Day 16 -- Friday, the 11th July
No time for breakfast at the B&B, this morning. The landlady will not offer it this early: the first ferry leaves Castlebay at 6:55. We finish packing, load the car and head to the terminal.
It is already fairly busy, even though we are early. CalMac is an efficient operation, however (except to Arran), and we soon board MV Isle of Lewis, where we will spend the next five to six hours. We rush to the cafeteria.
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| Kisimul Castle seen from MV Isle of Lewis |
The cafeteria is not yet open, but a ship so big is bound to have a queue when breakfast lands. And, indeed, soon after leaving, twenty people are queueing. We enjoy our breakfast immensely, which helps forget that the holiday is almost over.
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| My eight-item big breakfast (double black pudding, double rösti, double mushroom, egg, tattie scone) |
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| adc's six-item breakfast |
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| JS's egg roll |
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| The marmalade looks artisanal |
It is a lazy sailing. I sleep a lot, between a short night and a long day. I get excited as we pass Canna, Rum, Eigg and Muck on port and Coll and Tiree on starboard, then Ardnamurchan and Morvern on port, Mull on starboard. We see seabirds in the distance, gannets, black guillemots, herring gulls, great black-backed seagulls, but also a couple of fleeting pods of dolphins, which fill me with joy. We disembark in Oban a little ahead of schedule.
Welcome back to the hustle and bustle. This is not Hong-Kong, but it is far away from Castlebay.
We make good time to Tarbet via Glencoe, then Arrochar. The small road there is fairly quiet, yet the few vehicles we do come across drive dangerously fast or in the middle of the road. Shortly before Garelochhead, we come across two lorries who flouted the "No HGV" sign at the start of the road and have come to a head. They are blocking a dozen cars in total.
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| HA stand-off between lorries |
I twist my neck to try and understand the sitch. A bloke is doing all sorts of signs. He explains to me that we are stuck because the owner of the house on our left refuses to let one of the drivers use his driveway as a passing place to allow other vehicles to go through. The man I am talking to is a retired police officer, which explains why he is so good at managing the traffic. The local is testing his patience, though, and insults are exchanged. The local in question is not merely oblivious to the chaos he is causing, he seems to enjoy blocking cars by standing in front of them, or crossing the road at inopportune times with fence posts. JS hears him explain to someone that motorists abuse his property, sometimes to park for hours (or overnight), and that, consequently, he will not grant anyone access. A lot of good that does for the people here just trying to carry on with their journey. That said, if those two HGV were not on a road not suitable for HGV, we would not be here. In any case, after a lot of manoeuvring, close calls and patience, the bottleneck is solved with limited damage (some brushed bushes and a little time lost, not even a horn honked). Worth noting that it is useful for rearview mirrors to automatically retract when one parks a modern car, but it is a nuisance when one is trying to shrink the wingspan of the vehicle, and said vehicle will not allow manually retracting the rearview mirrors.
It is a relative breeze from there to Helensburgh, Dumbarton and Glasgow, where we park at the rental agency well ahead of schedule (thanks to satellite navigation). MR joins us there minutes later.
I return the keys and help load our luggage into MR's automobile. For context, we left Castlebay this morning at 12°C; it is 28°C this afternoon in G-town.
MR felt we had not spent enough time together on Arran, and offered to shuttle us from the car-rental agency to the station. It would be but a brief encounter, but how could we resist? And since we made good time from Oban to Glasgow, we actually have an hour longer than anticipated. Where should we spend that hour? Clydeside Distillery is on the way, it has a car park, it has a bar. Clydeside it is!
We spend a moment there, discuss our trip, our respective jobs and all sorts of nonsense. Then, MR drives us to Glasgow Central where we say our proper goodbyes.
At the station, we meet DH. He brought Tantrum doughnuts, the generous soul he is. We discuss our trip, our next endeavours and other topics. Half-an-hour later, the platform is announced. We board the train and bid Scotland goodbye.
We reach the capital late; it is dark, which helps make the temperature more tolerable. While we were enjoying 11-17°C up north, the big city was sizzling in the mid-thirties for two weeks.
We have the weekend to tidy up and land before embracing the daily grind on Monday. Despite a few setbacks, it was quite the holiday!
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