Blarg: May 16

Quick post (may add a few more pictures later):

May 16 continued:

After packing up the car, we got on the way driving from Skye to Stirling in the mainland.

The boys were in amazing spirits the entire way, actually. We had singing and 'buhhh-buhhp!" (picture redrum voice applied to bup-bup) from Jonathan and Will the whole way. We were on the road before 10am and it turned out to be a long drive. We drove through Skye and ended up (edit: I write this like it was a fluke) at the land bridge between the mainland and the island. "Saucy Mary" watched as we took photos of this rather impressive Scottish erection.

I got a lot of chances to really enjoy the car on this drive. The whole trip was only a little over 200 miles, but this isn't "Saskatoon to Yorkton" driving. The roads are narrow and winding and have lots of traffic and generally require an awful lot of attention. I've become very comfortable with driving here now, but we did have one sphincter-puckering moment: During the trip we had to pass a lorry. This was not just any lorry--it was a left-hand drive extraordinarily wide lorry that was being driven poorly (val reports that he had a foot to his line on the left, which is bloody criminal). He was more than a foot in the other lane it seems as well, and it was a windy, narrow road, and I passed him doing 55 or so with one of my wheels literally half-on, half-off the pavement and no more than 4 inches clearance to the truck on my left. Brutal.

We took a slight detour (maybe added 15 miles, which is to say 3 hours) so that we could drive along the bottom of Loch Ness so the Loch Ness monster could hock a few rocks into the famous lake. We had a quick tea at a little stop maybe 7 miles away from Loch Ness; the kids had ice creams and flake bars, while I had cafe latte and a KitKat. The other grownups had scones and clotted cream. It was a nice stop after a couple hours of travel. Loch Ness looked much like the other lochs we've seen, but of course it was pretty. We were down on the south side; apparently it is wildly touristy up at the north end of the loch. As we travel out of the Hebrides I note just how many more tourists there are than there were on Uist and even Skye, and I am annoyed slightly (Sam is greatly annoyed--he would prefer the hotels and shops be open, but empty).

More travel later, when maybe 2 miles away from Fort William, I heard on BBC2 "and the coldest place in the UK right now is Fort William, at ... {not sure what was said here, vision was red and blood was pounding in my ears}." We really have had pretty pissy weather. Sam is disappointed that the weather didn't cooperate a bit better, and since we've had 15 days in a row where it has at least rained some (although only our day on Skye did it rain steadily the entire day) I'm starting to get less optimistic.

We did stop outside Eilean Donan castle so we could get a few pictures; we knew Stirling castle was coming up.

The valley of Glencoe (I guess the glen of Glencoe) was misty, with lots of beautiful stone walls. Sam explained some of the history of the massacre of the MacDonalds here and it was appropriate in restrospect. The day was getting eaten up quite quickly, and I think we were only averaging 30ish MPH including stops. We had one final stop in Tyndrum, which is a junction with basically a tourist stop--lavs, cafe, gift shops, and the best Scotch selection I have ever seen, and the best Sam has seen as well, for that matter. I scored some rugger kit here as well. Sam tells me that the urinals at this famous rest stop used to have the following 3 signs:

"We aim to please; you aim too, please"

"Stand closer--it's not as big as you think"

"Please don't sway in time to the music"

We arrived near Stirling, to stay in Cambusbarron, which is just a couple of miles down the road from the Stirling Castle. We got to the Foresters pub, above which our flat resides. The managers/proprietors of the place had always been fairly unresponsive by email. Ev had emailed them, but got no response, and I had been edgy about this. We arrived about 5pm, the bar lass called the manager, and he came by to show the place. He was sort of surprised we were here ("No one comes from Canada without calling to confirm since September.") We settled in and it's a strange mix of very old and new, but there's plenty of space. As we were carrying luggage in, the manager confided in me that there was "very nearly a major fuckup." He had people coming by at 7pm to take the place, so we literally were within minutes of having our stay completely kiboshed here.

I was feeling kind of rough and negative after all of this, and the kids were tired, so rather than driving into Stirling to find something to eat, we simply had scrambled eggs and beans on toast and sent the kids off to bed. There are a few problems with the place (broken fridge door, heaters that can't be turned off) but the internet works.

Sam, Val and I went for a pint (John Smith this time) in the pub below before turning in; was a nice time.