Fourth-Level Ferry Remote

fourth-level ferry remote

Restoring Balintore Castle has given me an unprecedented understanding into the meaning of the word "remote".

The first description of Balintore Castle I read featured the word remote and it seemed dreamily romantic. Certainly, my first visit to the castle, driving in darkness late on a snowy winter's evening, felt like I was on an odyssey to the end of the world.

Cut to a couple of years later, when I visited all properties in the vicinity, to ask for views about the looming wind farm development on the hill opposite the castle.  I walked to a nearby house, I knew, down a country path and talked to the occupants - at that stage it was a mother and son.

Whilst chatting I spotted a farm even further down the path, that I had never seen before. Again I talked to the occupants. Whilst at the farm, I spotted a small cottage even further down the glen and realised that Balintore Castle was not remote after all, and that this cottage won the remoteness prize.

There was a lovely young lady renting this cottage, who somehow commuted to Perth every day. Vehicular access stopped at this point, but a narrow footpath snaked to the head of the glen, and I surmised that by following this path I would probably climb a hill and then drop down into a neighbouring glen. However, the small cottage was the furthest extent of my journey, but I realised that the footpath could take me into even more remote territory.

I once explored the country round the castle and found the remains of a mediaeval healing well. There was once an abbey nearby. The flood plain at bottom of the Glen Quharity, which contains the castle, once grew linen for funeral shrouds. How on earth was there so much activity in this remote part of Angus? I realised that in past and in mediaeval times no-where was remote (in modern terms) i.e. there were no railway lines or motorways to be remote from. 

There is a spectrum of remoteness and not an absolute remote and this spectrum depends on our place in history, and where we live. There is an illumination to be had from travelling on this spectrum. Spiritual retreats, after all, have a tendency to be remote.

I once had an AirBnB booking cancelled on the grounds that the castle was "too remote". I was irritated by the fact that the guest must have known the location of the castle before booking it in the first place, and of course the question "Remote from where?" springs to mind. I think I was sufficiently irritated to impose my philosophical musings on the guest. "No-where is remote", I insisted, "if you chose a suitable starting point.

I have just returned back from a holiday visiting a friend on Orkney. Mark lives on the outer isle of Westray, so you have to take a ferry to the capital Kirkwall on the "mainland" or biggest isle of Orkney, and then a second ferry to Westray.  So, in terms of trips on a series of increasingly smaller ferries, Westray can be described as second-level ferry remote. 

Mark often talks about the small neighbouring isle of Papa Westray or Papay as it is known by locals. Mark's father and grandfather were involved in the history of Papay, and he talks about Papay as if it were a fabled lost continent. On this trip I had the opportunity to travel to Papay for the first time, so naturally I grabbed it with both hands. As I walked down the harbour on Westray to get the ferry to Papay, I picked-out the ferry as the biggest boat there: right at the end of the pier. Then a few moments later, I discovered I was actually already standing by the ferry and it was tiny. 

the Papay ferry

Papay ferry (interior) - the crew sit atop enormously high "driving" seats

Papay is third-ferry remote.

There is a small island off the east coast of Papay called the Holm of Papa which houses a unique breed of sheep that lives on seaweed, and a chambered neolithic cairn. Naturally, I wanted to go. You have to book a boat trip with the Papay ranger, but unfortunately we did not manage to organise this.

The Holm is fourth-level ferry remote. I suspect that it does not get any more ferry remote than this, and instead of boats and island of ever decreasing sizes, you simply get less frequent services of bigger boats from bigger islands. For example, there is a Papay to Kirkwall service once a week.

So the combination of islands and ferry services defines an integer measure of remoteness. Remoteness does determine lifestyle: life on the smaller Scottish Islands is very different to what most British people are used to.

There is a genuine comforting sense of a self-policing society which provides a greater level of safety. Given the number of random police raids on Balintore Castle of late, I felt much more at ease on Westray which has no resident police force.

Police travel to the island would be a major undertaking, and filter out such terrorising activities as a complete waste of tax-payer's money.

I am hoping to write more about the trip to Papay, but my mathematician's utter thrill at almost achieving 4th level remoteness, won the race to publish.