slowly she turned

The night before, Sandy told me that his throat was very sore, so I dosed him with hot tea and lemon and honey. There were three people on our tour who had terrible coughs and said that they had been sick the week before. Sandy was not feeling up to getting out on this first day of October, so I picked him up some breakfast from the buffet downstairs, made him hot tea again, and left him in the hotel room to watch movies while I went with the group on a little cruise on Loch Ness to the ruins of Urquhart Castle. While waiting for the boat, I enjoyed a bit of time on the shore.

I brought back some sweet treats from the Urquhart visitor center cafe and after a little rest, talked him into walking down the street to a famous used bookshop (at least to those of us who search for such shops on vacation), Leakey’s. When we got there and found no place for him to sit, he decided to go back to the hotel and I spent the last couple of hours of the afternoon exploring around that area of Inverness.

Next to the bookshop was the Old High Church, an 18th century church with a graveyard on a site with a much older history so I poked around it for a while. It was another place with tragic Jacobite history, where executions of prisoners from Culloden were done at the back door.

Then I wandered around shops, but didn’t really see anything exciting. I stopped for a half-pint of local stout at the Highlander Tavern and sat in a window seat to people watch.

Finally I went back to check on Sandy, and talked him into going across the street to the Black Isle Bar for a drink. I tried dosing him with a gin and tonic to cure his ails, and I had a half-pint each of their excellent organic porter and stout. We ran into a couple from Australia who we had talked to on a ferry two days before and had another conversation about their travels. It really is a small world.

We discussed going home early on this day. He was ready to go and leave me behind to finish out the tour. Of course, I wasn’t going to do that.

Then we headed around the corner to an early dinner at Aspendo’s, a Turkish restaurant, where we found Ted and Darlene, another couple we seemed to be thrown together with often by chance. We enjoyed their company. The lamb was amazing, but I was distracted by all the kilims hanging on the walls. This couple had been sick and also disclosed that they didn’t do vaccinations. :0

Some of the group went to Hootenanny, a music pub nearby that looked great, but Sandy couldn’t go into crowded spaces because it hurt him so bad to have his arm bumped. Also, we became anxious that he was getting really sick and didn’t want to spread it. He was becoming miserable. Because he had busted his nose at the bridge, it was painful for him to wear a mask properly.

I spent the evening calling United and getting our plane tickets changed to go home early. They were wonderful, but the only way we could do it without a lot of expense was to fly home on Thursday and not finish the tour that ended on Friday, and we had to take the train to Edinburgh on Wednesday. So we packed up, our tour manager looked up the train information and gave us directions, and that was it for Inverness. We left on the train the next morning.

In hindsight, I regret that I didn’t walk more around Inverness, but my mind was on my husband and how to get home early. So I will have to go back one day.

This seemed like a really full day – by the end of it everyone seemed ready to get back to the hotel. At the same time, a lot of us would have liked to have had a different itinerary with more time in Fort William and Glencoe and less time on other stops. If there’s one major thing I regret about this trip other than having to cut it short, it was that I wished for time to walk on some trails, especially in Glencoe.

Our first stop was nearby at the Commando Memorial, a tribute to the elite corps that served in WWII and beyond. There were stunning views and a garden of moving mementos to the soldiers who had died.

After that, a long stop at Neptune’s Staircase, a set of eight locks on the Caledonian Canal that moved ships and boats a total of 85 feet up or down in 90 minutes. The Caledonian Canal connected the lochs through the Highlands to provide a navigable channel for some pretty large boats.

On our way to Fort William, the bus stopped at the lower falls of the River Nevis. I took a close up photo of the tree with red berries that seemed to be everywhere. Our assumption was that the berries were not edible since we never saw any birds snacking. They provided a nice pop of color to the roadsides.

Our bus driver constantly seemed to be on the lookout for Highland cows, or as he pronounced them, “heelin coos.” You see them depicted in all the gift shops in Scotland. “Hairy coos” is the other term you hear. Yes, they are interesting looking, with long fur and long horns. I never got a close up photo of them though.

We went to Fort William for lunch, and had lamb stew and a toastie (grilled cheese sandwich) at a pub called the Croft, then hurried over to the marina where we boarded a small cruise ship to take a ride on Loch Linnhe. The boat took a long slow circle around this little island covered in seals.

After the cruise on Loch Linnhe, we rode through Glencoe on the bus and stopped at the visitor’s center. It was as lovely as you see in all the photos. I was grateful for a bit of solitude beside a wee ferny burn, but it didn’t last long! There was a reproduction of a thatched cottage.

Back on the bus, and there were a lot of people and cars about. A major trail ran through here, and someone was getting wedding photos made. Absolutely gorgeous scenery.

So, we get back to the hotel, and a few of the younger women headed out for a forest walk to a little 16th century chapel nearby, but for all my grousing about not having time to take a good walk in the woods, I was too whipped to go!

We had a fabulous dinner at Glenspean Lodge, and Sandy and I actually ate haggis, neeps, and tatties and liked it! There was a whisky tasting afterward. Sandy and I passed our whiskys over our water to signal that we are Jacobites. Again, there is video, if I can add it later. Sandy actually participated in this one!

Up early to eat a marvelous breakfast at Glenspean Lodge, and since the day’s plans were almost entirely on the bus or the ferry, Sandy decided to give it a go. I wore some acupressure wrist bands that another tour member gave me and took only half a Dramamine. This worked very well and didn’t knock me out, which was good since normally twisty roads on buses and boat rides can trigger my motion sickness within a minute.

Our bus took us to Oban, where we were cut loose for a little while. Sandy nosed around the shops some before returning to the ferry terminal to sit. His shoulder and arm weren’t the only parts of his body hurting. I ventured a bit farther away and bought us a couple of toboggans at a Harris Tweed mill shop that looked very old fashioned compared to the ones that we saw everywhere.

It was quite comfortable on the large ferry over to the Isle of Mull. The weather was a bit wet, but the scenery was pretty.

We were whisked onto the bus and transported to Tobermory, a beautiful little harbour town. They served an excellent seafood chowder at MacGochan’s Pub and Kitchen.

There were palmettos in the parking lot. In Scotland! The Gulf Stream is a powerful force on the west coast of the British Isles.

I rushed out of the pub to take this photo of the rainbow that appeared beside the rainbow colors of the harbour buildings.

After lunch we didn’t have much time to look around Tobermory. This was my main criticism of the tour. I appreciated the time spent riding, especially since Sandy was in pain if he walked too far, but I wanted more time to poke around. The small area I had time in had some photo-worthy scenes though.

Once again, our bus whisked us away to another small ferry. On the way, the bus driver pointed out that these boats were some of the most photographed boats in Scotland.

I often couldn’t tell if he was kidding, since his humor was so dry.

The roads were mostly one lane with places for one vehicle to pull over to let the other lane’s vehicle(s) pass.

I finally figured out that if I wanted to take clear photos of the countryside, I would need to take short videos from the bus and trains. Since I always rode just behind Gus, it was very much like being on the front seat of a roller coaster. I did okay, though!

This ferry had room for a few cars and our bus.

We went back on such isolated roads that I didn’t see any houses or cars for miles. When I remarked to Gus that we were taking the back roads, he said “Oh, this is the main road.”

I think he was joking.