I’m clinging to the East coast from Edinburgh towards Dundee. There’s a spot I need to see in Stonehaven on the way to Inverness. It’s called Dunnottar Castle. Can’t miss tourist trap. It’s a 50 miles detour but fuck it.
I got rapidly bored on the A1, so I took a sharp right (ie: east -> toward the North Sea and potentially an imaginary scenic route) despite Waze’s desperate pleas. I gotta admit, Waze was correct: right isn’t always east. I’m rapidly lost in a one way country path littered with roadkills. Piles of’em. The bumpiness is unsettling. I could take one in the chin, admit defeat, turn around. Fuck no. I double up to the right. Waze is loosing its digital mind, trying to guide me back to the A1 as if we were heading towards Hell itself. I trick it by constantly changing our destination to the next town. It’s a battle between human and AI. I win. One for mankind.
Made it to Stonehaven. The parking lot is busy but the area is so vast, I feels almost alone. I can see the castle on the horizon, ruins rising above the dark sea, suspended in time.
It makes me think of a song:
« It was just like this, this time last year
There's nothing in the wind, just white up to the trees
And it's been that way for eternity. »
There’s a lions' den. The king Whatever owned a few o'em. The big cats must have looooved the climate.
BTW, it’s also haunted…
- Cliché?
- Sure. But sick… Gosh, I am starting to enjoy this shit.