When I was a teenager, my pals and I went off camping in Arran, which is an island off the west coast of Scotland. We arrived by ferry at Brodick and went off looking for a place to camp. We found a very nice place along the sea front to put up our tents, which was a peninsula, next to a golf course. We pitched our tents there, and spent some time beachcombing and playing football, if I remember well, and then when it got dark, we decided to go to the local town for a drink. We decided to take a short cut across the golf course, and it was completely black, and none of us had a torch. We set off anyway, across this completely dark golf course, which we didn’t know had some burns – ditches with little streams at the bottom – running across it. So we were marching along merrily towards the pub, when splish!, splash!, splosh!, we found ourselves knee-deep in water after falling into one of the streams. We dragged ourselves out and continued onwards to the pub.
The pub was nothing special, but we had a few drinks there, and when we finally got back, taking the road instead of returning across the golf course, we couldn’t find the tents, or even the peninsula on which we’d camped. “What’s going on? What’s happened? Where are our tents?” we asked ourselves. It turned out that the area where we’d set up the tents wasn’t really a peninsula at all, but that when the tide came in it became an island. So, the tide had come in and cut us off from our tents. For the second time that evening we got wet feet, as to reach our tents we had to roll up our trousers, take off our shoes and socks and wade across to them.
At the time I was living in Elgin in the district of Moray, which is quite a nice area in the East of Scotland. It’s famous for not having any thunderstorms. It has the fewest thunderstorms of anywhere in Britain, and is also well known for its whisky, as it is in the heart of the whisky distilling area, and has much fertile land for growing barley, and nearby there are hills where there is peat and fresh spring water, which you need to make whisky. So, all of the famous whiskies come from there, like Glenfiddich and Glengrant, for example. There’s a shop there where many of them are bottled, called Gordon Simpson’s or something like that, and this shop sells about five hundred types of whisky, all from local producers. They have really special whiskies there, some thirty years old. In this shop we found a bottle which was produced at a distillery which I used to live next door to, called the Longmorne distillery, and even though we lived right next to this distillery we had never sampled its produce, so we bought a bottle. It was awful. It tasted like paint-stripper!
Another time I went camping was on the Isle of Iona. We camped in the north-west corner, I think. Iona is a very special island, which is historically important because Saint Columba lived there and founded a monastery there – he was the man who brought Christianity, in the form of the Celtic church, to Scotland, from Ireland. The story goes that he left on a very small boat from Ireland and stopped on another island further south and wanted to settle there but discovered that from this island they could still see Ireland, so they moved on to Iona, from which they couldn’t see Ireland, so they wouldn’t feel homesick.
It’s a very beautiful island, with the monastery, a very nice mediaeval church, and beautiful, very ancient rocks, which, due to the movement of the geographical strata, consist of lovely, pretty, marble-type old rocks. There is a very special, unique, magical atmosphere there. The water surrounding the coast is very clear and blue, and there are some wonderful clean beaches there, with little rock-pools dotted about with little fish, crabs, and starfish in them, and lots of seaweed and driftwood scattered along the shore.
The weather is amazing, as it changes every fifteen or twenty minutes, so it can be pouring down with rain one minute, and then bright and sunny the next.
Anyway, we camped in the north-west corner where there is a farmer who lets you camp on his land, which is basically a strip of grass next to the beach. It’s a lovely sandy beach with lots of driftwood, so we made a fire there and sat around it cooking soup in an old pot that he lent us and baking potatoes in the fire, drank a bottle of whisky, walked up and down collecting nicely shaped pieces of driftwood and watched the sun set on the horizon.
Holidays in Scotland
1. Where did Joey and his pals go off camping?
2. What was special about the place where they put up their tents?
3. How did they spend the day?
4. What were their plans for the evening?
5. Why did they decide to go across the golf course?
6. What did the course have?
7. What happened when they were marching across it?
8. Did they reach the pub after all?
9. Which way did they get back?
10. What did they see when they got back?
11. What did the area turn out to be?
12. What did they have to do to reach the tents?
13. What was that district famous for?
14. Why is the region so perfect for distilling whisky?
15. What did they buy in a specialised whisky shop?
16. What was it like?
17. What was another place he went camping in Scotland?
18. Why is the Isle of Iona so historically prominent?
19. Why did Saint Columba settle on it?
20. What can you find on the Isle of Iona?
21. What about the sea surrounding it?
22. What is really amazing about the weather there?
23. Where did they camp?
24. What was that part of beach like?
25. What did they do there?
Holidays in Scotland
Training 1
Joey and his pals went off camping in an island off the west coast of Scotland. They arrived by ferry. Then they found a nice place along the seafront, which was a peninsula. When it got dark, they went to a pub. They took a short cut across the golf course, which had some little streams. So, they were marching along, when they fell into one of the streams. They dragged themselves out and continued onwards to the pub.
Training 2
When they finally got back, they couldn’t find the tents, or even the peninsula on which they’d camped. It turned out that the area where they’d set up the tents wasn’t really a peninsula at all, and when the tide came in it became an island. So, the tide had cut them off from their tents. For the second time that evening they got wet feet, as they had to roll up their trousers, take off their shoes and socks and wade across to the tents.
Training 3
At the time he was living in Elgin in the district of Moray, which is in the heart of the whisky distilling area. It has much fertile land for growing barley, and nearby there are hills where there is peat and fresh spring water, which you need to make whisky. So all of the famous whiskies come from there, like Glenfiddich and Glengrant, for example.
Training 4
Another time Joey went camping was on the Isle of Iona. Saint Columba, who brought Christianity to Scotland, founded a monastery there. It’s a very beautiful island, with the monastery, a very nice mediaeval church, and very ancient rocks. And there are some wonderful clean beaches there, with little rock-pools dotted about with little fish, crabs, and starfish in them.
Training 5
They camped in the north-west corner where there is a farmer who lets you camp on a strip of grass next to the beach. It’s a lovely sandy beach with lots of driftwood, so they made a fire there and sat around it cooking soup in an old pot that the farmer lent them and baking potatoes in the fire, drank a bottle of whisky, walked up and down collecting nicely shaped pieces of driftwood and watched the sun set on the horizon.