Kris & Brian's Travels: September 2019

Monday, September 23, 2019

Week 5: Crask Inn to Dundee Scotland

All photos for this trip can be found in our
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 5" tag for photos added this week.

Our general travel route (planned) for this week (although, on the Orkney's we used Stromness as our base and drove all over the man island)...

Monday started with an excellent breakfast at the Crask Inn where we chatted at length with another couple. They are long time friends of the owners, Douglas and Denise, but this was the first time they had been able to visit them at the inn since they took over two years ago. Douglas gave us some hints on our direction north to Scrabster so we decided to follow a slightly different route than first planned. Our revised route for this part...

... a single track road through beautiful wide open countryside...

Along the way we saw a herd of deer, two hawks and a grouse, along with some large forest lots that are being cleared. Douglas had told us that many of the forest lots are being logged with the long term plan to return the land to peat bogs because the peat is a significantly better carbon sink than the forests. About half way, we stopped in at the Garvault Hotel, holder of the "Mainland Britain's most Remote Hotel" title...

... and they also serve up a nice peppermint tea with cake...

We arrived in Scrabster with about 4 hours to go before our ferry at 7:00PM so drove farther east to the Castle of Mey, purchased by the Queen Mother in the early 1950's, refurbished to become her summer castle which she visited regularly, in the summer, until her death in 2002. The new visitors centre was opened in 2007. Pretty good soup and cake in their cafe. Afterwards we drove up to Dunnet Head lighthouse, the most northerly point of the mainland UK...

It began to rain as we left the lighthouse so we decided to just head to the ferry terminal and wait it out. We arrived at the Scrabster terminal about an hour and a half before checkin opened so we were the first in line. Time to veg out and wait and soon enough we were aboard and on our way to the Orkneys. The MV Hamnavoe is a pretty posh ferry. We started with a dinner of lasagna for Brian and salmon for Kris. BC Ferries could take a lesson on dinner meals from these folks! Excellent food. The ferry trip started off a bit rocking and rolling but once we cleared the Dunnet Head the waters calmed considerably. We arrived in Stromness around the scheduled time and drove the short distance to the Burnside B&B where Joy was waiting for us with a yard light on to help us find the place in the dark.

Tuesday started with an excellent breakfast of scrambled egg and smoked salmon at the B&B. We were the only ones there Monday night so no other guests to chat with. After, we drive into Stormness, stopped for a couple of lattes at Julia's Cafe then wandered along the main commercial street in Stromness where Kris picked up a couple of skeins of wool at Quernstone Knitwear. The wool is from North Ronaldsay sheep, a breed that is confined to the shoreline of the remote island and live on seaweed. Near the end of the main commercial street is the small Stromness Museum. They have a permanent exhibit showing the important connections of Orkney to the early days of the Canadian Hudsons Bay Company (many men from Orkney did major exploration work for the HBC). The main current special exhibit showcased the story of the scuttling of the German naval fleet in Scapa Flow in 1919, where during the ceasefire negotiations to end the WW I, an apparent miscommunication caused the German commander to issue the order to scuttle the fleet rather than hand it over to the British Royal Fleet. In the space of one afternoon over 50 warships were sunk. The exhibit also showcases the salvage work undertaken over the next couple of decades to raise the ships and haul them off for scrap. Today, seven ships remain on the seabed and are a popular place for divers.

Early afternoon we drove to Kirkwall where we stopped in at Twenty One for a nice lunch of broccoli and blue cheese soup for Kris and a toasted bagel with avocado and tomato for Brian. We wandered around the downtown pedestrian area of Kirkwall for a bit, going into the St Magnus Cathedral ...

...which was built in the 1100's. By this time it was late afternoon so headed back to Stromness where we went to The Ferry Inn for a couple of rather bland dinners. The scallop plate (as a main entree; as opposed to starter) consisted of 8 scallops and absolutely nothing else. The seafood curry had virtually no curry taste, just some seafood in a bowl of tomato sauce.

Wednesday, at breakfast we chatted with other guests who had arrived late Tuesday. A fellow from Oxfordshire who came to Orkney for some sightseeing and fishing and a German couple who are on a bit of a grand adventure touring around Scotland. As usual, it was fun exchanging stories about where we all have been and where we are all off to in the next stages of our trips. Mid morning we drove to the far southeast corner of Orkney mainland, following the Orkney "Creative Trail" where they have signposts indicating a participating craft studio/store ...

... stopping in at a few of the designated craft studios etc. We also stopped in Robertson's Coffee Shop...

... in St Margaret's Hope for a couple of lattes, a great piece of lemon poppy seed cake and a nice chat with a woman, we met there, who is a knitwear designer and was wearing a sweater that Kris talked with her about. After the break, we continued on the "Creative Trail" ending at The Hoxa Tapestry Gallery...

... a tapestry workshop studio run by a woman who is recognized as one of the premier tapestry weavers in the UK. No pics allowed but, man, her tapestries are something to behold. Beautiful.

On the way back home, about mid afternoon, we stopped at the Highland Park whiskey distillery in Kirkwall where we lucked into getting a couple of spots for the 3:00PM tour. When we went in they told us that the remaining tours for Wednesday afternoon were all sold out. We booked a tour for Thursday and, after looking around their visitor centre, started to leave. As we walked out the door, I, Brian, asked Kris what time it was... about 15 minutes to three. I said, let's just go back in and ask what the chances of a getting in if someone cancels at the last minute. As I walked up to the desk the receptionist hung up the phone and I asked her about our chances. She laughed and said that she just got off the phone with a party of seven who cancelled their 3:00 PM tour because one of their party had just broken his leg. Unfortunate for them, but we were in :-) :-) The tour was really good and a couple of wee drams of their single malt products was pretty good too. A bunch of pics, in our photo album, taken during the distillery tour. An interesting tidbit... they have over 40,000 barrels of whiskey aging in their storehouse. For dinner, back in Stromness, we tried our luck at the Stromness Hotel this time. Fortunately we had made reservations earlier in the day as they were quite busy when we arrived. A much better dinner than last night... a beef and ale pie with veggies for Brian and a grilled haddock with salad and potatoes for Kris.

Thursday, the usual scrambled eggs and smoked salmon breakfast and another nice round of chatting with the same other guests as Wednesday morning. Today was check out day for all of us so we said our good byes. After we got checked out we drove down the hill into Stromness for a couple of lattes at Julia's Cafe then Kris headed back to the yarn store to pick up an extra skein of the wool she had bought on Tuesday (just in case).

Afterwards we drove around the northwest part of the island, stopping at a few more of the "Creative Trail" shops in Dounby before driving over to the massive Standing Stones of Stenness...

...These are so neat and interesting we don't think you could get tired of seeing them. Leaving there we stopped at the nearby Ring of Brodgar where we joined a group of people for a free ranger talk. Now, that was interesting! The ranger explained what had been found on and around the site but perhaps more significantly, what not had been found. Inside the ring, using traditional archaeology dig techniques and the most modern ground scanning technology, she said they expected to find evidence of extensive human activity but found "absolutely nothing!" Whatever the site was for, the people left nothing there. Even the debris, from digging the deep ditch in extremely rocky ground around the outside of the ring, has never been found anywhere nearby!

For dinner, Thursday, we went a bit further down the Stromness commercial street to the Royal Hotel where we had the best meal of our three pub meals in Stromness. A large bowl of Cullen Skink for Brian and a salad with smoked salmon for Kris. Both were very good. After dinner we still had a couple of hours before we could check in for the overnight stay on the ferry for the trip back to the Scottish mainland early Friday morning. It's pretty cool as you can book a cabin on the ferry and stay on board so you don't have to get up super early and drive to the ferry to depart at 6:30 AM. To kill a bit of time we went into the Ferry Inn, across from the ferry terminal, for a nightcap. A bit after 9:30 PM, we checked in, got access to our cabin on board the ferry then went up to the Magnus Lounge for one last nightcap.

Friday morning, we awoke a bit before the ferry departed at 6:30 AM, had a surprisingly nice shower in the wee shower stall. Our cabin package included two breakfast vouchers. When we went to the restaurant we were told we could take as much as we wanted. When we got to the cashier and handed him the vouchers, he printed off a couple of new ones and said "when you finish that one you can come back again as many times as you want; it is an eat all you want breakfast"! Well, that was nice but come on, how many eggs, sausages and bacon can one old geezer eat???

It was a brilliant clear morning with a great sunrise as we left behind the beautiful view over Stromness harbour...

.... about half way across the channel we passed close by the "Old Man of Hoy"...

... (this pic is a bit dark so the sea stack of red sandstone doesn't show very well; click on the link above the pic to see a better pic on the wikipedia entry).

We had planned to only drive about an hour and a half to the town of Tain and stay there for the night but after having missed our chance to go through Lochcarron on our way off the Isle of Skye (due to the road closure), and since we arrived back on the mainland at only 8:00 AM, we decided to make a long day of it and drive south to Lochcarron. This is a place we wanted to see as this is where Kris' 4th Great Grandfather lived when at the age of 80 in 1820 he packed up his entire extended family and took them to Cape Breton. Lochcarron is a sweet little village in a beautiful valley...

... and we wondered what it must have been like back in 1820, during the brutal Highland Clearances, to realize you could have a better future elsewhere. We had a nice lunch of smoked salmon baguette for Kris and a brie and cranberry panini for Brian. We drove around the wee village, stopped at a cemetery to see if we could find any evidence of family graves (a couple of right names but not sure if related), then drove back north to the Inchbae Lodge where we had stayed last week. This time we had a nice room on the top floor with a great view over the yard and the small river out back ...

... and for dinner; lamb shank for Brian and a haggis stuffed portobello mushroom with side salad for Kris. YUMMM!

Saturday after breakfast in the lodge's conservatory (very nice), we packed up and headed south towards Dundee. Along the way we stopped in Carrbridge, the home of the Golden Spurtle (world porridge championships), for a coffee and a look at the famous Carr-Bridge, the oldest stone bridge in Scotland...

... then, later in the afternoon, in the beautiful village of Dunkeld, a popular weekend getaway place for people who live in Perth. What a little gem of a place! While there a shopkeeper told us about the importance of Dunkeld in the late 18th early 19th century as a place that numerous "drove roads" passed through. Very interesting!

Late afternoon we arrived in Dundee and got checked into the Shaftesbury Lodge then drove into the centre of the city. Looks to be a fairly vibrant place with a wide long pedestrian corridor connecting two shopping malls. We found a Marks & Spencer to look around in for a bit; no purchase, but some ideas to check out again when we get to Edinburgh. For dinner we parked the car back at the lodge and walked down Perth Street passed numerous pubs, that did not offer food service, eventually settling on Dil'se, a Bangladeshi Indian restaurant where we had some excellent lamb shish-kebab, lamb gosht and chicken biriani. On the way back to the lodge we stopped in at one of the pubs, we had passed by earlier, for a nightcap.

Sunday morning, after a very good breakfast at the lodge, we drove four miles east of town to the charming seaside village of Broughty Ferry where there was a Cafe Nero, for a couple of excellent lattes while we perused the large Sunday Times newspaper. Lots of cute stores etc in the village but, being Sunday, pretty well everything was closed. After coffee, we drove back into Dundee to the new V&A (Victoria & Albert) museum that opened about a year ago...

... it is a beautiful modern building perched on the edge of the banks of the River Tay. There were a few small exhibits along with the main large one in the Scottish Design Galleries showcasing Scottish innovation and design stories that have had international impact over the years. Very interesting.

After picking up a few souvenirs in the gift shop, we decided to drive the short distance south to St Andrew's to see if we could get in a round on the Himalayas Putting course before the forecasted rain set in. There are two very hilly putting courses; a 9 hole and an 18 hole. The 18 hole course was packed with people and nobody was on the 9 hole so we opted for the 9 hole and a good thing too as the rain started just as we were finishing up the 9th. Here's a pic of Kris after she scored a hole-in-one on the second hole....

....for lunch we tried the clubhouse where we had a really good lunch a couple of years ago. So-so at best this time. Oh well, like golf itself, win some - lose some :-(

Back in Dundee, at the lodge, we repacked our luggage getting ready to hand in the car the next day in Aberdeen. After a rest we drove down Perth Street to find some dinner. A fellow outside a pub recommended a place just down the street. TailEnd did not disappoint with excellent haddock with chips and garden peas. Nice way to end the week!

Back to Week 4

On to Week 6

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Week 4: Lochmaddy to Crask Inn, Lairg, Scotland

All photos for this trip can be found in our
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 4" tag for photos added this week.

Our general travel route for the week (although we did drive all over the Outer Hebrides, which is not depicted here)...

Up early for breakfast at the Redburn House before heading off to Berneray to catch the ferry over to Leverburgh on the Isle of Harris. At breakfast we chatted with another couple of people who were walking the Hebridean Trail (part of the Hebridean Way). One woman, who sounded like quite an accomplished distance walker, had decided to forego the trail across the peat bogs for her last stage on North Uist and just walk the road to Berneray. She left about an hour before us and we passed her later on our way to the ferry. At the ferry terminal we also met the couple who had departed the Redburn House the previous day on their walk north.

Arriving on the Isle of Harris we drove the short distance to Northton and stopped in at the Seallam! Visitor Centre where Kris had a nice chat with Bill Lawson the genealogist who had given her some great ancestral information when we stopped in there on our last trip. He was quite pleased with the additional information she has gathered since then.

The rest of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were just take it easy days to tour around Harris and Lewis with most activities depending on the weather. There was a lot of "intermittent" heavy rain spells. Having arrived late Monday afternoon in Stornoway, we wandered a bit of central Stornoway near the Crown Hotel, where we stayed again this trip, going into a variety of Harris Tweed stores while we waited out said intermittent heavy rains. Back at the hotel we decided to have dinner in the dining room. A few years ago when we stayed here they had a very nice "traditional" dining room. It has since been changed to be, in someone's mind, a bit more upscale, modern and a menu seemingly aimed at a younger crowd. Too bad. We settled on a pizza for Kris and Mac & Cheese for Brian. OK, but we were looking for something along the lines of a nice seafood dinner in this part of the world.

Tuesday, after a pretty decent breakfast at the hotel (at least they haven't changed that part) we walked over to Kopi Java a popular newish coffee place for a couple of pretty good lattes. Afterwards, continuing to dodge the intermittent rain we spent the morning looking in shops in central Stornoway, stopping at the small HMY Iolaire memorial,...

... and dropping our laundry off at Euroclean near the large Tesco grocery store. For lunch we drove up to the nearby Lews Castle...

... very busy little cafe but we managed to find a table and had a couple of bowls of their fine lentil soup for lunch. Later in the afternoon we drove out to the old St Columba' Chapel site but the rain and wind were both too heavy to even think about getting out of the car and walking across the farmer's field to get to the chapel ruins and cemetery. On the way back to town we drove out to the much larger HMY Iolaire memorial but again the wind and rain were suitable deterrents. For dinner that night we dodged the rain the best we could as we walked up the street to the Golden Ocean Chinese restaurant. Very decent meal. That night the wind and rain just howled as it battered the side of the hotel we were on waking us both up several times. Apparently this was part of the tail end of the hurricane Dorian that had ripped up the eastern coast of the USA.

Wednesday, after breakfast and coffee, we picked up our laundry then stopped at a local museum where a special exhibit told many stories of the men on the HMY Iolaire, and families of survivors as well as of those killed in the mishap, Just a horrible situation. Leaving the exhibit we drove to west side of the island to revisit the fabulous Callanish Standing Stones. Not surprising that they have not changed in the two years since we were here. After a quick lunch in the cafe we walked up the hill to the site. The wind was so strong most people had a bit of a struggle to get up as well as down the narrow trail. BUT... worth the trek. This place is wonderful. A must see place (and notice we even had a wee bit of blue sky on this day).

Afterwards, we headed north on the main road (A858) to the Gearannon BlackHouse Village, but a serious accident north of Carloway caused the road to be closed. The only way to get to our desired destination was to take the diversion route around the accident so we headed back south to Breasclete and the narrow single-track road through the back country...

... and when we say narrow, we mean narrow. Our smallish rental car had only about 4-6 inches on the outside of the tires on either side of the car and the passing places were much further apart than we have seen on most single track roads. It was slow going as even bicyclists were forced to use the diversion so numerous times we had to crawl along behind them until the next passing place. Oh well, we made it, had a look around the village and then headed further north on A858 to the northern main road back to Stornoway. For dinner we opted for an Indian/Turkish restaurant where the combination of chicken curry and lamb kabobs turned out to be very tasty. For a night cap we went to the bar in the Crown Hotel for a beer and glass of wine.

Thursday up early for a one hour drive to Tarbert to catch the ferry to Uig on the Isle of Skye. We were concerned about the sailing because of the high winds experienced late Wednesday night but no worries and it was quite a calm sailing. Departing the ferry on Uig, we had about 4 hours before we could check into the Cowshed, our home for the next two nights, so we drove around the peninsula to Portree. What fabulous views along the coast and the interior mountains (ok, large hills, but still quite spectacular) and we even had some blue sky along the way...

One very popular place on the island is the Old Man of Storr. Thousands of people flock to this place to hike up the mountain (large hill). It must get crazy here in the peek tourist season because it was very chaotic when we went past there. There is a small parking area that is so inadequate it's not funny. Hundreds of cars that parked on the edge of an already narrow road disgorged so many people making passage on the road quite trecherous. At one point Brian had to swerve to avoid being hit by an oncoming vehicle and barely missed hitting the rear end of a badly parked car on the side of the road. There were so many cars on the road that at one point there was an equally large number of cars coming the other way that the single track road passing place was too small and the traffic ended in a deadlock. Slowly, slowly the deadlock managed to unravel but there was a lot of frustration being shown by drivers in both directions. Chatting with a local fellow in Portree later, he said that ever since The Old Man of Storr was discovered on social media, it has become a zoo. June and July are just insane. We can believe it!

We wandered around Portree for a while, stopped for a break in a coffee shop where we chatted with a young couple from California who had hiked up "the Storr" earlier in the day, apparently before the massive crowds started to show up. For dinner we thought we would order a pizza for take away as the Cowshed has a shared kitchen so we had access to utensils etc. We found a small pizza placed named L'incontro Takeaway which looked pretty decent and their pizzas were advertised as being thin crust, which is what we prefer. They had a couple of pre-cut pieces which we ate while waiting for out takeaway order. A tad tough on the crust but somewhat tasty. Maybe they had been sitting there a while? Anyway, our pizza finally arrived. At this place, they do not slice the pizza for you. They provide a pizza slicer so you can do it yourself. So, Brian opened the box and proceeded to try to slice the pizza. Man, was it tough. However, that wasn't the worst of it. After several slices through the middle the pizza finally split into two halves but in the middle it was total mush and swimming in liquid! YUK!!! Brian picked up the box, took it over to the counter and told the young woman that the pizza was inedible and we were just going to leave. She picked up the pizza and took it over to a table where she and another young woman looked at it with wide eyes and wondering what could have gone wrong. We were prepared to simply walk away but one of the women hustled over to the till, pulled out eleven quid and gave it to Brian and apologized profusely. So no pizza for tonight! We drove back to Uig, went to the Uig Hotel where we each had a starter plate of mussels (more than enough) before heading back to the Cowshed where we sat on the deck of our pod, had a drink and watched the sun set. Long day...

Friday was "tour Skye day". Here's the route we followed from and back to Uig (where the red dot is)...

This island sure is one beautiful place. We lucked out on this day as the wind and rain totally abstained for us with some patches of blue sky sneaking through the clouds. It is somewhat unfortunate that, like the outer isles, the single track roads with few real stopping places make it difficult to get pictures of some of the beautiful spots. One local woman, at a craft studio we stopped at, told us there are many instances of people hanging out the passenger side windows of cars trying to take videos or photos of the passing scenery. We'll just go with the memories and get pictures where we can. Here's a few from around the Isle of Skye...

Friday night the Uig Hotel was fully booked so we drove around to the ferry pier where The Pier Restaurant (aka Bakur Bar) was open and served up an excellent dish of fish strips for Kris and a pretty decent burger for Brian. When we were paying our tab we got chatting with the waitress who asked where we were headed next. We told her and she said "wait while I check something, I think that highway might be closed for this weekend"... and she was right. Part of our route was closed so we when we got back to the pod we checked the maps and found we would have to detour way around to the east. DRAT!!! We had planned to stop in Lochcarron to visit the place where Kris' 4th Great Grandfather had lived when, as an old man, he packed up the entire family and emigrated to Canada. We decided that we would have to give Lochcarron a miss but would see if our return south from the Orkneys could be adjusted so we could get there. That night the wind whipped up and the rain pelted down making a fair racket in the pod. Not much sleep that night.

Saturday morning the rain had stopped but the wind was still really strong. When checking out of the Cowshed, the young woman at reception told us the overnight winds had reached over 55 mph. We stopped in Portree for some breakfast and coffee. While in Portree the rains started again. Through the entire length of the Isle of Skye it was wind and rain with low visibility so no scenery watching that day. It was basically the same with intermittent rains all the way around to and along Loch Ness as we headed north towards Inverness before veering off to the north west and the village of Garve where we stayed overnight at the lovely Inchbae Lodge Inn. Here's a pic of our planned and revised route for the day...

For dinner that night, at the lodge, Kris chose the roast lamb shank with veggies while Brian had the breaded Scampi with chips (and peas). Excellent meals. Afterwards we sat in the lounge and watched tv while sipping on beer, wine and some excellent single malts as a night cap. Back in our room we looked at revising our plans for when we leave the Orkneys and decided to stay at the Inchbae Lodge again next Friday. Steve, the main man at the lodge confirmed our new reservation and Brian cancelled our hotel reservation in Tain.

Sunday morning after breakfast we packed up and headed west to Ullapool where we stopped for a couple of lattes and looked around the town centre for a few hours before continuing back east, north-east across the highlands passing a small hydro-electric dam...

on the way to the quite remote Crask Inn, our stop for the night...

.... and the beautiful early evening view across the valley...

.... not to mention the sunset...

The night's accommodation at the Crask Inn included a wonderful 3 course home cooked meal in a shared communal table area where we met 3 folks who were staying at the inn as they prepared to hike a local mountain Monday morning. Despite all the weather woes, a pretty good week all in all and a wonderful end to the week.

Back to Week 3

On to Week 5

Week 3: Belfast to Lochmaddy, North Uist, Scotland

All photos for this trip can be found in our
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 3" tag for photos added this week.

Our general travel route for this week (map excludes our last day in Belfast and our flight from Belfast to Glasgow)...

Monday morning in Belfast was another rainy, windy day, so after leisurely lattes and croissants, at the local Caffe Nero, we decided to spend a few hours and do the "hop-on hop-off touristy thing" but mostly just hop-on and stay-on to get a bit of a tour of the city. Just outside the coffee shop we came across a young man selling tickets to one of the tour companies that has a stop just across the street. "It is scheduled to be here in just be a few minutes" he said. Well, we fairly quickly came to remember just why we don't like these tours. The bus didn't come for over half an hour. They don't keep an exact schedule, only "about every X minutes" which means, as we have found on a previous hop-on hop-off tour, that you can get off someplace, plan to be back for the next bus in X less, say 5 minutes, only to get there and find that bus left 5 minutes ago, so you stand there and wait and wait.

Anyway, finally we were on. Probably, the first thing we noticed is that even though it is over 25 years since the Good Friday agreement brought a hope of reconciliation, there still appears to be a large sectarian divide that is simmering just below the surface. We drove through one area where a long "peace" wall had been built to separate the Catholics and Protestants. The tour guide explained that this particular wall was supposed to have been taken down starting about three years ago. Well, guess what happened three years ago... Brexit... and, as she said, it is possible the wall will likely never come down now. To this day, gates are locked at night and on Sunday. To us, this did not seem like a peace wall, only a separation wall.

All in all, the tour gave us an impression of a city that definitely cannot be termed as beautiful. A tad drab for the most part. What didn't help though was the bus windows were covered with rain water on the outside and condensation on the inside making it difficult to get a decent look at most things. It was pretty well impossible to sit on the upper deck so the lower deck was mostly full with few people hopping off. Eventually, the bus came around to what is the "official starting point" so, from this stop, it could not continue on until "exactly" the right time and because there had been so many stops that nobody wanted to get off at, we arrived at the starting point early and would not leave for nearly an hour. So, at that point we got off and since there was still a good part of the city to tour we would get back on here. It was a bit of a bustling shopping area with some upscale shops and restaurants, however wanting to stay out of the rain, we just spent the time in a fairly large Marks & Spencers, then got back to the bus about 10 minutes early which was a good thing otherwise we would have been standing for the rest of the tour. The tour went passed the Titanic Quarter. We saw the arena where the Belfast Giants ice hockey team plays (apparently the team was originally going to be called the Belfast Bombers but that was considered to be a bit in bad taste and the name was changed). We passed through several upscale Protestant neighbourhoods, parliament buildings, the city airport, a waterfront area that is going through a revitalization period (looked quite smart actually), etc, etc, etc before we got off near city hall.

We stopped in at Cafe Parisien for a nice lunch of croquet monsieur for Brian and salmon pate and smoked salmon for Kris. After lunch we went back to Marks & Spencers to look about a bit more then walked back to our hotel to do some on-line banking, bill paying etc and a rest. In the evening we walked down to the Crown Bar but it was packed so continued to Brennan's for some Guiness and wine while we listened to a fairly decent busker type guitarist play and sing songs quite suitable for a bar environment. For dinner we went back to Nora's Palace, the Mediterranean place we ate at a couple of nights previous. Very good again.

Tuesday morning we were up early, packed up, had our last breakfast in Belfast and headed for the airport. Our flight was booked on Flybe but operated by Loganair. We checked in at Flybe. What a monkey f*ck! They clearly state that each passenger can have 2 carry on pieces. We each had a small backpack and an even smaller case for our CPAP machine. First we have to prove the backpacks will fit in the designated space.. ok they fit.. then she asks us to prove the smaller ones fit. DUH.. then she asks what they are and we tell her they are CPAP medical devices that are not to be checked. She starts to argue that they have to be checked because they are not "authorized medical equipment for use on Flybe flights". We argue that they are not going to be used on a 35 minute flight in the middle of the day! They are simply our second piece of carry on that everyone is entitle to. Too bad, she says because we "might try to use them and the flight staff are not authorized to help if there is a problem". We pull out the medical letter we have that states they are to be carried on not put in checked luggage. Finally she calls Loganair and they say it is ok. She warns us that they will be checked again when we actually board the flight and may be rejected. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!!!

At the Belfast City Airport, they didn't announce the boarding gate until the plane was ready to be boarded. We could see our flight on the departure board but no gate was shown until the last minute when they announced the flight was starting to board and then displayed the gate number. This resulted in a bit of a mad scramble down two flights of stairs and a rush down a long hallway to get to the loading gate. We let the crowd rush on past us. We all had reserved seats. No seating was available at the boarding gate. We stood in a long line and waited, and waited, and waited until, at long last (at least 15 minutes after scheduled departure) we were double checked (not even a glance at the carry on) and herded onto the plane. At least the flight was reasonably smooth.

After picking up our luggage at the Glasgow airport, we headed over to the Arnold Clark car rental place to pick up our car that will be our main land transport until we get to Aberdeen. We didn't stay in Glasgow, this trip, but headed out for Oban as soon as we picked up the car. As in Ireland, what would be a stunning drive in good weather was still a pretty good scenic one even in the constant rain. We drove northwest through part of the Loch Lomond National Park then turned south at Achadunan to follow the coastline to Lochgilphead before turning northwest again toward Oban. For the most part an excellent highway system all the way with only a few parts of the two lane road being a tad narrow. Unfortunately, with the rain and few places to pull off we do not have any photos of this very pretty countryside.

For some reason our GPS decided it had never heard of the Corran House or Victoria Crescent where it is located in Oban. So we were left to stop and ask people and slowly triangulate our way to finding the hostel, our home for the next three nights. Oban is clearly a summer resort place that must get real busy in the thick of the tourist season as there is row upon row of guest houses along the waterfront and back roads up the hillside. It is easy to imagine just how stunning this seaside place would be on a bright sunny summer day. It is even quite stunning in the rainy weather. Here's a couple of pics as the sun was trying it's best to break through...

After getting checked into our 3rd floor, with no elevator, room we walked along the waterfront eventually stopping in at the Oban Inn pub where we met Paul and Liz from Australia. Nice long chat over some Guiness and wine before parting ways. We walked back to the hostel where we decided to try Markie Dans pub where the Beef & Guiness pie and prawns were ok but nothing special but our hostel key did merit a 10% discount. Back upstairs, we booked the early bird tour to Mull, Iona and Staffa for Thursday. Long day today.... early to bed.

Wednesday morning, still mostly raining, we took our laundry over to the only laundrette in Oban only to find it is closed on Wednesday. WTF!!! Oh well, we were fairly close to the centre of town so walked over to Julies Coffee House place for a couple of lattes and scones. Afterwards, Kris wandered around the central stores area while Brian went off to find a tyre shop to have the tyres checked (a tyre warning light on the dash had started to flash). Turns out one tyre was a just a tad low so they pumped it up and reset the dash warning light. All looks good. Meeting up again downtown, we went over to the West Coast Tours office to see if we could pick up our tickets for Thursday. Turns out the tours for Wednesday were all cancelled due to the rather inclement weather. We were told to come back later in the day when they would know whether or not Thursday's tours would go ahead. Mid afternoon went back to the hostel where we discovered that they would do our laundry for us for a decent price. Nice surprise! The not so nice surprise was when we heard the Thursday ferry from Oban to Castlebay (on the Outer Hebrides island of Barra) was cancelled and Friday, when we had reservations, was starting to look a bit iffy as well.

Driving around Oban early afternoon, we witnessed what was a first for us. Entering a traffic circle, the guy in front of us apparently missed his exit. Rather than continue around the circle again to get to the correct exit, he stopped in the middle of the road, started to back up, then decided a u-turn would work better, got turned around, going the wrong way, and proceeded against the traffic flow to get to his exit, then had to make a very sharp turn to actually exit the circle. Lucky it was a low traffic day. Locals must have seen this before because nobody honked at him!

Late afternoon we went back to the tour place to find that our tour was going ahead. YEAH! After picking up our tickets, for dinner we stopped in at the George Street Fish Restaurant & Chip Shop on the esplanade. It showed great promise from the outside but Kris' fish cakes were mediocre and tasted like they were just some frozen brand, as opposed to the advertised "hand made". Brian's fish and chips were ok but the portion of cod was pretty small compared to other fish and chips we've had recently. While there we chatted with a couple of brothers from Detroit who were on a bit of a "we just retired so are traveling" kind of trip. We also chatted with a young women from Kentucky who was on a short solo adventure and was having a whack of fun. Nice.

Afterwards we went over to the Oban Inn where an adhoc group of musicians played to a very packed pub. It was hard to get any pics with the crowd but here's a couple of short videos you can make out the music above the crowd noise...

... that was a lot of fun.

Thursday we had to be up early to make sure we found an all day parking spot somewhere near the pier otherwise we'd have to walk quite a ways from the hostel. We found a spot and arrived at the Calmac departure spot with a good 20 minutes to spare. The 3-island tour we booked departed Oban at 7:30AM and was scheduled to arrive back in Oban at 5:30PM.

The ferry departed on time and the crossing being just under an hour we had time to have breakfast on board. Sausages, eggs, tomato, mushroom, black pudding.

Getting off the ferry from Oban to the island of Mull we were met by a double decker bus. The drive across Mull was mostly a blur as we were sitting in the lower deck of the bus and between the windows fogging up and the tall brush close to the edge of the road we didn't see much of the island scenery.

Arriving at Fionnphort, we boarded one of the Staffa Tour boats for a 35 minute ride to the Isle of Staffa. It was a rocking and rolling ride. We elected to sit inside. People who sat outside were offered heavy yellow rain capes and it was a good thing for those who accepted. There were several large waves that sprayed a lot of water over the back half of the boat and anyone without one of the capes got royally soaked. Several people were sea sick. On the plus side, at one point a group of bottle head dolphins swam along side the boat (there are two of them in this pic)...

... Soon we arrived at Staffa. The water was really rough so the first thing they did was take us around so we could see the entrance to Fingal's Cave...

... then they took us to the leeward side of the island where it was a bit calmer and the boat could dock to allow us off to explore the island for about half an hour. Due to the many steep and awkward steps up to the top of the island, Kris elected to stay on board. Brian climbed the steps and walked around on the top, trying very hard not to simply get blown over the edge by the very strong winds. Here's one pic looking down at the sheer edge of one cliff face...

...many more pics of Staffa in our photo album for this trip. The other option to climbing the steps to the top was to hold onto the wire ropes attached along the base of the cliffs and try to make your way about 1/4 the way around the island to the mouth of Fingal's Cave. However, it was high tide with some pretty heavy waves and since you can't go into the cave anyway, it was too much of a risk to be able to say "I did that". Kris enjoyed staying on the boat as they moved away from the dock and she got a personal ride around part of the island to see other caves that none of the others of us saw. All in all we were happy and excited about being there.

Leaving Staffa, we headed off on another 35 minute rocking and rolling ride to the island of Iona. More seasickness, but not us. We both fell asleep :-)

Iona is mostly known for the abbey located there...

The bus ride back, across Mull, to Craignure, was quite a bit more scenic as this time we were able to get seats in the upper deck of the bus. It is really quite a beautiful island...

... although pics through the window of a speeding bus don't really do it justice.

The ferry ride from Mull back to Oban was rather bizarre. Calmac clearly oversold the boat or too many tours converged at once as there were easily as many passengers standing, for the 50+ minute ferry ride, as there were seated and there were no empty seats. That had to be some sort of safety violation! The one thing we can say about the folks here though is that numerous young people gave up their seats for older folks. Nice to see.

Anyway, on the way back, Brian checked his email and the ferry schedule for Friday only to find our reserved trip from Oban to Castlebay for Friday was officially cancelled. CRAP! Although Calmac had taken the initiative and re-booked us on a Friday afternoon ferry from Mallaig to Lochboisdale which would put us on South Uist, one island away from where we had hoped to be. They did also book us on a late night ferry from Eriskay on South Uist to Ardmhor on Barra but it was scheduled to leave about 40 minutes after we would arrive in Lochboisdale and it was a good 30 minute drive to get to Eriskay, and that is in the dark on unfamiliar roads. Then, if we did make that ferry, we would have about a 45 minute drive to get to Castlebay, thereby arriving close to midnight. BUT... WE HAD A RESERVATION from Ardmhor back to Eriskay first thing next morning, so what would be the point?

When we got back to the hostel, Brian looked on Booking.com and found a "tourist accommodation" place just outside of Lochboisdale that had a couple of rooms available for Friday night so went ahead and booked one there. The hotel we had booked in Castlebay had a 72 hour cancellation policy so we still had to pay for that room.

Friday morning the first action was to go to Calmac and firm up the change of plans. Easy peasy... cancelled original plans and reserved Mallaig to Lochboisdale for later in the afternoon. Apparently we might be able to claim the hotel on Castlebay from Calmac as a lost expense caused by their cancellation. We'll see how that goes. Next action was to stop in at a Vodafone shop and get a UK SIM card for one of our iPhones. We picked up one, that will last until we leave the UK, for 20 GBP. Not bad. Next door was Roxy's Coffee & Tea House where they did a fine latte and scones for some late morning sustenance before beginning the drive to Mallaig...

.... and a beautiful drive it was. The coastal drive all along Loch Linnhe is just stunning with numerous small cute seaside villages along the way. AND...to boot, we had a nice sunny day, at least until we got past Fort William when the intermittent rain started again. We stopped in Fort William for a break and wandered along the town centre pedestrian mall. Nice! This is our second time in Fort William and, as last time, the cloud cover was too low so we did not get a glimpse of Ben Nevis.

We arrived in Mallaig a couple of hours before the ferry departure so had time to wander around the small town (about 2 blocks), buy a few grocery items, have a latte then head for the terminal. The ferry left on time and was a fairly calm 3.5 trip, arriving about 15 minutes late meaning we would never have made the connecting ferry to Barra. A quick drive on a single track road to the tourist accommodation in Daliburgh where Peter was waiting for us. A nice little find.

Saturday, we awoke to a beautiful blue sky. YEAH, first one on this trip, but will it last? To start the day we drove back to Lochboisdale to the only hotel/eatery we could find where the kitchen staff was nice enough to fix us a pot of tea. One fellow came out and we chatted about the pictures on the wall that portrayed hundreds of people, on the pier, waving goodbye to family and friends who were departing for Canada. This was circa 1903. Thousands left from here on their way to new lives all across Canada. We drove around South Uist for a while before landing at the Kildonan Museum. The attached cafe was busy but we found a small table and had an excellent lunch of salmon pate and salad for Kris and a brie and cranberry panini for Brian. Yumm!

After lunch we continued north on the Isle of South Uist, onto the Isle of Benbecula, the Isle of Grimsay (part of North Uist) and the Isle of North Uist itself. On Grimsay we sidetracked off to the east to visit Uist Woolen Mill where the fellow just happened to be there (they were actually closed) and he opened up for us. Nice. We had a nice chat with him as he showed us around and Kris found some wool that will come home with us to become a shawl at some time in the future. Continuing around the sidetrack loop we stopped at Kallin Shellfish - Namara Seafoods harbour with it's lovely looking cafe. Too bad we just had lunch :-(. Beautiful view from their pier though...

... and a nice drive back to the main road and on to Lochmaddy where we checked into Redburn House, our home for the next 2 nights. After check-in we walked over to the Lochmaddy Hotel for some Guiness, wine and dinner; in this case a shared order of panko breaded squid rings and fish and chips. Throughout the day we were warned a few times of being prepared for "midges"; although we have seen some, as of the end of Saturday, no bites.

Sunday, after a nice breakfast at the Redburn House, although the blue sky was gone, we decided to just drive and see the scenery of North Uist, Benbecula, and South Uist. Even in somewhat inclement weather, the scenery on these treeless islands is so colourful and, we think, beautiful with some great sandy beaches and, of course, lots of sheep...

As we were crossing the Isle of Benbecula, we realized we were down to a less than a quarter tank of gas and here it was ...SUNDAY with most things closed on these islands. Hmmm... would we have enough gas to get to the south end of South Uist and back to Lochmaddy??? We wondered if we should turn back or continue on. Entering the small village of Creagorry we spotted a gas station, pulled up to the pump, but then saw the closed sign in the window. We continued into the village and found a Co-Op grocery store that happened to be open. The young lady there told us to go back about a mile where there is a garage that has pumps and we could get gas there. Hmmm, sounded like the place we were just at. Outside the store, Brian asked a young fellow about gas. He pointed in the same direction as the young lady had and said "but you can only use a card today". So, back we went. It was the same place. Pulled up to the pump, got out and saw nothing indicating the pump could be used; no place for a credit card insert. Brian walked around the other side of the pump and there it was! A credit card slot and the pump worked. Earlier we had pulled up to the back side where there was no indication. Good thing the guy said something about a card because we likely would have just driven away again. Anyway, the pump offered preset amounts to choose from. Thinking we could use 40 GBP worth of fuel, Brian chose that option and started filling. We ended up only needing 32 GBP for a full tank so thought the pump would automatically only charge what we used. LIKE THEY DO AT HOME. A bit later, Kris got an email from Capital One saying the card had been used in a foreign country with a charge for the whole 40 GBP. WTF???? OH WELL, we had a full tank and could continue on without worrying about running out.

We stopped at the Kildonan Museum (where we had lunch yesterday). The cafe was open so we had a nice lunch again then Kris joined the Uist Spinning Group for a couple of hours. They meet every second Sunday at the museum complex and were happy to have a visitor sit in and tell them about the spinning group Kris belongs to at home...

On the way back to Lochmaddy, we stopped at the Our Lady of the Isles statue on South Uist...

It is a 30 foot tall statue depicting Madonna and child. It is the protector of the Isle of South Uist.

Back in Lochmaddy for a bit of a rest then some dinner at the Lochmaddy Hotel (we shared a large bowl of lentil soup and a ploughman's plate; both pretty good) along with a pint of Tennent's (beer) and a glass of wine before calling it a day and a week.

Back to Week 2

On to Week 4