Monday, July 5, 2010
Andi, our host at Woodbine Guest House, offered a diverse menu for breakfast. Pete and Jess had full Scottish breakfasts…Jess declined the haggis. Nancy had plain old poached eggs while Neil had scrambled eggs with smoked salmon---all very good. Then we quickly packed up and got on the move since we had a ferry to catch.
We had decided to take the road around the northern tip of Skye and along the west coast to meet up with the main road in Portee. The road between Uig and Portee was a one lane road with passing spots. The first wee bit was terrifying—very steep with very sharp drop-offs and no barriers except bushes. That was maybe the first half mile up and out of Uig. We were following the coastal path around the northern end of the Isle of Skye. The road was narrow..one lane with passing spots….very interesting to meet big travel busses and sanitation trucks. It also had several of my very favorite road sign….picture included. The road followed the shore line, so we saw various cliffs and lots of very interesting geological formations. We also met some very interesting animal life….sheep roaming free. They would stand aside the road or cross the road as they saw fit. This happened quite a number of times. Pete would round a corner and there were the sheep. We not only watched for cars coming at us but for the sheep as well….lots of hazards. One of the interesting hazards was when part of the one lane road and dropped off the cliff , and the road department just drove posts into the road to prevent people from dropping off as well.
Eventually just north of Portee we were given real two lane roads again. We made it to the ferry with a half hour to spare for our check in time. The ferry left from Arrangh on the Isle of Skye and went to Mallaig on the mainland of Scotland. While we waited for the ferry, we checked out the two gift shops and the food stand.
The ferry was quite empty from Skye to Mallaig . We were the second car on. There were may be a dozen cars and a tour bus. Pete and Neil took the car onto the ferry while Nancy and Jess walked on. Neil and Pete joined Nancy and Jess on the passenger deck as the ferry left. The turn around time is quite short…..off and on and go. It started raining as we boarded the ferry. We could tell we were on the sea the way the ship bounced around. We arrived in Mallaig about ½ hour later.
Pete and Jess dropped us a couple of blocks from the train station….due to congestion, not perverseness. Pete and Jess were headed back to Glasgow, hopefully in time to get Chase from the kennel and the car returned. We were headed to the Jacobite Express, AKA the Hogwarts express from the Harry Potter stories. The car we were in didn’t have the little compartments that Harry’s train had. The car behind us did. We were a car where there was a table for every four sets of seats. The seats were bench style…quite old fashioned. The scenery was grand. We went over the famous bridge. I tried to get pictures of it, but I mainly got the shadow of the woman sitting across from me. Pictures from trains are hard. We went up and up and up. It was absolutely amazing to listen to the chug, chug, chugging of the old steam train. There was always a hint of coal smoke in the air and you could see the clouds of smoke from the engine. When we went through tunnels there was enough heat from the steam that it fogged up the outside of the windows. It cleared right away, but it was cool Two hours after leaving we arrived in Fort Williams in the shadow of Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Scotland.
The only bad thing about the trip had nothing to do with the train or the scenery. It was the children in front of us (we were riding backwards) who decided playing a card game was more fun…a very loud card game in which they repeated the same thing over and over and over for two hours. I don’t understand why you would play for very expensive tickets and allow your kids to act that way. However, the mothers slept and the father sat and videotaped the card game…..seems like a waste of money to me.
We needed to get some food before our next train left. We went to the station café..it was 4:30 in the PM. They said sorry, but they were closing…interesting. A gentleman offered directions to the city center, but we chose to go Morrisons, an American style grocery, instead. In their little café we had sandwiches and an excellent piece of carrot cake for only six pounds. We then toured the grocery to check out the differences. They don’t refrigerate the eggs which I find odd. There were some interesting differences….many more bean choices, especially different kinds of pork and beans which are served at breakfast. There were all kinds of fish. There seems to be a fish market in every store. We also founds lots of curry and a large number of different sauces and spices. Some of the spices that we have in the US do not show up here. Neil did find a small bag of Peanut M and M’s on sale two for two pounds 50 pence…..he got them. He has had M & M withdrawal.
We caught the regular train to Glasgow. We never did see the peak of Ben Nevis…..it was covered by the pretty misty clouds that we had all day. The train was not very crowded so we were able to have a section of four seats all to ourselves with our little table. The tickets for this train were about 1/3 the cost of the Jacobite train. Of course, it isn’t the Harry Potter train, so not quite the same atmosphere. The train went up and up and up. You could listen to the sound of the diesel engines whining as it worked to make up the inclines. We know we went down because Mallaign and Glasgow are at sea level, but it really didn’t seem like it. There were some incredible curves on the rail line as we could see our own train. Most spots on the trip were so desolate you had to wonder why we had 14 stations where we stopped to let people on and off the train, but get on and off they did. The mountains were rugged and beautiful. We saw several deer running up the hills. We had several more bouts of rain. The train runs aside Loch Lommand and several other smaller lochs. We arrived at Glasgow Queens Street Station at 21:30 or 9:30 PM.
A cute story: Two ladies from either the States or Canada got on the train in Fort Williams. They sat across from us and were thoroughly enjoying the scenery. When we reached Loch Lommand they were so excited. They thought the Loch was the Irish Sea and the small community on the other side of the Loch was either Belfast or Dublin. Oops! A wee bit off with their geography and map reading skills, (Yes, they were reading a map), but they were so happy.
We were going to stop at the neighborhood Sainsbury’s, but it had closed early. We met Pete and Jess coming from a nearby convenience shop with crisps (chips) and soda. We had some talk, played with Chase Monster and went to bed…very tired.
Steps: 6,139
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