On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Albatrossity in Scotland
Our final days in Scotland were spent near Edinburgh, although we didn’t get into the city since there was some large festival going on at the time and it seemed to be a zoo. On the way down to Edinburgh from Aberdeen we stopped and visited an ancestral site. My great-grandfather was born there, but when he was a young man in the mid 19th century, he emigrated to America. We shared a first name as well. My cousin,who is a dedicated family genealogist, researched the records and found the home site near Kinross in Perthshire. So we were armed with a map, and we proceeded to seek out that site and get some pictures to send to the rest of the family.
The ancestral estate name apparently dates back to the 1300’s, when the name was spelled Rentowle. What was left at the time we visited was a run-down barn and a sealed up two-story house. It is not clear if my great grandfather was born in this structure, but he was baptized in Orwell Parish in Milnathort, about three miles east of this site. A look at the most recent Google Earth images (from June 2018 and March 2020) would indicate that these structures have been leveled and something else is being constructed on the site.

House and barn as seen from the road,

This is the view to the east from the house; it would seem to be a lovely prospect, even on a rainy on-again, off-again day.

It was, of course, lightly raining when we walked up the hill to the site, so we ducked into the barn to shelter under what was left of the roof. A Barn Owl fled the premises as we entered. An omen, if we only knew what it meant!

This is a common bird in the UK, a Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus), which was feeding unconcernedly in the grassy area near the house.

At nearby Kinross we ate lunch (Elizabeth had a hamburger which, in typical Scottish fashion, seemed to have been fried, then boiled, and then left to harden into proper hockey-puck consistency somewhere overnight) and then visited a local lakeside trail, The lake (Loch Leven) was full of waterfowl and herons, including this Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula). This species finds its way to the coastal states of North America, but is very rare in the interior, so I was happy to study it and photograph it for a while.

On our last day in Scotland we visited another site that is a must-see for any visiting scientist, Hutton’s Uncomformity, on the shore of the North Sea south of Edinburgh. This is often referred to as the Birthplace of Modern Geology, and that is accurate. The juxtaposition of the rocks at this site convinced James Hutton (and subsequent generations of geologists) that the earth was far older than a few thousand years. This realization allowed Darwin, a few decades later, to formulate and support his Theory of Evolution.
The site is not well marked, and we made several false starts before we found it. The parking area from which one hikes to the site is behind a turnip canning plant, which was dutifully processing many turnips on the day of our visit. From there one hikes across a couple of pastures with resident cows and sheep, to reach this sign.

The slope from the pastures to the unconformity was steep and littered with sheep poo. This is the view back uphill from the seaside.

The Unconformity itself.

It was a glorious blue-sky day for our visit, and so after paying my respects to the rocks, I heaved myself back up the hill and got this shot of the rocks, the North Sea, and a miniature Elizabeth still exploring the rocks and tide pools. A most wonderful end to our time in Scotland.
Mary G
Unconformity is a great name. Your photos can look like paintings, especially the view from the farm, the duck in the water, and the unconformity. They are all amazing. Such a nice start to Monday.
Robert Sneddon
Edinburgh Zoo is out in Corstorphine, not Edinburgh city centre where the BloodyFestivalBloodyBloody was in full swing. (August, right?)
JPL
Thanks! What a lovely story, and the pictures are beautiful. It’s a nice way to start the day.
Albatrossity
@Robert Sneddon: Yes, early August.
Barbara
@Robert Sneddon: I couldn’t tell if that was tongue in cheek, but I have heard the festival referred to as being like a zoo.
The view from the house is gorgeous but imagine how isolated it would be to live there without even electricity, through the winter darkness.
Paul in St. Augustine
I like the capture of the Led Zeppelin album cover.
JPL
@Barbara: A few days without news, sound pretty good.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Great pics. I love the one of the ruined house with the flower in the foreground.
Robert Sneddon
@Barbara: As an Edinburgh resident for the past twenty years or so, the Festival is a mixed blessing. It brings in at least a billion quid of tourist money, elevates the city’s reputation around the world and generally is a Good Thing. On the downside, personally, I get an allergic reaction from all of the dust bunnies I inhale while hiding under my bed for a month.
Zoo, no. In a well-run zoo the animals are caged and the visitors act with some decorum. Festival Edinburgh is… imagine a month-long Mardi Gras on steroids and more alcohol, then double that and add in a hundred thousand people driving on, for them, the wrong side of the road. I have literally seen Festival tourists knocked down crossing the street and not looking the correct way when the bus sounded its horn (okay, they were distracted by using their smartphones to navigate but…)
stinger
Wonderful photos, as always. You and your extended family must be SO GLAD you got pictures of the house and barn. I’m sorry they’re gone now.
I love the Tufted Duck with raindrops and the grey-and-blue ripples of water and the orange eye!
cope
Thank you again for activating so many of my memories of Scotland. A lone mountain; a wee birdie amongst the thistle; your ancestral home (with a sheep fleece on the fence?); a wet, happy duck; steep, slippery cliffsides; beautiful blue skies and waters (rare but beautiful when they happen); and, the most holy of places to a geologist, the location where James Hutton is said to have first grasped the immensity of “deep time”, Hutton’s Unconformity.
Had you gone into Edinburgh, you could have gone to Salisbury Crags in Holyrood Park (a spur of Aurthur’s Seat) and seen the exact place where Hutton first realized that now solid igneous rocks were at one time molten. All his roamin’ around led Hutton (perhaps one of the most ponderous writers ever) to state about the Earth’s history that “There is no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end”
Thank you again for all your wonderful images of your Scotland trip. They make me feel happy.
MelissaM
You’re going to have to point out wee Elizabeth in that final shot.
Thanks for letting me tour Scotland. Now I really want to go there!
Barbara
@Robert Sneddon: Right, a well-run zoo lacks the kind of chaos that comes with being descended on by hundreds of thousands of tourists. As I live in the DC Metropolitan area, and my office looks out on prime protesting acreage, I know what it’s like to have thousands of out of towners suddenly show up. But here, there is almost always A LOT of security, and we lack the same kind of, umm, drinking culture, which seems to be as much a draw as as the other kind of culture on display in the annual Edinburgh festival. Scotland is high on my list of places to go next if I ever become so lucky as to be able to travel again.
Barbara
@JPL: Now, if only you could get rid of the peat smoke inside and the howling wind outside. A few years ago I visited Stockholm and went through an outdoor museum of rural Swedish life, which included a “typical” farmstead from the 19th century and earlier. It had one room and a sod roof, where everyone stayed. Swedish winters are long, Scottish winters only slightly less so.
JanieM
@MelissaM: Glad someone else can’t find Elizabeth either. I was starting to wonder if my eyesight is even worse than I thought
ETA: but as to the main thing, the pictures are lovely. I’ve been to Edinburgh at non-festival time and enjoyed it a lot. But I’ve never been elsewhere in Scotland and would love to go back someday and travel around a bit more. The wandering through fields to find the unconformity reminds me of things I was told were okay to do in Ireland — walking across private property in ways that I would never dream of doing in the US.
Citizen_X
Yay, Siccar Point!
cope
I forgot to acknowledge the fried hamburger reference. It reminded me that after having been camping in the highlands and rain for a couple of weeks, our group of geology students finally got to the big city, Glasgow. In a chip shop, one of my cohort stated loudly that he couldn’t stand any more fried fish and chips. He excitedly decided to go with the pizza listed on the menu. As we stood in line, watching our orders being filled, a worker pulled out a frozen pizza and peeled the wrapper off. Then, to the utter dismay of Mr. Pizza, he threw the pizza into the fryer. Mmmmmm, deep fried pizza. The Scots do have a way with hot oil.
greenergood
@Robert Sneddon: My pal commutes in from near Penicuik to Ed’burgh Waverley Station. it’s usually a 10-minute walk from the station to his office. During the Festival it takes anywhere from 30-90 minutes, depending on the level of madness.
The Moar You Know
The last awesome thing my wife and I did pre-COVID was spend two weeks over Christmas and New Year’s in Edinburgh. And I don’t give a shit what it takes or if we have to sell our home and every last thing we have; we are moving there. You’d think a couple of SoCal born and raised kids wouldn’t take to the place. Especially in the dead of winter. You’d be so wrong. Even in spite of this:
Been from one end of the UK to the other and nobody can cook a fucking hamburger to save their lives. I guess there were some mad cow issues because if you ask for one medium or rare your server will look at you like you’ve just ordered tire rims and anthrax and gently explain to you that they can’t, as it’s against the law and unsafe. Doubly frustrating as they’ve got the best fries – “chips” – in the whole world. Luckily, both the chicken sandwich and fish and chips are a more than adequate substitute.
Scotland is pure, uncut magic from one end to the other. I’ve never been so in love with a place in my life. Well, save the Big Island of Hawaii. That’s pretty epic too. But given a choice between the two, sorry, Hawaii, you lose.
JanieM
The hamburger story and the deep-fried pizza story both made me laugh out loud.
I had just about the best Chinese food I’ve ever had in Edinburgh (except for when I was actually in China). To be fair, I also had just about the worst Chinese food I’ve ever had in Edinburgh.
Sloane Ranger
The Unconformity reminds me of the Devil’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant%27s_Causeway
Caused by different processes I think but it’s lovely too, and well worth a visit if you’re in the area.
When we lived there in the late 60’s/early 70’s you were allowed to scrabble about on the rocks themselves but I think they’ve stopped that now.
Amir Khalid
@JanieM:
Have you heard of that famous Glasgow delicacy, the Mars bar dipped in batter and then deep-fried?
JanieM
@Amir Khalid: LOL no, but it sounds a lot like the battered deep-fried butter they have at the Iowa State Fair…. ;-)
ETA: I grew up in the midwest (Ohio) and never had clams until college in New England. I grew to love fried clams. Then the dining hall at my college served us deep-fried clam rolls. So clams, breaded and deep-fried, then wrapped in more (white, spongy) bread….You could just have left the clams out at that point.
Albatrossity
@MelissaM: The wee Elizabeth is in the far bottom left of the pic, just above and slightly left of a blue-water pool in the rock. It is easier to find her if you can enlarge the picture, which used to be the case if you clicked on it on the old BJ site, but that feature is busted on this version, it seems.
@JanieM: We mostly stuck to Indian food once we discovered that the natives didn’t really have much to offer in the way of culinary delights. An Indian restaurant in Kirkwall, Orkney, was almost certainly the place where we got the best food of the entire trip!
JanieM
@Albatrossity: I can see Elizabeth now that you’ve pointed her out.
Also, in both Firefox and Chrome (at least my versions) you can make the pics and text bigger using <control>+ (the plus sign), and put stuff back as it was with <control>- (minus sign).
WaterGirl
@Albatrossity:
It’s not busted – I just didn’t ask for that when I gave them my specs for On The Road.
@JanieM:
CMD+ or CTRL+ works on most websites, but it enlarges the entire page rather zooming in on the image.
That does get you a bigger image, but it doesn’t really get the result that Albatrossity is asking for.
RaflW
I’ve been very fortunate to have made three trips to Scotland, including just over a year ago. I’ve enjoyed each visit, and hope to go again some day.
The hamburger story is great. Last year, after a very nice visit to Dunrobin Castle, my friend and I stopped for lunch in the little seaside town of Golspie. It being the second half of October, and a weekday, things were quiet. We decided on a simple fish restaurant for lunch. For some totally inexplicable reason (he’s not a fish hater, we go to Wisconsin fishfry Fridays!), he ordered a steak. I gently cautioned him that we were at a fish place. He barreled ahead and soon regretted his choice. Oh well!!
Origuy
The only time I’ve been to Edinburgh was in Festival Season. I was incredibly lucky to get a room in a BnB on the bus line into the Royal Mile (there was a cancellation.) I was there to pick up the kilt I had been fitted for months earlier at a Highland Games in California. I went to the Tattoo and a few of the Fringe events. One of them was a one man show by an American with a guitar. I think it was supposed to be comedy but it was dreadful. There were only three of us in the audience so we couldn’t leave.
I went out of the city one day to see Roslyn Chapel. This was in 2003, before The Da Vinci Code came out so no one had heard of the place.
J R in WV
Wonderful photos, love the shot of the worlds first identified Unconformity.
Hutton was a genius, able to imagine things no one had ever thought of before. Rocks that flow, fold, can be upside-down. Imagine that!
There’s a great example of a huge fold in NE WV along side an interstate road cut, there’s even a foot bridge so people can cross over to inspect the fold in person. Or perhaps even a ramp one can drive on, it’s been a long time, and while I can picture the rocky fold perfectly, the surrounding highway not so much.
Betty
FYI, I can enlarge the photos on my Kindle.
Elizabird (aka Wee Elizabeth)
@J R in WV: I’ve seen unconformities in West Virginia, as well! And of course, once upon a time the Atlantic was closed and Appalachia and the British Isles were a continuous landmass… solid as a well-fried Scotburger.
WaterGirl
@Elizabird (aka Wee Elizabeth): I can’t recall what nym you used for your previous comment, but I love this one!
FYI, the first comment has to be manually approved, but after that your comments will sail right through. (Unless you use a new nym.)
J R in WV
@Elizabird (aka Wee Elizabeth):
The Geology in WV is fine, but covered with that green stuff, which makes the geology hard to see, compared with out west in the desert basin and range country. Plus out west there’s (relatively) new volcanism, while here in the east, not so much.
And the Atlantic is probably the biggest rift valley in the world!
way2blue
Albatrossity. So sad to learn that your ancestral farm buildings were demolished. At least you were able to photograph them beforehand. I love old stone cottages & barns. But. The barn roof did look a bit problematic…