Durness

 

Durness. 

It is a small but picturesque town on the west coast in Northern Scotland. Mike made a trip there when he was here for a week in March. And he brought back pictures of fabulous hot chocolate and a very cool cave. So, it being a weekend with no other plans, and wanting to take advantage of the time we have here, we decided to make a road trip.  It is 71 miles from Thurso to Durness. It took 2 hours to drive it. Here is why.














Two lanes about half the way to Durness. Then one lane, with no road

markings at all, but with "passing places" the rest of the way. ("Passing places" are a little wider area on the side of the road- sometimes hardly noticeable without the sign telling you so).  Now, granted, there were "passing places" quite often on the road. But the thing is, the road is windy - there are curves the whole way. Every once in a while, you can get up some speed (50 mph) but you quickly have to slow down either because 1. you have come to a curve in the road or 2. You have come to another car on the road and one of you has to stop and pull over at the "passing place."  

see the wide space on the left side?

It is actually not unlike the regular driving streets here. There are often 2 lanes to drive in, with a lane for each direction. However, there is often parking on one side of the street - in the driving lane! And so, as we have learned, if you are driving in the lane that also has the parked cars, then you are the one who yields. We have learned to pull out and go around a car or three, then pull back in to let a car go by  that is going the other direction.



Oh!  And the driving/parking lanes? The cars can park either direction!  So, you can have cars parked nose to nose on the street!

  I have decided that the UK drivers are very polite. They are very good at yielding and know when it is their turn to do so.

At one point yesterday, early on in our trip, Mike had to pull over for the oncoming car on our single lane road, and he paused ever-so-briefly, and then pulled over to wider place in the road (the "passing place") that was on the right side of the road. Now, that normally would make sense, having 45 years' experience driving in the US, but it kind of confused the oncoming driver!  Turns out that the etiquette is this: whoever reaches the "passing place" first is the one to stop. But HOW you stop is dependent on the side of the road that the "passing place" is on. If it is on the left  side, you pull over and into that extra space. But if the "passing place" is on the right and you get there first, you just stop at the left edge of the road, and the oncoming car will pull into the "passing place" and go around you.   And it is courteous to give a little wave to the passing driver as you pass each other.



Every now and then we drove through countryside that had no fencing or stone walls, so the sheep and cattle roamed freely. That is where you had to watch carefully. The sheep are mostly white (except where they are marked with a colored spray paint for ownership purposes, I think) but there are also white rocks in the fields, so they look a lot alike.


While we passed quite a few sheep right next to road, we only came across them in the middle of the road on the way home. And they did not want to move. He/she seemed to be giving us the stare-down as we both were in the middle of the road looking at each other. Finally he/she gave way and we went on our way.

The drive was fantastic. It was all along the coast and the terrain kept changing.

 The wind was horrible, though!  I think it was around 50 mph! " 'a wee bit breezy,"
a local said.











Here is the hot chocolate we drove all this way to get. It is basically liquid chocolate poured over the inside (and dripped down the edge) with steamed and brother milk added to it. Mmmmm.
Very satisfying after combatting the wind.


And of course, we brought home bags of dark chocolate shards. Mike brought some back to the US when he was here in March, and it was the BEST!  So, not planning to make that drive again any time soon, we got 3 bags. :). 

Did I mention that this is a chocolate factory?  There were women behind a glass door making chocolates. And they sold them there. And the woman at the food counter kept going back behind that glass door to refill the liquid chocolate to put in the hot chocolates.  And you really would not believe that there is a booming chocolate factory in this little town way up north.
 (you can barely see the tiny building behind me in the blustery picture above. It is both the chocolate factory and the tiny restaurant.




 They advertise that they ship worldwide. I am including this information in case you just need to have some really good chocolate some time soon. I cannot recommend any of the formed chocolates, as I did not have any of them. I did, however, have some of the bars that Mike brought home in March, but trust me on this - you really just want the shards. Milk chocolate or dark. ( But I recommend the dark).

 

Church
We have attended a Baptist church nearby. And when I say 'nearby,' I mean 4 doors over!  It literally takes us about 30 seconds to walk there!  And it does not look like a church. I do not know the story on that yet. It does have a basement. However, we have attended there 3 of the 4 Sundays we have been here (has it really been that long already?). 

Their service is VERY family friendly. There are small children walking up and down the aisles smiling at adults who are smiling back at them. And their children and youth have participated in the worship times every week. I was surprised by the contemporary music, though. I thought there might be a little more hard structure to it, being Baptist. They have a brand new (to them) minister who just started there himself two weeks ago. And the women have reached out to me already and invited me to coffee/tea with the other ladies. They meet at the Pentland Hotel on Thursdays at 10:30 (in the bar area - LOL). I will join them this week. Last week I was taking a quilting class!

After church and lunch today, we went to the Caithness Horizons Museum, downtown Thurso, which, surprisingly, is open on Sunday. Most things are not. There was a big display on the Dounreay site, which was actually quite interesting and answered the question I had just asked Mike - "Why did they not refuel Dounreay instead of decommission it?".

 I took a picture that answers that question. You may be able to read it if you zoom in. And if you are interested.  The museum also talked a lot about the area - the animals and the sea and the flagship slate and the peat. It was all very interesting. Especially having just been through the peat bog last week.






Well, here are a couple of more signs we came across yesterday. Signs you may not have seen at home.

Yes, it seems obvious, but isn't it fun?

We don't know what this means. Suggestions?

And phone booths in the middle of virtually nowhere