Motoring On the Road in Scotland OF the thousands of
uniqw.. place-names in all Great Britain, bid especially in Erigland, there is none more apt than Scotch Corner, none simpler nor more suitable. He must have been a, writer of romances .as well as a traveller whO -first gaie its ..name to that dot on the Great North Road, whence if you keep straight on you come to Edinburgh, if you turn to the left you come to Glasgow. There are still a good Many miles of England to cross, whichever you choose, and, as many wise people say, some of the very. best of all, but once you have arrived at that fateful cross=roads you are bound for Scotland. .
Perhaps you- think there is nothing in that, that it is obvious that if you keep on going north long enough by any road you are bound to get there sooner or later, that this unknown romantic might just as well have made it Berwick-on-Tweed or Gretna Green, or even London. Look on the map and you will see how right he was. Although the Border lies 100 miles away in one direction and 75 in the other, it is plain that Scotch Corner is the outpost of the frontier. Was it an Englishman or a Scot who gave it that name ? _Would a Scot have spelled it in the way so many of his countrymen today regard as a national insult ? Would an Englishman have called it Scotch Corner rather than English Corner ? After all, you must pass it to get into England. I am convinced it was a Scotchman who was responsible for it. There are Scots, real ones, who not only think no shanie of the traditional English spelling but actually maintain that it is the correct one.
This great landmark lies on the course laid by every sensible wanderer in summer, very properly regarded as the end of -the Great North Road and the beginning of adventure. - Strictly speaking, of course, the Great North Road goes on to Berwick and even beyond, I have .been told, possibly to Edinburgh, but you will seldom hear of it called by its: name after Scotch Corner. You choose your turning and forget it. Due North lies the Wall and the wonderful road over the Cheviots, North-west the road to the borders of the Lakes country and Solway Firth. It is decidedly a place of emotions. Which way is it to be ? - • Of course it does not matter at all. For one of the main charms of Scotland is that, within reasonable- limits, you must go where you can and not always where you would like to. It might seem to be less of a charm than a draw- back, , but anyone who knows those loch-side roads and the little ways that run up the lesser glens only to come to an end in solitude and surrounded by boulders, compelling you to come back the way you went, will reassure you. It is the difficulty of planning a tour. to IOW You-every- thing that makes the country. so attractive to those who are used to straightforward roads which all lead. some- where. If you start by the westward route and go North by the Lowlands and _the Western Isles, the time will come 'when you will find iourself coming ,..doWn the eastern road, from Perth to -Edinburgh' and over the Cheviots. You must be really very.careless to miss Much of Scotland.
country of It. is a country of ageless youth. . Year after year you come to it expecting it to be the same, and every time you find a new Scotland for your delight. Perhaps youth is not the right word for a country so ancient, but it must serve. What it is intended to convey is that it has an evernew freshness. You set out for Braemar, not so much because you want to go there as because you have to-tackle.the Spital of Glenshee and the Devil's Elbow on the way. The arrival is nothing to the journey. You imagine that the superb climb up into- that narrowing crack in the hills will provide you with the same thrills as last time, whereas it does nothing of the sort. You find a new Spital, a completely strange Elbow, and from that last inspiriting hairpin bend, where yob drop neatly into second and put her round it to the heartening accompani- ment of protesting tyres, your outlook over the grim valley below shows you a picture you have not seen before.
Whose description of the waters between Islay and Mull is anywhere near actuate, a year after 5) I have seen the Sound of Jura in June looking like a mirror that has been faintly breathed on, a veiled blue radiance under the noon, sun, its tiny breakers soundlessly fingering the little boulders on' the shore of Kintyre. Ten minutes later appeared all manner of rocks and islets as by magic out of that bright sea and the whole picture was transformed. Clear Outlines showed where the Paps raised their heads and looking south you saw others that might, you hoped, be the Antrim mountains in Ireland. It was more likely your imagination, but what of that ? An hour later the wind shifted three points and added a dozen miles of water to the Sound.- - Jura and Islay betook themselves into the distance and you found yourself on intimate terms with a colony of oyster-catchers on a rock at your feet. If it changes a dozen times a day, who can tell you what it is really like ? You must go again and again, returning each time with a new picture to store in your memory.
Plan a cross-country journey to John o' Groats, going up from Oban, along the incomparable Loch Linnhe to Ballachulish and Fort William, turning eastward at Spean Bridge for Loch Laggan and the Highland Road at Newtonmore. The Highland Road, of all Scotch highways, is the one most vulnerable to attack by dead things like new houses. There are stretches of it that might easily look suburban. Yet you may drive the whole of the southern half and think much less of the roadside villas than you would of so many cairns. The northern half is the best and you will make a fine drive of it from Carrbridge to Craggie. The last time I saw it I did not recognize it. So strange did it look that until it crossed the Findhorn I wondered whether by some glorious chance I had lost my way. You see I had not been there for eight months. From Inverness take the road across Ross and Cromarty to, Gairloch and follow that sea-road to Dundonncll and Ullapoi51, across to Lairg by Oykell Bridge and so up to Burnes and the most northerly road in Great Britain.
As a matter of fact I would not go as far as John o' Groats, which is not a very lively spot, but I would turn south at Melvich and come down to the coast road at Hehnsdale. From here you have an invigorating run by the sea to Golspie and your circuit of Scotland—or one of them—ends by the long road that leads you from Forres to Aberdeen, down the coast to Dundee and so back to Scotch Corner by Stirling, Edinburgh, Melrose and the splendid climb up over the Cheviots at Carter Bar.
These are but half a dozen of the great routes of Scotland, one only of as many tours. These notes would need to be ten times as long to tell you of them all. The point you must be prepared for is that no matter how often you drive over this or all of them, not one will be the same the next time. Scotland is, in reality, a very large country.
JOHN PR1OLEAU.
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