The Old Kirk, The point at Thurso, Beach at Thurso--no one was swimming
Bridge over loch, oil drilling in firth, highland scene
Highland scenery from the train
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Neil slept in, but we were up in time for the full Scottish breakfast minus the black pudding (blood pudding) and the haggis. It was a lovely breakfast that was cooked to order with poached or fried eggs, baked tomatoes, potato scones, toast, English bacon (thin fatty ham, and sausage, plus juice and coffee.
After breakfast we packed our overnight bag, wrestled with the Swedish door lock… The handle had to be held up while you turned the key to lock the room. It didn’t come with instructions, but the desk clerk had a few unkind words to say about the locks as well. With our trusty map of Thurso in hand we headed out for the harbor.
We reached land’s end, and I, of course, took a bunch of pictures. Have to take more than one in case they don’t upload from the card. We walked out to the point of the harbor. We saw the defunct castle, an island off shore (Orkney? Maybe or unknown), and a large cruise ship docked in the harbor but not at the dock. They were taking passengers from the dock to the ship in small boats. They actually looked like the lifeboats. It was low tide. We watched a father and son fishing. It was fun watching the waves…small as they were. We continued our walk around the harbor and headed back into the town.
We saw a number of old buildings, including Old St. Peter’s Kirk (church) that was built in 1220 and used until 1832 when it was closed in favor of the new church in the town center. There was a cemetery as well, but you couldn’t get in to see it….only looking from the gate allowed. We walked through some residential areas that were also very, very old to the town’s center. We went into a small shop to get a couple of postcards. The lady there told us about her son who is on holiday in America….San Francisco. He and his buddy were driving motor cycles to Los Angeles and then flying to Las Vegas. She was plenty worried about him. She became the third person to tell us about the new museum which is in a really old building of course. At least it wasn’t wrapped in scaffolding and netting. Since so many people had suggested it, we decided to check it out. It really was a nice museum. We learned that at one time Thurso quarried most of the flagstone for the world. The industry died, but it is actually coming back. We also learned that there was quite a kipper industry has well. Thurso was also the site (nearby) of Britain’s first nuclear plutonium breeder reactor—the dream in the fifties of self sustaining power. The reactor and research center brought some life to the town. It has since been shut down, but it likely saved the town.
After learning about the community which was surprisingly large after the empty wilderness we travelled through to get here, we walked down their main street. We took in a toy store. We went past hotels which we didn’t stay at, thank goodness because they looked pretty old and run down on the outside.
We stopped at the train station and Nancy talked with the agent about making five minute connections. He explained that it was done all the time and just stay in contact with the trainman, and he would keep us informed. We still had about an hour before out train so we decided to take the walk in the sun that we had not taken in the rain. We went down Janet Street to the foot bridge, and crossed the park to the river. From there we could see the grocery store that was across from the hotel. It was an easy walk as advertised, but in a pouring rain not knowing where we were going it would have been difficult. We returned to the station and waited for our train.
We had a great ride to Inverness, uncrowded, quiet, non-raining, and on time. We had a number, five, by request stops, but the lady train driver put her pedal to the metal and we really flew on parts of the journey. We made it to Inverness on time and walked over to the next platform, platform 2, and got in coach B. Here the problem began, there were two families, four adults and six children occupying our seats and others. We asked them if we could have our seats and one of the women replied that there were no tags on the seats, and there were not. We would have moved, but there were no double seats available. I don’t know where the reserved tags went but they were our seats. The ride for half an hour was tense as the woman seemed to think we were in the wrong so she sat and gave us evil looks the whole and let her little girl get by with kicking Nancy under the table, but they got off at the third stop and we had the entire table and four seats for the ride into Inverness.
Right on time the train arrived in Perth for our second change. We had six minutes to make it off the train, up the stairs, across the bridge, down the stairs, to our next platform…. We made it with three minutes to spare. We had reserved seats, fortunately, because the train was a bit busier. We shared our table with a grandmum who was headed to Loch Lomand to take care of her 15 month old grandson. She commutes from outside of Aberdeen to Glasgow and then Loch Lomand every week. She comes down two days a week. She is a retired teacher who taught 5 to 7 year olds. She has two sons who graduated from Strathcylde and her daughter-in-law lectures and researches in the prosthetics department at Strathcylde. She wanted to know about our holiday….She said that we had probably seen more of Scotland than most Scots. She was a very friendly lady who definitely made up for the crankster from Inverness to Aviemore.
At each of the train stations there are signs with the station names posted of course. The interesting part is the Gaelic spellings that are included under the English spellings. This much is true---Gaelic is one complicated language, and I pity small children who have to learn to speak and spell it. Actually, there is a program to promote the learning and teaching of Gaelic in schools. If you become qualified to teach Gaelic, you can pretty much name your job.
We got back to Glasgow right on time---8:22 PM—our scheduled. The trains have an amazing record for promptness. They have big signs in the train stations showing their records. They also have the incentive of having to give discounts if they fall below a certain level of promptness. The senior discounts in Great Britain are amazing….around 1/3 of the ticket cost. We very quickly made up the cost of the senior pass. They have all kinds of passes available. You can get family, mum, grandparent, friends passes. They work very hard to keep people on their trains. On many of the trains you have “trollies.” The trollies take the places of dining/food cars. The train employee brings the little trolly through the train loaded with tea with water hotter than McDonalds, coffee, sodas, water, wine, some beers, chips, candy, sandwiches, and salads. This was a good thing on the trip back from Thurso since we didn’t have time to get food between trains. We were able to have tea and chips at least.
Okay, back to the point—we got back to the flat about 8:45. Jess was there waiting for us. Pete had made potato and leek soup, so we had some and collapsed. This traveling is hard work.
Steps: 10,130
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