Day 53: Skye to Fort William

Leaving Skye today and going back to Kyle to collect Gloria.

It is still raining on and off and the mountains all round me are full of waterfalls. Some are showstoppers.

Others just silver threads glinting in the patchy sunlight.

As the month progresses towards July, the seemingly brown lifeless heather coating these mountains has greened up and the hills are just beginning to take on a haze of purple.

Arrived in Kyle. Gloria is ready and sorted, thanks to John the mechanic, but everyone is upset.

The monster camper van driver man has struck again over the weekend and I am not just irritated, now I am outraged. A local young man, driving his own car has been hit by a van and his body is crushed below the waist. His friends don’t know the prognosis. In a similar incident a pregnant young woman lost her life and her baby. The Highlands and Islands need tourism but they are also paying a price. Both these incidents were novice camper van drivers with little or no experience. The garage said that continental drivers usually own their own vans so are used to them. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to insist that all hirers must prove competency, or have compulsory driving instruction and at least two hours on single tracks before being allowed on the road. That’s three lives ruined here alone. Two more camper vans collided just outside the petrol station on Saturday and it took the garage two hours to separate them because bicycles on the back got mashed and entangled. Then they just drove off leaving glass and tangled metal all over the cross road for the lass in the garage to clear up. Some of these people are rude ignorant and arrogant and I am beginning to feel vulnerable in Gloria around them. As I have already suggested, these are the real monsters of Loch Ness.

Moving on, slowly and carefully.

It was a shame I wasn’t the only tourist in Scotland this morning at Scotland’s most photographed castle – Eilean Donan. The car park was heaving. There was a young piper playing Flower of Scotland in front of the castle which added to the view and the atmosphere considerably.

Like on Skye the rain has brought waterfalls large and small tumbling down the mountains. From Skye to Glen Shiel they surround you. I lost count of how many there were in just a mile long stretch of road. Some nationalities used to seeing this may be a bit blasé but I am still very impressed.

The route to Fort William was scenic.

It’s a nice town, specially as the rain has totally dried up and the sun is now beaming on us all.

The pedestrian shopping street is quiet, and at least here they have managed to avoid a town centre the same as everywhere else in Britain. It has quite a lot of individual shops and that makes it more interesting.

I had some family business to conduct in Fort William then went off to find tonight’s resting place.  

This is only the second time on my trip when I couldn’t find anywhere in my price range on AirBnB,  so I am staying in a small guest house just off the town centre. Paul and Elizabeth Simpson took the plunge and moved to Fort William from Tunbridge Wells to open Taransay in Seafield Gardens. Paul said he had no idea what hard work it would be when they started but like all the AirBnB hosts I have met on this trip, they enjoy having guests to stay from all over the World. There is a wonderful view of water and mountains from the house.

Tomorrow is the EU referendum. An important day. I expect they will be paying great attention to the result as an exit might well have a knock on effect on tourism in Scotland. Or maybe not. We will have to see. 

Day 52: Portree - Staffin and the Old Man of Storr

I am a good painter of the decorating variety, as well as the mural and stage set, so I spent the morning giving the guest room at Harish and Clemencia’s home a coat of fresh paint. She had already done two coats to cover the original deep purple but it was still ‘grinning.’ Not only was it June 21^st today – the longest day but it also happened to be Harish’s birthday.

We had a celebration lunch with family members then on his advice I drove to look at their biggest town, the capital of Skye Portree. 

For those of you living in Sussex near me – it was the sixe of Polegate! Big town? It had a Co-op supermarket and a Boots and several small shops including a soap maker.

And Skye Batik, a kind of throw back to the sixties. 

The designs were Celtic but most of the Batik is made in Sri Lanka even though the family live here. The coloured jackets and smocks are made on the island.

For some reason they have a joke collection written up on luggage labels presumably by the public

and even more oddly, a whole wall of graffiti in the form of messages and autographs again from the public.. They gave me a pen and invited me to sign the wall. Somewhat bemusedly I did.

I have already noticed that almost every building on the west coast and on Skye is painted white, Portree harbour was the exception. There were some colour washed houses.

An architect service in the town supplies very modern wooden prefabricated residential and commercial buildings, and I had seen some on my road trip over the last few hours including some wooden ‘tent like’ holiday structures.

Leaving Portree I drove through the countryside to Staffin. Again, bar an isolated house or two, it was an empty landscape grey and silver in the rain.

The attraction here was Kilt Cliffs, dark sheer cliffs with a waterfall where in the past dinosaur bones had been discovered.

We have Beachy Head in Eastbourne. Frankly my dears just as impressive!

Then I heard it. I thought it was pure imagination but as I stood in the rain looking over the barrier at the cliffs there was the most eerie music. A cross between hump back whales singing and dolphin sounds.

The other tourists were too busy talking and taking selfies to notice, but a German came to stand beside me and I asked him if he could hear it too. After a moment or two he agreed and set about trying to work out where on earth it was coming from. Being German, and careful and methodical, it only took him a minute of two.

The barriers themselves.

They were not set in a straight line but slightly offset.

At the top of each tubular strut was a small hole about half a centimetre in diameter. We were high up on top of the rocks and as the wind blew, it went into the tubes through the holes like bellows forcing air into organ pipes and that made the sounds. It was quite magical. I loved it. It was an air organ and I have absolutely no idea if it was intentional, but I will definitely share the concept with members of my council so we can set something similar up in Eastbourne. We have enough wind!!!

I dove back past the Old Man of Storr a distinctive  rock formation that looked extremely dramatic in the mist and low cloud swirling around it.

In contrast to the lower more rounded hills on the island, there is nothing gentle about this. It looked as if it had been designed as a Martian stage set.

I was back at Treaslane in time to meet up with my hosts. I had suggested taking Harish out for supper to celebrate his birthday, and he chose the Stein Inn. It was in Stein, and is the oldest inn on the island.

A lot of the food I have come across so far has been of the fast food variety but this was not. It was truly delicious.

On our return, well fed and satisfied with the day, we cracked open a bottle of champagne and chatted til the early hours. This had been the longest day. It will be down-hill to winter from now on. 

Day 49: Disaster day - good and bad news in equal measure

What a blooming nightmare!!

Good news: I am not imagining a problem with Gloria

Bad news: Paul took her down the hill and said that the clutch is slipping. Today is Saturday. The only garage in Ullapool is closed until Monday.

Good news: Paul says if I treat her very gently and stay in low gear and go slowly, we will get to Plockton, my next place, perfectly well.

Bad news: These are the most demanding roads in the UK. There are mountains. Gloria is struggling to get out of second gear and doesn’t want to go up mountains any more.

Good news: Much of this journey is on the level. Not nearly so many mountains as there heave been over the last five days. Saw a garage and it was open Yay!!!!

Bad news: Not a garage at all...somewhere to keep haulage truck.s

Good news: Kindly Kenny the owner tied to ring a couple of garages he knew but they were all closed. He gave me his phone number and said she should make it to Plockton but in case she didn’t he would came and get me with his tractor if I broke down. He also tested Gloria and like Paul said he thought she’d get to Plockton but to take it very gently on the hills. (He means mountains just not the Munro sort of mountains!)

Bad news: “By the way Plockton doesn’t have a garage. You’d best drive on to Kyle of Lochalsh."

Good news: We limped into Kyle - just

Bad news: It's Saturday. The garage was shut. I am supposed to be back in Plockton staying on a farm that is 9 miles outside the town in the middle of nowhere – and no way to get there. I went to the police since my car was sitting defiantly in their drive opposite the garage.

Good news: Kyle of Lochalsh has the single best police force in two men anywhere in Great Britain! Big round of applause please.

First they found me a garage that was only open because staff were about to go on another rescue mission. John the mechanic let me have a car of his for £10 a day so I can still go to Skye and the farm at Plockton and when I get back on Wednesday morning - Gloria will be sorted. And as she's a Ford not a BMW or a MERC so it will be almost affordable.

What a stressful day. I haven’t a clue about scenery or wonders to behold. Spent 80 miles

concentrating on getting my beloved little car safely to a garage. And we have. And we did.

This is my replacement car. I stalled it four times just trying to get it out of the garage onto the main road. But doubtless we will soon get used to one another.

You can see the island of Skye from the Kyle of Lochalsh. It is so close! I had imagined in the ‘Over The Sea to Skye’ scenario that we were talking about a distance like from England to France but far from it. There’s a rather elegant road bridge and that is how I will get there on Monday (now I have a replacement car!)

Happily I had managed to get the car to move uphill without embarrassing myself, the farm was just 9 miles away. It turns out not to be the usual sort of farm.

Graig Highland Farm is a sort of conservation farm with the usual chickens and Bonnie the goat and the less common lama. Judging by the notices pinned to the fence, families are welcome to bring their children to see the various animals and feed them. I have seen neither any of the animal, any families with or without children nor my host. 

My cabin is wooden and self contained with a bath (hurray) and main room with kitchen sitting area and dining area and one bedroom. The views are great. Not too sure about the cabin but I intend to have a long soak in the bath with a glass of something red  and then an even longer sleep. Night all.