Katie and I spent a week driving around the Scottish Highlands in search of treks, castles, and whisky. The trip was mixed. The highlands were just as beautiful as expected, though the attractions requiring trekking were sparser than expected. The long history of Scotland and its castles were intriguing, especially since I’ve been coincidentally listening to hundreds of hours of a podcast about English history. Visiting the origin of scotch whisky, my preferred liquor, was educational and tasty. The driving, however, was rubbish.
Treks
Our itinerary was centered around the Isle of Skye in the far northwest corner of Scotland. There, Old Man of Storr is an iconic monolith split from the cliff behind which makes for epic views (see above). Quiraing, gave me Iceland vibes (see cover photo), where it was sparse yet heathered, rocky but not foreboding, cold yet not frigid, and by golly there were sheep everywhere. Neist Point Lighthouse was iconic, absurdly windy from the vantage point, and quite far, which was an issue (see Google Maps, EV section of this post).
Fairy Pools, also in Skye, is a series of cascading pools where fairies are said to reside and tourists sometimes swim. We learned that some Scottish fairies are reddish-coloured full-sized humanoids who shoot arrows while riding horses backwards. Unexpected. We also visited the Fairy Glen, but we got drenched by rain there.
Outside of Skye, our centerpiece trek was Ben Nevis, which, at 1345 meters, is the highest peak on the British Isles. However, due to my apprehension about afternoon showers and my general overenthusiasm, we set off far too early at 7:30 am, becoming the third party to summit that morning. This transformed a straightforward gentle climb into an blustery, frigid trudge straight into the clouds. It was a physically challenging but meditative experience, and although we missed the best views and were forced turn back immediately to avoid hypothermia, it was kind of awesome. We did catch some views on the downclimb as the sun burned off the cloud cover.
I’ll also mention Meall a’ Bhuachaille in Cairngorms National Park was our first trek. It had the classic highlands feel and decent vistas, but it wasn’t as impressive as later stops. I shouldn’t have been underwhelmed, because apparently Meall translates to little rounded hill.
Castles
Coincidentally, I’ve been binging the History of English Podcast, and it was a fun pedantic framework for me ponder the cultural sites we visited. Half linguistics and half dense political history of England, the podcast expounds upon the cultural ramifications during the reign every English monarch and beyond. Scotland is oft mentioned as a steady cultural influence with tints of Gaelic, Old Norse, and Scots. Stirling Castle, our first stop, was described the gateway to Scotland and near the site of an influential 1297 battle.
Ballindaloch Castle, near Cairngorms, was a less prominent castle that seems actively inhabited. Like the other castles, the garden and grounds were just as important as the fortified building, and we especially appreciated the gardener’s cottage. Urquhart Castle, on the shores of Loch Ness, served as an entertaining museum of ruins. However, I was most impressed with Loch Ness, which is 23 miles long, is so deep (it’s a flooded fault) it holds more water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined, and is definitely is home to a giant serpentine cryptid. Later, on the way in and out of the Isle of Skye, we just took distant pictures of Eilean Donan Castle, which rests on an island at the confluence of three lochs. We elected to only view Edinburgh Castle from afar, instead walking the tourist and other scenic districts of the capital city.
Not a castle, but the main building of the University of Glasgow felt like a castle, or at least something befitting Hogwarts. We had 15 minutes to browse the Hunterian, a public science museum which honors the renowned early Scottish obstetrician. Due to being tight on time, we missed the castles around Glasgow in favor of Kelvingrove and the city center.
Also not a castle: the Glenfinnan Viaduct is a beautiful curved bridge with 21 concrete arches. It carries the Jacobite Steam Train, already a scenic ticket in itself, but this spot was made especially famous in the Harry Potter films as the Hogwarts Express. Tourists here leaned strongly towards the pop culture type.
Whisky
To be honest, the whisky factor convinced us to choose Scotland over other destinations. I only started drinking meaningfully when I was around 27, the result being I’ve basically never been subjected to low-end booze. Especially thanks to the generosity of Katie, my dad, my older brother, and friends like WenJie, instantly I was spoiled by top notch single malt scotch whiskies; Lagavulin 16, gifted by Katie, was my second bottle at home!
We decided not to spend two full days negotiating the ferry to Islay, but we we still plotted our course to visit distilleries. This trip, we enjoyed tastings at five distilleries. We started at Glenfiddich in Speyside, one of the last family-owned distilleries. It commands an outsized market share; they boast their classic Glenfiddich 12 (my first owned bottle) is the best selling single malt worldwide. We swung by Macallan, which bucks against tradition and is housed in a space-age distillery with an undulating green roof. On the Isle of Skye, we had a single dram at the bar of Talisker, and then visited the young distillery Torabhaig. We paid a dedicated visit to Oban, a classic on the west coast. We last visited the touristy Scotch Whisky Experience in Edinburgh, which is totally hokey and geared towards newcomers but still produced well.
My alcoholic palate has matured in six years, a development of dubious distinction. During this trip, I sampled twenty expressions (if generously counting tiny sippy cups at the airport too) and I definitely prefer peated scotches over bourbon and Irish whiskey. Talisker 10 was revelatory, the best value for a challenging peated whisky I’ve tasted yet (we snagged 1L at the airport for £50). Though technically a Highland whisky, coming from a west coast island akin to Islay it’s much more in line with the signature Islay style. It’s punchy peat-smoky, sea-salty, citrusy sweet, and peppery, kind of in that order; and also totally different with drops of water. Compare that to Glenfiddich 12, which I liken to clear, pear-like essence of Speyside; or Oban 14 which reminds me of gentle smoked salt sprinkled on citrus fruit; or most bourbons I’ve tried in which I get easily overwhelmed by the spicy oak-vanilla finish.
Our culinary planning focused on whisky. As is our habit while on the road, we didn’t especially plan restaurant meals. We kept it simple with lots of trail/car park sandwiches and local specialties of haggis, black pudding (with HP sauce), fish and chips, steak and ale pies, and cask ales. We had heaps of haggis, actually, and I never grew weary of it. Twice we had takeaway fish and chips from dedicated chippy shops, and both were superb. Always trust establishments which serve solely one product!
Hot tip: make dinner reservations in Scotland. Also, why is hot sauce nonexistent there?
EV
As a prelude, Glencoe was a singularly breathtaking scenic drive. Too bad we couldn’t drive the whole valley because we had to turn around to conserve mileage
EV, as in Electric Vehicle. I’d mentally prepared for driving in the right seat of the car upon the left side of the road, but I did not learn to drive manual. Hertz only had fully electric vehicles left for automatic transmission and dispensed a Polestar 2. I predicted that charging in remote areas would be challenging, but the counter agent reassured us with an app displaying a map of densely distributed charging stations. We’d already spent an hour in the queue and paid in full. Unfortunately, the experience was far, far worse than expected. Having the EV singlehandedly ruined our entire trip.
The charging infrastructure was grossly misrepresented by what the counter agent quickly showed. We were given a Shell EV fob, but no Shell charging stations were along our route through the highlands. The bulk of remote stations were of the national network ChargePlace Scotland, but we tried and failed to use three separate stations before learning that WebPay was broken for the majority of remote stations and instead required we set up a Wise account (international currency converting service) and dial the help every time we wanted to connect and disconnect the vehicle (can’t download the ChagePlace Scotland App on a non-UK phone), a cumbersome and error-prone procedure. The two times we tried plugging into conventional household sockets failed. We were nearly stranded in northern Isle of Skye when locals and apps suggested we rely on a remote private station in Uig, but it was actually broken.
The charging speeds were overestimated, with chargers rated 22kW delivering sluggishly, so 3 hours for charging from 20% to 80%. None of our lodging plans had accessible chargers, so we were forced to find a station to leave the car and/or waste our precious holiday dawdling in a parking lot for adequate charge. In sum, having the burden of managing the electric vehicle cost us 2-4 hours/day of extra planning and lost time, resulting in us missing several planned stops and a lot of lost sleep. During one fit of insomnia I even watched videos on how to drive stick in case we could trade cars in Inverness…
Highland charging stations charged at 0.7 £/kWh, and when we returned the car uncharged (we didn’t allot charging time), we were charged £47.88 for 60% at 1.2 £/kWh, both far above the 0.32-0.4 £/kWh average national price. In sum, we spent about £211 total on charging, substantially above the expected petrol price of £113 for 1000 miles driven (using 160 pence/liter, 44 miles/gallon for Ford Fiesta, 0.82 USD/GBP).
That being said, I still stand by Hertz as a strong rental company, and their initiative to convert to an electric fleet is admirable. Nevertheless, forcing road tripping renters to take an EV is cruel. It’s a radically different paradigm that takes dedicated planning. We’re short on time during holiday, we’re probably driving long distances to remote locations, and we obviously don’t have a home charging station. Until the infrastructure catches up, they must firmly delineate between combustion and electric vehicles.
Itinerary
September weather in the highlands is wet but temperate. Absence of midges was pleasant. Our itinerary, bogged down by the EV:
- Friday, Day 0: 10:15 pm flight out of JFK
- Day 1: land in Edinburgh Airport, rent EV (ugh). Stirling Castle, Snow Road drive to Cairngorms
- Day 2: Cairngorms, Speyside distilleries. n.b. some distillery experiences sell out, so plan and book early
- Day 3: Inverness, Loch Ness, drive to Neist Point on Isle of Skye, stay in Portree
- Day 4: Skye treks
- Day 5: Fairy pools, Skye distilleries, drive to Fort William
- Day 6: Ben Nevis trek, Glen Nevis, Glenfinnan Viaduct where last train passes around 6:10 pm
- Day 7: Glencoe drive, Oban, Glasgow – Kelvingrove and University, city center
- Day 8: Return car at EDI, Edinburgh – Castle, Royal Mile, Princes Street, Deans Village, downtown
- Sunday, Day 9: morning flight to JFK
