2025-05 Scotland Highland

As being very tight on the time for Scotland, we went to highland on a day trip. I am very happy we did it.

The trip is from 7:45 am to 8pm. While being a day trip means lots time spent on shuttle, it is a lot better than I would expect. Our guide and driver, Keith, is very a knowledgable gentlemen. He started with the intro of the highland with a low but firm sound: between highland and lowland (edingburgh) there's very distinct barrier, Highland Boundary Fault.

It's so distinct that you can even see from the GoogleMap as if earth surface is folded near the boundary. 300 - 400 million years ago, Caledonian movement(加里东造山）, in Ordovician(奥陶纪), pushed along the north plate to meet the south lowland, and glacier was carved a lot. The ancient continent was ripped away and spread. Appalachia mountains and Norway Fjord are highland's sisters. They used be the same mountain range.

After passing by some green hills and river, the shuttle entered a much bleak highlands: gentle hills are wavy and huge, but not high, covered with very little trees, just dwarf bushes and yellow grasses. As for the little bumps spread among the spacious flat area, Keith explained that they are formed by glacier moraine, basically depositing stones along its movement to form a pile.

I thought I understood glacier moraine after visiting Rocky Mountain national park last year, but apparently not. What I remembered about the bowl under the giant mountain is actually cirques (Photo nps.org).

An interesting but often-ignored fact: you can't see many trees around Scotland highlands. Is it due to the barren soil, or something else? Is it always as bald as it is now? ChatGPT gave the answer about human deforestation is the main cause, and even around 10,000 years ago it is covered with old growth forest.

After all in old days, even Hyde Park was reserved for royal hunting, which you can hardly imagine be used for hunting in 19th century.  

"Right in front of us on the left side you can see some distillery along the road, with its iconic pagoda shape chimney." Keith mentioned. At this point, I already know the Whisky production is mainly about barley, but the bareness and harsh climate on highland makes me ask: "Are they able to produce enough barley for Whiskey production? "They would collect that from other places."

In the afternoon, we finally were approaching the highlight of the landscape. I have already been to many world-class landscape, but I am stilly amazed: it's so unique. The giant glacier forming grandness reminded me of Rocky Mountain and Aspen, but a lot more spacious. The hills, after millions years erosion, looks like a stern man but age makes him shorter and a bit amicable.

Misc

Cotton Grass, a cute little white flower on highland, would flower in May or when the temprature is warm enough. Local people take its flowering as an indiciator of the start of the summer. Didn't get a chance to take a close look.

We stopped at the Loch Ness, joined a Curise trip which is a bit underwhelming.