t have been excited, as this soon petered out again. There were way occasional poles as well, and we followed those thinking they might also indicate the way. We passed a pole on the edge with a notice to say that there were abseil poles running down the mountain at that point.

The mist was thick, and again we were working from the GPS, trying to locate a visual point to head towards. The climb was steep and we were tired. The boulders were huge, as were the gaps between them so care was required to ensure that we didn’t break any bones.

 

At 6.30pm we got to the top. I have been up Ben Nevis before, but was quite disorientated about where the summit point was from where we stood. The mist was very thick so you couldn’t simply have a look. We could hear voices, so walked towards the sound of them and there indeed was the summit, where we had another sip of Laphroaig.

 

We mooched around for a few minutes, and then began the long walk back down the main path which soon started making our knees ache. The GPS was drawing us a picture of the route we had taken, and showed us when we reached the point at which we had left the main path. There were a number of people still going up the mountain as we came down.

We filled up the water bottles again at one of the many steams going down the mountain, and eventually got back to the car at 8.20pm. Fortunately we had not lost the car key on route. We were very achy.

We had been walking for 6.5 hours, stationary for 3.5 hours, climbed a total of 1840m and travelled over 12 miles.

We returned to the hotel and showered, stretched, and changed before heading into town for some much needed dinner. This was a curry, mainly because there was virtually no one serving food by time we got into town. It was perhaps not the best move given the effects the black puddings had already had on our systems.

While we were there two chaps came in and were given a table next to the window. The manager closed the blinds – it seems that he does that at about this time every evening. One of the men opened it again. The manager came over and closed it again. The customer then said that if the blind was going to be closed, then he would go. He muttered various things about shutting out God’s daylight. I wasn’t sure that God’s creations would be a huge priority to a Muslim owner, but that was beside the point given that very little of the Omnipotent’s daylight was left.

Anyway, he did indeed leave the restaurant meaning his friend rather reluctantly had to aswell.

Virtually asleep, we finished our meal and went back to the hotel. I packed as much as possible that evening. It was quite a struggle to get all the whisky and glasses into the suitcase in such a way that would ensure no breakages. The suitcase was certainly a lot heavier now.

The next day we drove the long drive back down to Glasgow, through the highlands, and passed Loch Lomond. At Glasgow airport our suitcase got a special ‘heavy’ label which included an image of a man with a bad back, by way of extra warning.

We arrived back at Southampton airport where Boyfriend could not find his car park ticket. I remembered Bavaria, but fortunately, after emptying our luggage we did locate it.

We had enjoyed it so much that we intended return each year to do a few more Monroes.

NOTES

The above is a true story. Some of the information about places visited is sourced from a variety of guide books. The author maintains rights over all other content.