Name that Holiday

Spring break in the Highlands was extraordinary! Tim and I started the 6 day tour in Glasgow. A night out in the largest city in Scotland proved to show us a livelier night scene and cheaper pints than Edinburgh. We departed Glasgow early the next morning, but not early enough to catch the 10:00am ferry leaving Oban for the Isle of Mull, Iona and Staffa. The Create-Your-Holiday’s-Name game begins. First one: “All Scots are Damn Liars”. Several people told us that Oban was just a little over an hour from Glasgow. However, even departing earlier than were told we needed to, the 2 ½ hour trip landed us to the wee coastal tourist trap town of Oban at 10:25am. When we explained to the ferry tour salesperson that we had been quoted by several locals that it would only be about 90 minutes to Oban from Glagow, with the most deadpan expression, she responded, “How, by helicopter?”. We chuckled, made the most of it, and then took an alternate ferry, at the suggestion of the ferry ticket sales desk operator, to the Isle of Mull. It afforded us enough time to take a train to Toranus Castle, tour the castle and gardens, and return to Oban so we could make it to our evening accommodations before dark. And, I use the term train loosely here. It basically amounted to child’s toy, went about 3 miles an hour, and wheeled along this wee little track for about less than a mile. I would have paid money to capture Tim’s facial expression when he saw the “train”. It depicted emotion that combined rage and lunacy. Naturally, this just fed into the trip’s inaugural title (of the name game), but, also spurred a new one: “THIS is a Railway?”

However, the car ride on the A82 to Oban from Glasgow brings us to our next entry in the title contest, “‘A’ Road My Ass!” A is the letter for major roads, what Americans might call highways. ‘B’ roads are less travelled and less maintained, and so on. Well, go carts and horse drawn buggies would have had a hell of a time negotiating the A82 from Dumbarton to Crianlarich let alone automobiles, lorries and coaches! It was a wee curvy narrow, some times ONE lane road that set on the western edge of Loch Linhe. Yeah, it was a slower drive in our no-suspension ’94 Ford Fiesta than we anticipated.

The drive north, past the remote islet-based Stalker Castle, to Fort William was romantic and serene. In the Highlands, the mountains are greater, the lochs possess more grandeur and the postcard picture-moments are far more frequent that I imagined they would be! Words and pictures (being developed as I type) won’t do it justice. We stayed at the Kismet Villa in Fort William. Our evening brought us to the several pubs. Our favourite of the three, the Ben Nevis Pub, named after Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Scotland, was a quaint little place. We met merged with another table after some room shuffling of patrons was required, and added to a very international setting for our evening. Hinnie from Finland, Catherine from Switzerland, Sylvester from Poland, and oddly enough, I cannot remember the names of the 2 Scots, and Tim and I shared a pint and a laugh or two about living in Scotland.

Thursday morning was as clear as they ever come in Scotland. More than one local said to us that few people see the top of Ben Nevis because of the clouds and fog, and we were fortunate to be able to see it in its glory. Tim and I drove to the Nevis Park and walked to Steel Falls, which ran through Glen Nevis. The 2 hour hike was on the edge of a wooded hilly glen at the base of Ben Nevis. A wee bit of wine and cheese and crackers for the end of the hike picnic, and that’s us off to Ullapool.

The drive to Ullapol was the longest single stretch of driving for us yet, so we stopped for a coffee and cake in Fort Augustus, a gorgeous little town nestled at the southern most tip of Loch Ness—No, no sightings of the mythical beast. However, we would definitely make it one of our places to stay for an overnight in the future!

Our friends and colleagues at the Dalkeith House, the Hoods, rented a cottage 3 miles north of Ullapol, in a village called Ardmair, and invited us to stay with them for an evening, as they had an extra room! The village is on the north western coast of Scotland—it again, was other worldly. Before you arrive to magnificent coasts and beautiful beaches over looking small islands and deep blue water, we had to drive through taiga-like region (with less trees) for miles, almost as if you were on another planet. It possessed an eerie quality; one of mystery and solitude. We shared some good conversation and a few bottles of wine. We tasted Skye beer and combed the beach for the best stones. I took six.

After touring Ullapol on Friday morning, and buying a cute little picture frame to remember our time there, we sat at the Seaforth Pub and wrote out about 15 post cards (YOU, yes you reading this, might be one of the few---question: do we have your address?) and followed “Pope Watch 2005” unravel. I’m sure there’s a special in hell for me for that one… In case you are curious, I predicted the Pope was going to die in April WAY before the last ill-health spell. Not sure what I get for that, or why I predicted that, but, I did call it.

Now that the pope topic has been broached, here’s one side story. Mary and John have an article cut out and hung on their door with a picture of the Pope grasping a child’s face with the large caption: “When Popes Attack”. I think it’s from a tabloid, not sure. Anyway, when it was announced that the pope may pass, and last rites were given, the Hood’s 8 year old son, who had seen this from the house, apparently asked, “Dad, how often DO popes attack?”, and was relieved to hear that the pope had passed away, thinking small children were safer for it. Okay, a classic case of ‘you had to be there’, but there was some serious LOL going on after that comment!

Next up, the Isle of Skye: Heading south now, to our final “new” destination, and enjoying our third morning in our wee car, whom we’ve named Ferdinand, our latest entry into Name That Holiday is born: “Hmmm, I LOVE the Smell of Petrol in the Morning!” For whatever reason, the car just reeked of petrol until we’d drive it a bit. I think I’m happy that our little green Ferdie made it, but I now I am thinking it may have been the fumes that made the trip seem so magical! We toured Eileen Donan Castle—a 13th century castle rebuilt many times in each subsequent century except the 19th century; a coastal castle that defended the island from Vikings at one time! It’s since been turned into a museum and honours the clan that resided there most recently—I’m going to go with the McLeods, and is worth a visit. It is apparently the most photographed castle in all of Scotland.

We arrive in Kyle of Lochalsh around 5pm and checked into our hostel. The SkyeBackpackers hostel was a wee bit dank, but it did the job. That evening brought us the King Haakon pub for some pints and then to Saucy Mary’s for some more pints and live music. We needed A LOT of pints to help us sleep in the room we were in!

Portree, Skye, was our Saturday destination. The largest town on the island, it has only ONE secondary school. I can’t imagine what the school bus system is like! It took us about 50 minutes—through mountains, curves, up and down and spinning around, to get from Kyleakin, where our hostel was, to get to Portree, and there are 6 or 7 other cities people (and their kids) live in!. Anyway, we walked around the perfect little village, enjoyed a coffee, and then did the Old Man of Storr hike—One of the steepest hikes I’ll ever do, it was the highest we had ever been on our trip, and the vista over the Atlantic ocean and Hebrides Islands were wonderful. A cute Scottish couple snapped a photo of us on one of the summits, so hopefully it turns out. Seven miles north of Potree, our last virgin Spring Break destination, we headed for home.

The evening brought us back to Glasgow. We decided to kill the bulk of the drive on Saturday afternoon so we could have a leisurely Sunday. There is nothing worse than ruining a long, restful break by getting all hot and bothered by a long car ride of traffic and restricted physical activity. We stayed at the Euro Hostel, enjoyed some great gay bars—Delmonica’s is our new favourite, and I can’t wait to take friends to the newly-discovered city (at least for Ryan and Tim who spend too much time in uber-posh Edinburgh that is) of Glasgow for fun nights out. It was for us, at least, a terrific last night out for our “Scottish Spring Break”.


Now that’s a good name for the holiday.