I'd also like to point here that driving 478 miles in a single day is not a particularly sensible thing to do if you're more accustomed to the daily commute. Yours and the safety of other road users should always be paramount. If tired take a break and never drive more than 2 or 3 hours with out taking a break of at least 20 minutes to recover and refresh yourself.
So with the health and safety advisory out the way its on to my final destination Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Monastery & Centre for World Peace and Health.
Kagyu Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Monastery
Set in the stunning scenery of Eskdalemuir. The temple offers a programme of weekend courses and teachings in Buddhist philosophy and meditation with accommodation available in a peaceful and tranquil setting. It also welcomes day visitors and provided the prefect setting to retune myself from the magic of the North Coast 500 back to the realities of everyday life.
Founded in 1967 at a former hunting lodge known as Johnstone House. It was the first Tibetan Buddhist Centre to be established in the West and was named after Samye, the very first monastery to be established in Tibet.
Today it's home to a residential community of over 60 people, made up of both monastic and lay volunteers. While there is no requirement for residents to be Buddhists they are expected to live according to the Five Golden Rules:
To protect life and refrain from killing.
To respect other's property and refrain from stealing.
To speak the truth and refrain from lying.
To embrace health and refrain from intoxicants.
To respect others and refrain from harmful sexual activity
Today it's administered by the ROKPA Trust, a registered charity which has three main areas of activity: spiritual, humanitarian aid, and Tibetan medicine and therapy. The trust supports a number of other centres and projects worldwide, including the Holy Island Project on Holy Island in the Firth of Clyde.
Whatever your views on Buddhism or religion it's a truly beautiful and restful place in peaceful setting. Where ancient Celtic and Tibetan traditions seem to blend seamlessly together, via the Cloutie tree in the Stupa Garden, dedicated to world peace and harmony.
Buddhist tradition requires that the Stupa garden is circuited in a clockwise direction to preserve harmony. While the strips of cloth tied to the cloutie tree carry away the wishes and prayers of those who tied them there as the material fades, leaving the tree decorated with prayers and good wishes.
Some of its more famous visitors have included David Bowie and Leonard Cohen, with Billy Connolly being something of a regular. Although I didn't bump into anyone famous I was more than content to admire Temple, grounds and statues and avenue of prayer wheels, each of which contains over 32 million mantras blessed and consecrated with saffron water.
So after pot of green at the cafe, browsing the gift shop and feeling suitably physically and spiritually refreshed, there was nothing more left to do, other than hit the road and head home.
Skippy goes to Scotland Index
Part 1 Getting there
Part 2 North Coast 500 Inverness to Applecross
Part 3 North Coast 500 Applecross to Ullapool
Part 4 North Coast 500 Ullapool to Lochinver
Part 5 North Coast 500 Lochinver to Durness
Part 6 North Coast 500 Durness to John O'Groats
Part 7 North Coast 500 John O'Groats to Inverness
Part 8 The Jounrey Home (Samye Ling Monastery)
Postscript