Jamie Whittle's Blog
Flow tripping
Until I went to America in 1993, I’d never experienced road tripping. Until then, a drive through the Drumochter Pass south to Edinburgh was an endeavour rather than a joy, the car stocked with sleeping bag, shovel and soup, anticipating a night caught in a snowdrift. In Scotland, it seemed, people didn’t drive extensive distances for fun. In America, as I discovered, the road culture is different.
My first road trip was from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to Charleston, South Carolina. The distance of some 220 miles or so in one direction didn’t make it a test of steely endurance, but it was enough of a stage to allow an adventure to unfold through a series of unplanned encounters and experiences. Neither of us owned a car, and being under 25 presented insurance issues with the main car rental agencies, but the aptly-named company of Rent-a-Wreck came up trumps with a raspberry coloured Ford saloon (the interior was raspberry as well), without air conditioning and with iffy windscreen wipers.
We had one cassette for the journey – the Allman Brothers Band A Decade of Hits 1969-1979 – but that music (“Ramblin Man”, “Jessica”, “Little Martha”, “Statesboro Blues”) embodies the spirit of the road like no other. I tried chewing tobacco for the first time, Doritos and root beer, although I can’t say I’m partial to any of these. Over time, my road palette has matured towards Dr Pepper and McCoys salt and vinegar crisps (available at most good Scottish garages).
Conversations during road trips must rank as about the best. Somehow even the world’s most complex problems find resolution between fuel stops. There is an intensity to being on the road that I love, a feeling of movement and teamwork (sharing the driving, one filling the car with fuel the other gathering supplies of junk food, the all important roles of DJ and navigator), where with time and distance the cooperation becomes seamless.
Like any journey where we set off without a fixed agenda – perhaps an apex, an end point, but space in the middle to fill spontaneously – through the logistical challenges and pit falls there to test our mettle, there is the chance for cohesion to align itself, the fleeting moment of something beautiful, a glimpse of the promised land.
The day after arriving at our destination in Charleston (a friend’s student house), a tropical storm set in. Rain of a force I’d never seen before (even in Scotland!) hemmed us in for the day. Sitting under a tin roof listening to jazz records, request after request, that was the first time I heard John Coltrane play his soprano saxophone. The flight that is “My Favourite Things”. Looking back, listening to Coltrane as the rain beat down on that South Carolina tin roof was the single experience which defined that journey.
On Friday past, my wife, hound dog and I decided to head North into the space of Sutherland. Our apex the River Borgie, and our quest to explore some beaches we had never been to. Most of the time I reach the Tore roundabout from Inverness, I take the second left heading for Torridon or Ullapool. Third left we went and onto Allness, up over the top to Bonar Bridge, to Lairg and the single track that begins – a narrow road to the deep North. Mackay country. Ben Klibreck (spying a possible ski tour). Geese on Loch Loyal.
Then that defining moment. The opening of the Kyle of Tongue at low tide, the sands stretching out from the sea like some West African dream, the setting sun silvering the north cliffs of Ben Loyal.
I won’t dwell on the detail of the beaches we found, as they are there for others to discover without prior description. As for the return journey, turning at Melvich for Helmsdale, through the Empty Quarter with its flow-rolling greens and distant blue peaks on a high pressure day, I have no doubt that Scotland is the most beautiful and proportionately varied country on Earth.