Scortlund, where they speak accent with hint of English.
Dateline Scotland
Saturday, 21st June, 2025
Series 2, Instalment 4
Aye Laddie we’re in Scortlund!
It is a beautiful day in a fabulous part of England, a farm near the tiny village of Abbeytown near the west coast and just below the Scottish border. Our Airbnb hosts are charming and very interested in our travels. When they learn that we are ex dairy farmers they offer to have us meet up with their brother/brother-in-law who owns the very prosperous looking dairy farm that surrounds us. We tentatively agree but as you will see later, the plans change unexpectedly.
To start our day we leave all but the essentials at our temporary base and make our way past Carlisle, in search of Hermitage Castle. Sally’s mother’s family were the fearsome border clan, the Eliotts and though there is no record of them ever owning the castle, they were definitely associated with it’s defence and the defence of Scotland against the invading English. When we find it we are met by a brooding, menacing edifice, a preserved but unrestored monument to Scottish defiance at the entrance to a highland valley. It conjures images of wild eyed, bearded clansmen in kilts with Claymores and pikes in fearsome, murderous battles to the death with the invading hordes. The castle has been used in more recent times as the scene for various movies including the acclaimed “Mary Queen of Scotts” of 1971.
Hermitage Castle
Sally’s family were the Stobs branch of the clan and there was also a Stobs castle at one time which was definitely the home of the Eliotts of Stobs (that is the correct spelling for this branch of the clan by the way. Other branches of the family added an extra “l” or removed a “t”) However Stobs castle was long ago demolished stone by stone and the materials reused for houses and barns. We think there is nothing left when quite by chance Sally catches a glimpse of something in the trees as we ride slowly up a dirt track circling what we believe to be the location of the castle. There, completely overgrown and abandoned is the remarkably complete gate house and entrance arch to the Stobs estate. How it has survived this long we don’t understand. How Sally noticed it in the dense bush is close enough to a miracle!
All that remains of Stobs Castle.
After this remarkable and uplifting experience we think our day can’t get much better but most unexpectedly it does. While sitting in a cafe in the nearby village of Newcastleton we get a phone call from our mate Billy “Bike Truck” Ward. He knows we are somewhere in the area and invites, almost pleads with us to attend the premier of his latest TV documentary at an upmarket restaurant in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, about an hour and a half away. “What the hell, why not?” Soon, still dressed in our bike gear, we are rubbing shoulders with the cocktail set. The film itself is quite a hit with the small crowd of local dignitaries and film industry folk. Our mate Charley Boorman is also on hand to give critique and support. You can catch the trailer for the show here https://youtu.be/WNPwU6Eep0o but suffice to say it is awesome and really shows the Northumberland area in a fresh light. We wish Billy and the crew all the best with this and future endeavours. The only downside to all this excitement is the show doesn’t finish till after 10.00pm and we literally have to ride right across the country from east to west to get back to our base. Fortunately this is England so right across the country is only about 2 hours and we are tucked up warm in bed shortly after midnight.
Scotland beckons us north so on another glorious British summer day of 20 degrees and brilliant sunshine we ride out through endless acres of lush green farmland, cows standing in postcard perfect fields bordered by stonewalls and farmers bustling about on all manner of tractors, harvesting hay and silage as far as the eye can see. Several times we are confronted by 250hp of John Deere towing a 40 cubic metre silage trailer at breakneck neck speed down a very narrow country lane. We have to squeeze the bike into the hedgerow to allow it to pass. Heaven knows what car drivers would do in this situation.
When Sally and I travel we rarely follow the tourist routes, preferring to stick to the back roads, visiting the small towns and villages and meeting the genuine townsfolk along the way. We also rarely book accommodation till we have some idea where we will be that night. This system, or lack thereof, has served us well….until now. A last minute booking at what appears to be a quirky little cabin turns out to be a disaster. The location looks great in a forest by a loch with views to mysterious misty mountains. The reality is a five mile ride down a rutted, potholed logging trail to a dirty, smelly, mouldy, rundown shack with junk all around. To get electricity we must poke pound coins into a slot and firewood is available if you gather your own and pay five pounds for the privilege. There are no towels or toiletries and naturally no wifi or phone coverage. By the time we realize just what we have let ourselves in for it is far too late to find an alternative so we make the most of a crappy situation, try to get some sleep, register our disappointment with the host and leave early the next morning.
It looked so good on line!
The good news is we get a refund for the unused night. The even better news is that after a pleasant ride through the Scottish Highlands our next two nights are spent in one of the best stays we have ever had, on a farm near Tain, north of Loch Ness (didn’t see any monsters): )
While Sally spends the day with our charming host, walking the dog, going into town and generally chillin, I head west to Applecross on the wild and windy west coast. Getting there involves crossing the whole country, again, but the scenery gets more spectacular with each passing mile. From the shores of Loch Ness I climb steadily into the Highlands.
The magnificent Scottish highland.
The verdant forest recedes and dramatic barren mountains rear up beside the road framing exquisite blue lochs. There are stone walls and ancient stone buildings standing testament to the hardy people who have farmed here for centuries.
Ochh aye! The scenery!
To get to Applecross one must first traverse the Applecross Pass, said to be the steepest, narrowest and windiest road in all of Great Britain. I can honestly say it is one of the more challenging bitumen roads I have ridden but the view from the top is beaut. And the fish and chips in Applecross are pretty special.
Applecross Pass
From here I follow the utterly spectacular coast north for about fifty miles but the road is so narrow that I am compelled to pull off every time I meet an oncoming vehicle so I bail out and head back right across the country again. Next morning we pack reluctantly and head south. The realisation that we have a looming date with a ferry has struck so we limit ourselves to one day in Edinburgh but we manage to cram in most of the sights including a tour of the castle
Edinburgh Castle
and a Hop-on-Hop-off bus ride which coincidentally took us right past Tasmania’s latest and greatest embarrassment The Spirit of Tasmania IV tied up in Leith harbour waiting for the Tasmanian Government to actually provide a wharf for it to dock in Tassie!
Tasmania’s greatest embarrassment. Hundreds of millions tied up because we forgot to build a suitable docking facility!
A couple more days of grinding out the miles with Google Maps set to “Avoid Motorways” and we see vast swathes of the English countryside slide by. We stop briefly at Hadrians Wall, built nearly 2000 years ago as a defensive fortification at what was then the frontier of the civilised world during the reign of emperor Hadrian, then ruler of the Roman occupying force in Britania. It didn’t work of course, walls never do, and Celtic reivers were known to strike deep into Roman territory on a regular basis.
Hadrian’s Wall
Some of the villages we pass by are regularly featured in British TV programs like The Vicar of Dibbly, Father Brown, Midsomer Murders and others.
Hardwick Hall built by Bess Hardwick in 16th century. A true rags to riches story, she was once the richest person in England.
We stop in at many small towns, talk to lots of locals and Sally takes every opportunity to hand out details of our blog to everyone and anyone who is willing to listen, and a few who aren’t. To be fair though almost everyone we have met has been super polite, helpful and shown a genuine interest in our travels.
Tomorrow we catch the ferry to Calais and a whole new chapter to the story begins. If Europe is as good as the UK we can’t wait.
