I had driven the road to the Talbert Ferry terminal yesterday and it didn’t take me much more than 45 minutes. I was to be to my ferry today by 11:00am for an 11:50am departure. I was making good time until up ahead I saw a line of cars stuck behind a vintage vehicle going a maximum of 45 in a 60 mile zone. I knew that if i didn’t pass I would not make my ferry so I waited for some of the other cars to clear off and then made my move. I feel pretty proud of how well I have adapted to the driving over here, seriously, I am good. : )
I wasn’t waiting in the ferry line long and am now sitting in the restaurant at a table by the window so that I can look out. There is no use really in taking any pictures as it is rainy and gray, my little ole iPhone won’t be able to capture much. I am hoping that I can keep my stomach on this trip, thankfully it is not as windy today and it is a shorter ride.
A man working on the ship said hello and then something in a thick Scottish accent, at first it sounded like “Hello, you are quite the best dressed person I have seen today” I looked at my outfit and thought, hmn, that couldn’t possibly be what he was saying and then he followed it up with, “it is quiet”. I still have no idea what he said to me, after asking him to repeat himself I just smiled and nodded.
The ferry boat sure was rolling! It was worse than the ferry ride two days ago, thankfully it was much shorter! I hope I am never lost at sea, I don’t think I would survive the naseau, forget about the starvation, dehydration and sea life.
I took the scenic drive from the ferry terminal to my hotel and found even smaller roads with a lot more traffic on them than I had previously experienced on Lewis and Harris. This was foreshadowing to the rest of my time in the Isle of Skye, it was filled with tourists. I know, silly for me to call them out when I am in fact one myself but they traveled by the bus loads. It is quite a different experience to stand on the side of the road with just the sound of the wind and the smell of the earth than to be standing there when a tour bus pulls up and fifty people hop off to take pictures.
Like the rest of Scotland the Isle of Skye had beautiful terrain with big mountains and many waterfalls cascading down them, it would be impossible to capture the beauty in my pictures but I was able to get close to a few and take a couple of shots.
I found my hotel easy enough, it wasn’t as pretty as it’s pictures online. It is like it was on a dating site and it chose it’s profile picture from one in its finer days. I was a sucker and bit, the price for a single room was 70£ compared to everything else in the area which was double or more. This place was what I like to call a flea bag hotel. It was rundown, moldy, and old and not in a charming Scottish way. I dropped my items in the room and then went to walk about and as I exited the building I had to dodge 50 some people off loading from a tour bus. Now if I didn’t already find tour busses retched, I did now, they didn’t even put them up in nice accommodations.
I spent the majority of my evening in my room finishing a book as there was no wifi to update my blog, and then went down to the lobby to catch the last bit of the live entertainment, a man and his squeeze box. It turns out I was a bit late but ended up getting into a conversation with several gentlemen including the musician about the song “Just a Wee Doch & Doris” they knew it well though no one knew that my Great Grandfather was one of the writers. Though speaking of…I had purchased a cheap Scottish music cd at one of the shops near the ferry terminal, I had scanned it to see if any of the songs I knew my Ggrandfather wrote were on there and didn’t see any, as I had a little bit of time on the ferry I looked closer at the cd and in fact “Wee Doch & Doris” was actually on there, I opened the booklet and saw that my GGrandfather’s name was in the credits along with three other men. It appears he wrote the song with Harry Lauder a well known Scottish artist in the 20s and several other gentlemen.
I woke this morning after a restful sleep, hopped in the shower which left me feeling a bit dirtier than when I hopped in, the shower curtain kept sticking to me, the ceiling had all these mold marks and I was quite sure that I should be using some sort of shower sandal. I went to turn off the shower and it wouldn’t turn off. I fiddled with it for about fifteen minutes when I decided to leave it and to tell them upon checkout. Wrapped in a towel I heard housekeeping knock on the door, I said I was not ready for her to do the room but that the shower wouldn’t turn off, she asked to enter to turn it off for me. She couldn’t figure it out either and said she would send one of the men up in about fifteen minutes. I quickly got dressed and ready and was about ready to leave when they turned up to work on the shower. He struggled a bit but finally was able to get it turned off and told me that I turned the wrong knobs, that I should have only turned the center knob. I indicated to him there was no heat so I thought I had to turn those other knobs, he said no, you just had to wait for the hot water. I wanted to tell him I thought he was a knob. : )
I am checked into a lovely B&B that cost me half what yesterday’s place cost and is 100 times nicer. I am going to blog more later but want to catch some of the town’s sites before it gets too dark.
More later!
XOXO –
Sarah Jane
Jane Travels Again 