With a Little Help From My Friends: UK 2023, Day 05

After exhausting everything we could possibly see and do in the Borders (please tell me that by now you get how absurd that statement is) it was time for us to pack up the tents and take our little circus deep into the wilds of Scotland. Our cozy little village, Hexham, could easily have played out for a full week; we never actually even touristed the stuff in the village, of which there are a few interesting options. Once again our budding mantra: “next time.” The agenda for today is to go full tourist. It’s roughly a four hour drive to our next stop, so the plan is to take our time and see the sights as we head north. Easy, right?

Actually I gave you a little rope-a-dope there – in fact, it was totally easy. No muss, no fuss. More than one of us thought that just taking in the gorgeous scenery counted as a totally-worth-it vacation day, so it wasn’t hard to enjoy ourselves. First up was an attraction that we’d passed up as being too out of the way on day 1 (when our friends were pooped), but it was on our route north this time. Jedbergh Abbey is an interesting place – it’s essentially the skeleton of a grand building, with absolutely no meat left on the bones. We used to reminisce on a lovely man who responded to our query with “what happened to it?? Henry the Eighth is what happened to it!”, which always made us giggle a little. The truth is a little weirder though – the Abbey was basically a constant target of abuse, primarily by the English whenever they felt the need to put their thumb in the eyes of the Scottish. As a result, going back to 1297 CE there were a couple centuries of burning, sacking, undermining, and general hooliganism until the Abbey reached the state that it’s currently in. It’s still a beautiful structure to poke around in, in another quaint village (sorry locals, but you know what you are)

We left Jedburgh and made it into Scotland proper. By the by, if you’ve wondered about us saying we were in “the Borders” from time to time, that’s the name of an actual Scottish municipality right at the bottom of the country. It’s technically true, if I read the tea leaves properly, that the English bit south of the Borders doesn’t count, but more than once we heard someone use it in reference to an English location, so I defer to the locals. Anyhoo… lunch was unmemorable, alas, but we were eager to get to our next stop.

Funny story. Somehow we crossed our wires on what it was we were going to see. Lisa and I are great admirers of the late Charles Jencks, although his primary gig as an author is mostly unknown to us – we love his amazing land-form works of art. However, when we were narrowing down the lists of where we wanted to visit, there was some kind of mix-up. And so, expecting to see some whack-a-doo contours in the landscape we were at first mystified and then amused that Cairnpapple Hill is nothing of the sort. It is in actuality a Neolithic henge monument(!). Whoops. Now, we enjoy a good henge as much or more as the next folks but it was a definite sudden sharp left turn on the ole expectations highway. Heads screwed on straight we proceeded to the shack-cum-visitor-centre. See, the site is in the middle of nowhere, and in the hills of Scotland that is saying something. Extraordinary measures had been taken to preserve the site, a concrete dome having been erected to fend off the winds of a wide open hilltop as well as the constant rain. The visitor centre is likewise cut off from everything; I’m not sure how the electricity gets there but the nice woman who was working there did let on that she made do with a chemical toilet – ye gods and little fishes. (She was a very nice young lady and did a great job explaining the place to us especially considering that she was only there because her normal digs, at the last home of Mary Queen of Scots, had been the victim of hateful graffiti – no description necessary, what immediately popped into your head is exactly correct.) The monument was a very strange experience. It is by all accounts a genuine site that has been preserved as best as could be. However, between the giant concrete dome looming over you and the fact that they apparently cemented the stones into place (presumably as they were found buuuut…) it had a strangely artificial air to it. It’s not nearly so egregious as, say, what the Brits did to Knossos, but it still has a bit of a theme park feel to it – Epcot Center Presents Ancient Scotland!

We made it to our digs not long after – the Dunalastair Hotel in Kinloch Rannock. You’ll grow tired if I keep calling places “quaint”, so let’s go for picturesque. A small, tidy square surrounded by our hotel, a chapel, and a couple of residences, then a bridge over the river which leads to the main church in town and the combination general store-post office; that and the homes of the people is it. We hit dinner at the hotel restaurant, Monadh, for a good+ meal and then settle in for the night.