Planes, Trains and Automobiles

(Actually, that’s a bit of a misleading title as there were no automobiles involved.  Well, one on Skye, but it doesn’t really factor into this post.  Buses, though, lots of buses.)

I’m not a particularly high-maintenance traveller.  This year, I’m especially good at going with the flow; I like wandering around without much of a plan beyond “Oh, I think maybe I’ll go there next”, and when you don’t really have an agenda set in stone, it’s easy to shrug and change your plans to fit what’s possible, even if it’s not quite what you originally set out to do.  A useful ability to have in this epic UK winter, one of the worst and earliest they’ve seen in years.

Things, on occasion, went awry.  Take, for example, Orkney.  My one “must see” on Orkney, Skara Brae (a Neolithic village dating back several thousand years) is shut when I'm there because the roads are impassable in the snow.  Okay, Plan B:  hike around Orkney to see smaller sites (but still very old and very interesting), doing my best not to die of exposure before I get back to the hostel that night.

Successfully accomplishing the not-dying, I hop a ferry back to the mainland and think I might toodle along the north coast over to Durness.  Another detour:  buses from Thurso (the ferry port) to Durness only run once a week (five days from now) in the winter, and — given current weather — in all likelihood won't go at all.  Okay, Plan B:  rather than waiting around a week or two for a bus that may not ever go till spring, hop a bus back to Inverness and then a train over to Ullapool, where I catch a ferry to Lewis.

No particular issues on Lewis, or getting from there to Skye, but leaving Skye, another detour:  I plan to catch the ferry from Skye to Mallaig on the mainland, and from there take the glorious West Highland line down to Oban.  Oops, no dice; ferry cancelled on account of weather (which I discover only AFTER I wait fruitlessly at the bus stop for an hour).  Okay, Plan B:  take the bus over the Skye bridge to Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland, and either (a) catch a train from there back up to Inverness (completely the wrong way for Oban, but the most beautiful train ride ever so worth the detour), or (b) get a bus to Fort William and then on to Oban.

No trains running, so bye-bye, option (a).  Option (b) still possible, I just have to wait an hour or so for the Fort William bus.  It’s late, I’m frozen stiff by the time it arrives —but at least it arrives, so I’m on my way to Oban.  About 20 minutes outside Fort William, another detour:  no buses will be going further south that day, as the roads are closed.  My bus will go back to Skye, with any passengers who wish to return and try their luck again tomorrow. 

This causes great consternation on the part of the woman in the seat behind me, who keeps repeating "but I just don't know what to do" — should she go back to Skye for another night (but it's so expensive!), stay in Fort William and get an onward bus tomorrow (but where would she stay?), or go somewhere else like Inverness and down from there (but what if she gets stuck in Inverness? and wouldn't she get home really, really late?)  I finally interrupt her confused monologue and take her with me to the train station, to see if trains were running or not.  She clings to me like a leech all the way to the station (practically next door, but she is terrified about getting lost!) and we get tickets, so she is all sorted out. 

I memorize the streets of downtown Fort William as I traipse around for hours, finally landing in a coffee shop offering free Wi-Fi.  Train does go, eventually, although later than its promised 17:45 departure; I don’t mind leaving late.  At least I’m actually leaving.  (Fort William has no appeal.)

I get off at Crianlarich, where I must switch trains; wait is supposed to be about 20 minutes, but stretches out more than an hour, which I spend trying to stay warm.  There’s a little waiting room, with a heater activated by a push-button on the wall; the heater’s at one end and the button’s at the other, the heater’s on a five-minute timer and I am only warm while standing 6 inches from the heater.  So every five minutes, I dash out of the tiny circle of warmth to jab the “on” button and race back; at least I get my exercise while waiting for the train, but even so I have lost all feeling in my fingers and toes by the time it arrives.  But I get safely to Oban, so all ends well.

Leaving Oban, another detour:  no morning train.  I wait for the noon train, but it is not running either.  ScotRail is putting on a bus instead, but we have to wait a couple of hours while the bus gets driven to Oban and then for a new driver to be found (the first guy has logged too many hours at the wheel).  By late afternoon, finally on our way; another long, slow, treacherous journey.  My seatmate (7-year-old Willow) and I entertain ourselves with a drawing game:  one person draws a shape on the paper, and the other has to turn it into a picture of something.  We spend about three hours doing this, during which time she also questions me incessantly about Canada and tries to convince her mother (sitting across the aisle) to take her there for their next trip.  Eventually we’re in Glasgow and life is fine again for a while.

No problems with bus/ferry combo over to Belfast, or getting from Belfast to Derry on the train.  Deciding to cross the entire country in one fell swoop (Derry to Cork in a day) may be a questionable choice:  it’s not that far, distance-wise, but it’s a convoluted trip and requires changes of buses in Omagh, Longford, Athlone, and Limerick, with tight connections at each juncture.  No issues until the Athlone-to-Limerick leg, when the bus driver goes unspeakably slowly.  He dismisses our complaints with a “it’s the weather” shrug (even though there’s no snow to be seen, anywhere).  We’ve missed the connecting bus to Cork and will now have to hang around Limerick bus station for an extra hour and a half.  But eventually I get to Cork.  

My plan is to go visit Cobh (where I’d learned my O’Neill ancestors departed from) and its Heritage Centre with a genealogy centre and lots of information about the famine ships.  Slight detour in Cobh, as the genealogy researcher is on vacation.  But the helpful girl at the desk copies down her name, email address and phone numbers, and has a long chat with me about what kinds of information are helpful to have as starting points for further research.    I realize just looking for a “Dominick O’Neill” (no birthdate, county of residence or year of departure) might not net me much.  (Or, rather, it will net me far too many Dominicks and I’ll have no idea which is the correct one.).  So I resolve to track down more info when I get home.

Next step in the Irish plan (modified by spur-of-the-moment jaunt to Cork) calls for me to work my way back north to visit some of Sligo and Donegal before reverse bus/ferry trip back to Glasgow.  Unfortunately, “weather” hits Ireland too so — rather than head northwest where (if I even get there) I’m likely to get stuck and unable to get out — I decide to go northeast to Dublin instead.  Easy trip on the train from Cork.

I start to get worried about ever-more-ominous reports of flight problems at Heathrow and think it's more prudent to head back that way instead of more time in Ireland.  No ferry tickets either from Dublin or Belfast available for days, so I book a flight on Ryanair.  I opt to go back to Edinburgh and eke out a couple more travel days before London.

All’s well leaving Dublin, but about halfway there the co-pilot comes on the loudspeaker to tell us that Edinburgh airport is closed and we’ll be diverted to either Glasgow or Newcastle.  Glasgow?  No problem, loads of trains to Edinburgh, where I’ve already booked and paid for my hotel.  Newcastle?  More of an issue; went there once in 1994 to catch a ferry to Norway and have no desire to return.

Of course it's Newcastle.

 Ryanair says they’re organizing a bus to take us to Edinburgh (about two hours’ drive in good weather); we wait around the airport for close to three hours.  I keep hearing “Edinburgh” repeated in an announcement and finally clue in it`s my bus; I can’t understand a bloody word in the Newcastle accent.  The two-hour trip becomes more than four, as we crawl slowly north through a winter wonderland of swirling snow and hail.  I finish my book about half an hour in, and it’s too bumpy to write so I start reading the same book again (even though it’s very bad).  Everybody else sleeping so no one to talk to.  I am happier to see Edinburgh than I’ve ever been to see any city.

Getting back OUT of Edinburgh is a bit of a challenge.  I don’t want to fly (London airports still a mess), so I get a train ticket.  Check the morning of departure and learn that the sleeper trains are NOT going to go; tracks are closed between Peterborough and London so trains on the East Coast line are stopping there.  The ScotRail ticket guy is willing to give me a ticket for the morning train anyway (at the full London-Edinburgh fare), but tells me it’s my own problem what to do once I get to Peterborough, there may or may not be buses from there, he can’t say.  Shrug.

I traipse over to the bus station instead, where I learn that buses are indeed going, but I’ve missed the only morning bus so there’s only the 10 p.m. night bus.  Ugh.  Overnight on a night bus in Argentina or Chile is quite delightful; in North America or the UK it’s pretty dire.

So I go back to the train station, where I get a much more helpful ticket lady this time; she tells me I can go a less direct way to London with a couple of changes of train, and I decide on that plan instead.  I get on the next train leaving for London, which leaves late and runs well behind schedule on the way to York, where I make my first connection for Sheffield.  The train rolls in late to Sheffield as well, but I make a different connection than I’d originally planned (fortunately, lots of trains to London) and head south.  I arrive in London late, but at least I get there.

Finally, it’s Christmas Eve and I head to Heathrow for the epic journey home.  I line up once to use the self-serve check-in kiosk; the printout tells me I have to see a live person.  I line up to do that, for another 40 minutes, and she tells me I’m flying standby (despite having a ticket booked six weeks ago), so I have to go to yet another line and wait to see if I will get a seat.  The security guard keeping order in the pandemonium sends me over to yet another line, where I wait for about 45 minutes (nervously watching the clock tick down toward my flight time); I finally flag down a British Airways person, who tells me I’m in entirely the wrong line.  Fortunately, I’m the first one in the RIGHT line, so as soon as the counter flashes its "Toronto – Flight BA0093” sign, I’m in business.  I get a seat, race over to security and run full tilt to the departure gate.  They’re on the final boarding call for my flight, so I get on nearly last (but not actually LAST, which is good, since the last person always gets glares from everyone else on board for holding up the flight).

Flight home is delightful, with a roast turkey dinner and some good movies to choose from on my personal TV screen.  Oh, and I’ve landed in the middle class (BA has one between business and economy), despite having booked economy, so I get a much larger seat and more leg room.  Oh, and as much wine as I want so the flight passes in a pleasant haze. 

Small hitch when I get back to Toronto, in that my backpack neglected to make the trip with me.  I realize this after about half an hour of waiting at the baggage carousel, when someone new starts making the announcements; apparently they’ve been paging “Passenger MacLellan” the whole time, but my name had been so mangled by the previous announcer that I hadn’t recognized it.  Bag arrives, finally, on Boxing Day and travel mania is over.

Ahhh. 

Who Do You Think You Are? (Part III)

Family is a wonderful thing.  But sometimes I wonder about mine. 

On my dad’s side (the MacLellans), I’m descended from sheep rustlers (but, in their defence, it was either an act of political protest or they were starving and desperate for food, after being forced off their farmland in the Highland Clearances).  The MacLellan family motto is “Think On”, which isn’t, as you might be inclined to think, a reference to our noted intellectualism.  No, it’s from a 12^th or 13^th century MacLellan chieftain who rode up to his enemy’s castle with the enemy’s emissary’s lopped-off head spiked on a sword, and yelled out to him to “Think on’t” (Think about it) before crossing him again. 

On Mom’s side (the O’Neill half), I’m descended from former High Kings of Ireland, but with slightly unsavoury reputations. The Red Hand of Ulster —now on the Northern Irish flag, and co-opted by the Ulster Volunteer Force as part of their insignia in “the Troubles” —was originally an O’Neill emblem.  Legend has it that the O’Neill chief of a raiding party, in an effort to inspire his warriors, decreed that the land of Ulster would belong to the first man to lay his right hand on the ground.  One bright spark cut off his right hand and lobbed it off the boat on to shore, in his determination to win the prize.

Yikes.   

So if genetics have anything to do with it, I`m prone to violence, thievery, and so ruthless in my ambition that I will, without batting an eyelash, kill anyone who gets in my way or even maim myself to achieve my goals. 

Are you sure you want to admit to knowing me?

Separated by a Common Language

You can get very spoiled, as an English-speaker, many places that you travel in the world.  If you don’t want to try to learn any of the local language (whatever it is), your odds of finding someone who speaks yours are better than if your native tongue was, say, Afrikaans.  It’s the language of business, and of tourism, in much of the world, and vast numbers of people in other countries aspire to learn what I grew up speaking; I even met other backpackers in South America from non-English-speaking countries that had learned English specifically to travel (instead of learning Spanish – they figured English would be more useful for speaking to other backpackers, and it would take them more places in the world). 

(And thank God I grew up speaking English, that’s all I can say.  I can’t even begin to imagine trying to learn it as an adult – it’s got to be the most illogical and pernicious perverse language on earth.  I wouldn’t stand a chance if I hadn’t learned it by osmosis when I was too young to know how tricky it is.)

But the thing travel teaches you —in addition to just how useful knowing English can be —is that English isn’t just English.  It’s Aussie, and Canadian, and Kiwi, and Irish, and Scots, and (God help us) American, and it isn’t even consistent across any one of those countries.  Oh, sure there are some national consistencies (if you hear someone talking about being on “pogey”, wearing a “tuque”, asking for a “double-double”, or showing off his “Molson muscle” while buying a “two-four”, you’ve got a Canadian), but even in my own country it changes:  a Newfy sounds about as much like me as I sound like an Aussie, and Albertans twang like they belong in Texas.

And some of those versions of English?  Good luck trying to understand them!  Edinburgh (my first stop in Scotland) wasn’t so bad; some of them sound delightfully easy-to-understand Scottish, but many sound more English than the English because of their private-school educations (would you think, listening to him, that Tony Blair is an Edinburgh boy?). 

As I went further north and west, though, things started to change.  And, interestingly, people started to recognize my accent as Canadian more readily (I don’t think I was mistaken for American, ever, outside of Edinburgh); one woman told me that Canadians sound like Scottish people trying to sound American.  (I think it was supposed to be a compliment.  Anyway, she likes our accents.)

I thought I was really out of depth with the Scots accent when I arrived on the Isle of Lewis, as I listened to people talking on buses and on the streets, and couldn’t make out a word that they were saying.  I clued in, finally, that I was actually hearing Gaelic (not English); something like 60% of the population of Lewis is fluent in Gaelic and it’s used as an everyday language.  Street signs are bilingual, with Gaelic displayed in bigger, more prominent font; you hear Gaelic spoken in shops, on television, on radio, everywhere.  (And I learned it’s pronounced “GALL-ic”, not “GAY-lick”, for the Scots version.)  Their accents in English were noticeably stronger than the east coast, but I could still (mostly) understand them.  Skye and Oban weren’t too bad, either.

Then I got to Glasgow.

Did you know that Glaswegian is another language?  It’s not just an accent, my friends, it is way beyond that.  They have their own vocabulary and pronunciation and phraseology that often bears little resemblance to English as it’s spoken elsewhere in the world.  Read this, for example, and tell me what you think it means: 

“Ah hink yoo're huir uv a bonnie. Dae ye want tae gang fur a bevvy?”

I heard this from a Glaswegian in a bar.  It means, more or less, “I think you’re cute, can I buy you a drink?”  (I had to ask him to write down what he said so I could share it here later – it took about four tries before I finally got the gist of what he was actually asking, so maybe not the most successful chat-up line ever.)

I can’t quite make heads or tails of what exactly renders it so unique.  One thing they do, though (along with other West Coasters) is something I’d previously thought was distinctly Kiwi —they turn “i” into “u” when they pronounce it.  For example:  “minute” comes out something more like “munnet”, and “fish and chips” is (you guessed it) “fush and chups”.  (They don’t sound much like Kiwis, otherwise, but perhaps that explains where that particular Kiwi quirk originally came from.)

Then, just when I was kind of getting the hang of Weegie-speak and actually able to talk to people without saying “Pardon me? What did you say?” every other sentence, I crossed over the sea to Ireland.

Wow.  Belfast is another strange little pocket of language, too.  The cute wee Irish boy (from elsewhere in the North) working in my Belfast hostel told me they have a “Wa-wa” accent —so called because every non-Belfast person listening to them has to keep saying, “wha’? wha’?”  (as in “Pardon me? What did you say?”)

Things have calmed down, language-wise, outside of Belfast, and I’ve been able to understand people.  You can’t help but get lots of practice in the Irish accent, as people will talk to you, unprompted, everywhere you go.  Seriously, just stay still for a few seconds next to a person in a small town in Ireland and I guarantee they’ll be deep in conversation with you shortly thereafter; this is a very friendly country.

I’m not proficient enough yet in the subtleties of Irish English to tell you how the North differs from the South, or the east from the west; perhaps I’ll just have to come back.  If nothing else, I have one burning question to settle:  if I had to pick one or the other, would I choose to listen to a cute Scottish boy, or a cute Irish one?  The jury’s still out on that one.

Who Do You Think You Are? (Part II)

I’m leaving Scotland temporarily and am on my way to Ireland (on the very swish Stena Line ferry that has free Wi-Fi in the middle of the Irish Sea).  Well, Northern Ireland, but as far as I’m concerned it’s all “Ireland” (I realize I’d probably offend some people in Ulster by saying that, so I’ll keep the opinion to myself while there).  I love travelling pretty much anywhere, but both Ireland and Scotland have special places in my travel heart; it’s an entirely different experience to travel somewhere that you feel some kind of connection to. 

There are other places I’ve been that I’ve loved —Machu Picchu, Morocco, Tuscany, Tikal to name but a few— but they don’t grip me the same way.  There`s more than a few drops of Celtic blood in my veins, so I feel like I`m coming “home” in a very real sense when I come here instead.  It’s not too many generations back that my great-(great)-grandparents left; these are my people.  Hey, they look like me (this is one part of the world where I blend into the crowd completely), and they know how to spell my last name.  I definitely feel at home.

(My karate instructor claims that my Irish/Scots heritage explains my attitude to martial arts; he used to marvel that, no matter how many times I got knocked down while sparring, I’d just get back up and plunge in again.  Whether this is a compliment to the Celts I’m not sure; it could mean we’re valiant and determined not to quit, or just too pigheaded or too stupid to know when we’re beaten.)

I`m most clear about where the MacLellan line of my family came from; I probably feel most like a "MacLellan", too, by virtue of carrying the name.  (Never underestimate the power of your name as part of your identity -- I am as much an O'Neill or Hefferan or King as I am a MacLellan, but what I call myself adds more weight to that name. In the unlikely event I choose to get married, I won't be changing it.)

Ferry from Oban to Mull, in Oban Harbour

I paid a visit to that part of the world after leaving Skye, and spent a few days in and around Oban.  It’s a pretty wee town, set on a snug little harbour on the west coast of Scotland about 3 hours’ journey north of Glasgow.  There’s not a great deal of tourist-y stuff to do, but there are a few ruins to wander around and see, and it’s a lovely place to just go for a walk.  (And I never, not once, had to spell my last name for anyone.)

I took one day to visit the islands off the coast, spending most of the time on Iona; it’s gorgeous and green even in the beginning of winter (warm air from the Gulf Stream, apparently) and has been considered a holy place since the 6^th century, when St. Columba first landed from Ireland with the intent of Christian-izing the savage heathen Scots.  The famous Book of Kells (an illustrated 9^th century Bible, now residing in Dublin’s Trinity College) was probably produced by monks here, but shipped to Ireland when Viking raids became a significant threat.  (The Vikings weren’t stupid; they knew that monasteries and convents had all the wealth in those days.)   The existing Abbey isn’t quite that old (parts of it date back to the 13^th century, but most of it is 15^th century), but it’s magnificent; the man on duty in the gift shop was quite thrilled to see me (I think he’s not seen many tourists for weeks) so he was quite happy to give me a detailed description of the Abbey`s history and architecture.

The MacLellans don`t go back in Oban quite as far as the Abbey, I don`t think; but it’s still pretty cool to walk the streets and think that, some time around the Clearances, three MacLellan brothers decided to leave (or fled for their lives, whichever story you choose to believe) and ended up in Canada.  Further back, however, there is a 12^th or 13^th century “MacLellan’s Castle” in Kirkcudbright (pronounced something like “kirk-COO-bree”) in southern Scotland, which is the ancient stronghold of the Clan Chief.  (I suppose the fact that it’s in ruins now says something about how far the family fortunes have fallen in the centuries since!)

For the O`Neills (maternal grandmother`s family), my parents tell me that great-great-grandfather Dominic O`Neill left when he was a child of 4, in 1841 (presumably with his parents, if they were still alive) —at the height of the Potato Famine as one of the hundreds of thousands who ended up in the New World.  I`d thought he came from County Tyrone in the north, but opinion`s divided (one cousin thinks they came from County Cork).  One day I`ll have to track down more details; in the meantime I`m going to wander around a bit of the North as I haven`t seen anything of it beyond Belfast.  (And I last saw Belfast in 1994, when “the Troubles” were still a reality and paramilitaries on both sides still set off bombs —so I imagine it’s changed quite a bit in the intervening years.)

Of the Hefferans and Kings (paternal grandmother`s and maternal grandfather`s families, respectively), I know not very much at all.  I`m assuming that Hefferan is also irish and they came from over here somewhere as well; King is probably English but I really don`t know.

I think this’ll be my project for next year, when I’m back at work and travel days are but a distant memory.  I don’t want to wonder; I want to know!  But in the meantime, I still feel like I’ve come home.  

P.S.  Glasgow people thought I was crazy for going ALL THAT WAY to Belfast in one day without flying.  Please, it`s only going to take six hours by bus and ferry; in Canadian terms, that`s practically next door.  My mother used to do that length of trip twice in one day (to Ottawa and back to pick up my sister from university.

How to Survive a Scottish Winter

I`ve been getting a crash course in the topic over the last couple of weeks, as winter descended very early and quite unexpectedly on the UK.  I was expecting it to be cold, sort of, and I thought there might even be a little bit of snow towards the end of my trip.  What I didn`t expect was a full-scale blizzard descending upon the nation!

 Up until a few days ago, it was still pretty smooth sailing; oh, there were a few occasions when things were closed without notice because of the weather, but mostly, I could carry on more or less as planned.  I just sat back and laughed a little (in my smug Canadian way) at this country that was in a panic about nothing.  It`s just a little snow, and it`s not even that cold!  (Dear BBC, minus 10 degrees Celsius does not constitute sufficient cause for an extreme weather warning.  Talk to me when it hits 40 below — then you can start to worry.)

Canadians tend to be a little scornful of other nationalities (except perhaps for Scandinavians of any type) with regard to their tolerance for weather.  We like to think we’re tough and hardy, and can cope with the worst that a northern winter can throw at us.  I will admit that, say,  Winnipeg in January is a little much, even for an Ontario girl who grew up with real winters (I don’t care what the Prairie people I know try to tell me about “But it’s a dry cold” — 50 below is still bloody well 50 below, and it’s just too damn cold).

People in the UK seem to think this about us, too; most every where I go, as soon as they find out I’m Canadian, they just laugh and say something like, “Well, I guess this weather is nothing for you, then, is it?”  (They never believe me when I say that Toronto rarely gets as cold as it’s been here, and on the one occasion that city got as much snow as has been dumped on Scotland lately, our mayor had to call in the army to dig out the city.  The rest of Canada is still laughing at us for that one.)

But what’s unusual about the UK from a Canadian perspective —and this is the key difference, that makes life potentially more miserable even if it`s not as severe a winter as Winnipeg might get — there`s no central heating, anywhere.  There aren`t always even radiators in every room (at least in some of the places I`ve stayed), but even when there are, you know what?  Radiators DON’T WORK.  Anyone who thinks this is sufficient winter heating in a stone building in Scotland is kidding themselves. 

[ Side note:  I think there’s a money-making opportunity here.  Anyone who decides to start exporting Canadian-style space heaters — you know, the ones with the fans that actually get the heat distributed all around the room and warm it up —could make a mint.  Hey, in a country where you sometimes have to plug in your car (I’ll explain block heaters another time, for the English and Aussie people reading this) so that it doesn’t freeze up overnight, we have heating in every form down to a science. ]

But there are ways around the difficulties, and I thought I’d share them with you all.  Scotland is, if anything, even more beautiful in the snow and ice, so you really should come see it in winter some time; don’t be put off by the chill, as I’m here to teach you how to live through it.  After going as far north as Orkney (into a blizzard) and way out west to the Isle of Lewis, I’ve survived the worst of what this country has thrown at me, weather-wise.

1.  First, bring a really good pair of longjohns.   (For the Brits and Aussies, these are full-length underwear-type things that you wear under trousers, made out of silk or wool or flannel and specifically designed to keep you warm.)  I almost didn’t; I’d packed them away with the rest of my winter stuff and only thought at the last minute that they might be useful.  I’ve been wearing them ever since I got here, more or less, and they keep me from freezing overnight.  (They also roll up really small, so you can easily fit a pair in your bag.)

2.  Drink lots of fluids.  Forget about water, that’s not going to help you (unless you drink it hot with lemon as my mother does, but I can’t abide it that way).  Think tea, coffee, hot chocolate (mmmm, hot chocolate) in large quantities as often as possible.  Note:  it is even possible to get decent coffee here occasionally now (just beware the instant stuff they serve you on trains).  Or just go straight for the whisky (note:  no “e” in the Scottish version, and don’t ever call it “Scotch”) — that stuff’ll burn all the way down but it does spread a lovely warm glow all throughout your body.

3.  Bring a sleeping bag.  I didn’t (again), and I’m regretting it (again).  A duvet in an unheated room in a 17^th century stone building is not enough protection against the night   Failing the sleeping bag, steal as many duvets and blankets as possible from the other beds in your dorm room and pile them all on top of you.  This only really works if there’s no one else in the room, otherwise they’re likely to get a little annoyed and may steal all your blankets in the middle of the night, leaving you to wake up shivering and blue.

4.  Accept that, somewhere, some time, a bus or a train or a ferry (sometimes all three) will be cancelled on you.  Even if it doesn`t look like there`s enough snow to close roads or tracks, transit might still not be running.  I learned from a ScotRail conductor that the trains here have brakes that are only designed to operate down to -5C, and below that they are prone to seizing up (rendering forward motion of said train effectively impossible).  Spectacularly poor planning, if you ask me, since -5C isn`t THAT unusual in some bits of Scotland (but ScotRail, unfortunately, didn`t ask me).  

I`ve had a few mishaps: a bus delayed from Inverness to Ullapool (but still made the ferry connection to Lewis so no harm done); ferries and buses cancelled between Portree on Skye and Oban on the mainland, turning a 100-mile journey into a 15-hour odyssey; a train cancelled from Oban to Glasgow (and the bus brought it to replace it delayed for 3 hours by a late arrival in Oban, and then the driver`s legal requirement for a rest after a set number of hours behind the wheel).  I`m attempting to go from Glasgow to Belfast by bus and ferry tomorrow (I`ll let you know what comes of that).

5.  Make sure you don’t drink any of the hot liquids immediately before going to bed, and make sure you visit the toilet (yes, you`re allowed to call it that here —they look at you funny if you refer to the “washroom” or “bathroom”) before burying yourself under all of those blankets.  Otherwise it’s a very rude shock when you have to emerge from your cocoon in the middle of the night and race, goose-pimpled, down the hall to the facilities.

6.  Wear all of your clothes all at once, or as many as you can actually get on.  This works particularly well if you are out hiking for a day, when the weather is likely to veer wildly between four seasons in the space of an hour.  It’s also useful, however, on buses and trains and ferries, which are not necessarily any warmer than being outside.  You may wish to wear several layers to sleep, as well, even if you have managed to acquire 15 or 20 blankets to cover yourself with.  (Side note:  don’t worry about having to do a lot of laundry from wearing all of your clothes all the time.  It’s too damn cold to sweat and your clothes will still smell fine at the end of the day.)

7.  Related to #6, pack lots of fleeces.  MEC sells some good ones, as does the Running Room; you can even (as I did, under duress) get an excellent combination Goretex/fleece jacket from NorthFace that is very versatile and warm.  (And it’s saving me from dying of exposure here, just as it did in the northern Chile desert. So I`m not even bitter any more -- well, not much -- about how much I had to spend on it.)  It helps enormously if the fleeces all have hoods; don’t be afraid to wear three or four fleeces at a time and put all of the hoods up.  It looks very goofy but it is incredibly warm.  (Just be prepared for small children pointing and laughing.)

8.  Don’t wear Australian boots in a Scottish winter.  The two countries couldn’t have more different kinds of weather if they tried, and their respective footwear isn’t compatible with the other’s weather.  I brought a pair of Blundstones (which I love) and they were okay for getting around London and Edinburgh.  But from Inverness onwards, they’ve just been carried uselessly around in my backpack.  Go figure, boots designed for the desert of the Australian outback aren’t good in snow and cold!  (Note:  I do seem to remember seeing, last time I was in the Australian Boot Company store in Toronto, that they now have a sheepskin-lined version.  That might be okay for warmth, but you’d probably still have difficulty clambering up wet or icy Scottish rock.)

9.   Find a pub or cafe with a cozy fireplace, and plunk yourself there for the entire day.  Peat fires are especially delightful (my hostel on the Isle of Lewis had one), but any kind of fire will do.  In a pinch, knock on someone’s door and ask if you can camp out in their front room for a while; Scottish folk appear reserved when you first encounter them, but they’re actually a pretty hospitable bunch and they’d more than likely welcome you in.  (Bonus:  you’ll probably also get tea, or whisky.)  If you can arrange to fall asleep “accidentally”, you might even be left in peace and thereby avoid having to go home to sleep in your cold dorm room.

10.  Finally, find a good-looking person of your preferred gender and snuggle up next to them.  It is extra enjoyable if said person has a delightful accent, such as a Scottish one (even Glaswegian will do, although you may not be able to understand a word that said person utters).   This is particularly easy in Scotland if you happen to appreciate redheads, as there seem to be an awful lot of them about.  (I’m not at all special here.  It’s very deflating, especially after being a tall Amazon-like exotic flame-haired goddess in Peru and Bolivia.)

That should do it.  If you’re now feeling well prepared, very brave and in possession of a large enough number of fleeces, I’ll be here for another three weeks or so — c’mon over and join me!  I swear it’s worth it.

Speed, bonny boat ...

You know the rest, don't you?

... Like a bird on the wing,

Onward, the sailors cry.

Carry the lad that’s born to be king

Over the sea to Skye.

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,

Thunderclaps rend the air.

Baffled, our foes stand by the shore –

Follow they will not dare.

Et cetera.  Is it stuck in your head now?  Will you be singing it for the next three days?  (I probably will.  Thanks a lot!)

Yes, I’ve been to Skye.  Make that back to Skye —most of you know that I lived over in the UK for a while after university, and out of all the mini-trips my sister Julie and I did around the UK and Ireland, I think the trip to Skye was probably my favourite.  I was curious to go back; until this year, I’ve always been going somewhere “new” instead of revisiting places that I’ve been and loved.

It’s been a while, but Skye is just as I remembered.  It’s still breathtakingly lovely, the weather is still maddenly capricious and the sheep still as utterly stupid as that visit years ago.  I came at things from a different angle this time —taking the ferry across from the Isle of Harris in the outer Hebrides, instead of across from the mainland at Kyle of Lochalsh, and staying in Portree instead of Kyleakin —but I went back to some of the same spots and fell in love with some new ones, too.

I remember the first trip vividly.  We’d met another Canadian girl named Elizabeth, aged about 18, on the train over from Inverness and we all opted to stay at a wee hostel in Kyleakin, which had no phone, no TV and (in those days) definitely no Wi-Fi or internet.  So we chatted to the other travellers (it was a time of year when other people WERE travelling, too, not just crazy people like me), and one of the group of Italian students also staying there had a guitar.  So she played, and we all sang; I think “Te Amo” was the most successful attempt, as they sang in Italian and we sang in English.

Oh, and there was a cute Aussie guy named Rob staying there as well, and the four of us (Julie, me, Elizabeth and Rob) rented a car one day for a tour of the island.  And I think later that night Rob hit on me, but as my fetish for Aussie backpackers hadn’t yet developed (and, of course, because I had a boyfriend back in London), I didn’t take him up on it.  (Huh.  Damn, with hindsight, I might have chosen to act differently, seeing as that other relationship didn’t work out so well.)

The only change that’s happened in the intervening years that I DON'T like is the bridge across from the mainland at Kyle of Lochalsh.  It’s not a bad bridge, as bridges go (it’s even kind of pretty), but the short little ferry ride was so much more enjoyable —probably mostly because Julie and I could sing several choruses of the Skye Boat Song (there, it’s stuck in your head again, isn’t it?).

But the rest is lovely.  Portree is the “big” town on Skye, but even so it’s only a few streets big.  And I can vouch for the fact that it’s a quiet, quiet place in the off-season —even the pubs were pretty empty, and I got there on a Saturday night!  Needless to say, I spent a lot of quality time with myself (but I’m good with that).

It’s pretty, though, and there’s a agreeable little hike you can take near the town that gives you some spectacular views of the area.  In summer, it would be a doddle, as it’s quite short; in the winter, however, with the paths coated in ice (the temperature hovered around zero and snow had melted and re-frozen) and in some places taking you steeply up- and downhill, it’s a fairly challenging undertaking.  I resorted to sliding down on my bum for the steeper downhill bits —I did remember to wear the good hiking boots, but even they couldn’t get any purchase on the slick trail.  (Plus it was fun regressing temporarily to a five-year-old state.)

My pictures are all up on Shutterfly, so go have a look —I can’t begin to do justice to the views in mere words.  Suffice to say it’s gorgeous, and the weather was clear and sunny as I toiled up and down slopes, so when I wasn’t busy watching my footing I had ample chance to enjoy the scenery.  This being Scotland, however, the weather turned as I neared the top of the wee mountain; I made my way back down to town in snow and hail and clouds that rolled in, seemingly in the blink of an eye.  (Rule of thumb for dressing in Scottish winter:  wear as many layers of clothing as you possess, with at least one waterproof.  That way you can strip down or add more as the season changes from summer to winter and everything in between.  And if you don`t like the current weather, wait it out and it`ll be fine again in five minutes.)

Sunday, I resorted to renting a car (trying very hard not to think about what the bill for rental and gas was costing me in Canadian dollars —it was fairly shocking), as there is no bus service at all on the island save the long-distance coaches that go on to the mainland.  So if I didn’t want to be holed up in the hostel or a deserted pub, I had to drive myself around.

Started out quite cautiously, as the weather was a bit dicey and the condition of the roads unpredictable, but as I worked my way around the peninsulas and over to the west side of the island, it got sunny and warm, and the roads were dry as a bone.  So I was able to take a detour to Neist Point after all; it’s probably my favourite spot on this, my favourite island (and if you’ve been in my living room, you’ll have seen a picture of it, as it’s up on my wall).  I had the spot pretty much to myself (save for the sheep who seemed to like throwing themselves in front of my car), and I could have happily stayed there for hours, just drinking in the view.

Neist Point, Isle of Skye

But, mindful of the early nightfall and the changeable weather, I started heading back to town as it neared 3 p.m.  Heavy snow rolled in again as I made it back to the main road, so it was a slow and torturous drive back; the views of the Cuillins, though, shrouded in mist and snow, made it all worthwhile.  (I didn't dare try driving up on some of the tiny side roads, so I just admired them from afar.)

Getting off the island again was not quite as enjoyable — I couldn’t get the ferry to Mallaig because of the weather, so had to take a long detour round by bus via Kyle of Lochalsh to Fort William before I could finally get a train that evening to Oban.  (Oh, and I lost my very expensive glasses somewhere along the way, which annoys me immensely because they’re brand-new, almost.  And because my eyes are so screwed up, the lenses alone cost about $600, which means that, until I have health insurance again, I won`t be spending the cash to replace them.  My backup pair, circa 1999, are horrible but at least I can still see when I’m not wearing contacts.) 

Getting of the island the first time around didn`t go exactly as planned either — I think we`d planned to take the ferry to Mallaig and the train from there, but the ferry wasn`t running then, either.  (Unexpected snow in late March.)   But I do remember we took the sleeper train from Fort William back to London, and giggled like five-year-olds as we played with all the buttons and switches in our wee little compartment.  (Hey, I think it was the first time either of us had taken a night train.  We got pretty used to it as we started travelling around Europe.)

But, however I get there and however I leave, being on Skye, itself, is still one of my favourite ways to spend my travel time.  Can’t think why I waited so long to come back!

Islands at the Edge of the Sea

Scotland, I’m coming to believe, is all about the islands.  I didn’t see nearly enough of them when I lived in the UK, but even then one of ‘em (Skye) ranked as one of my favourite places on earth.  Now that I’ve seen a bit more, I think that’s even more true – I’m adding a few more islands to my “favourite places” list. 

There’s an enormously long coastline for such a wee country – it twists and turns and bends back on itself for thousands of miles – and the coast on any side is spectacular.  (Well, not south, since there’s no south coast.  But every other direction.)  But the islands are even more incredible, whichever ones you hit.  When you go north, to Shetland and Orkney, or west to the Hebrides, some of them feel so palpably remote and otherworldly that you can easily believe that you’re at the very edge of the world; there’s just you, and the sea, and the wind, and the mountains.  (Oh, and some sheep.  Always sheep.)

I’ve visited a few now, starting with the far northern islands of Orkney – utterly beautiful in that bleak and windswept way that I find so much more compelling than palm trees and miles of white sandy beach.  (There are beaches on Orkney, actually, but as I was there just when a blizzard decided to ravage the country, I wasn`t inclined to visit any of them.)  I have to go back in the summer – when more things are open and I won`t be at risk of dying of exposure by hiking around – and have a proper look around.  I`ll head even further north to the Shetlands, too – I am determined to get to Unst, the most northerly inhabited place in the UK.  But I`ll save that for slightly warmer weather, and more daylight:  the sun was setting by 3 p.m. in Orkney, and it was absolutely black by 4, with no sun to be seen again until after 8 a.m. the next morning.  That`s a little too much darkness; think of the wonderful long hours of daylight in the summer, though!

From Orkney, I`d planned to work my way across the north coast to Durness, and then down to Ullapool to head over to the Western Isles.  Well, the weather had other plans for me; since I didn`t fancy driving a car on the wrong side of the road in the midst of a blizzard (and there was no other way of getting across to Durness, except for one bus on Saturdays IF it ran, and then no way at all to Ullapool from there, I opted to abandon the original plan and headed back to Inverness.  Stopped just for a night, and then caught the early bus over to Ullapool, the ferry port for the Isle of Lewis.

Lewis – the northernmost of the Hebrides (the Western Isles) – is incredible.  Again, if your taste runs more to palm trees and lush rainforests, it wouldn`t be for you, probably; but if, instead, you are more dazzled by dramatic rocky cliffs and wide open spaces and craggy wee mountains (as I am), then you`d love the place.  I stayed in Stornoway, in what is possibly the best hostel I have ever seen – in a converted house, the “female” dorm is in the former master bedroom, complete with attached master bathroom and its deep clawfoot tub.  Downstairs, there’s a cozy common room with squashy couches and a lovely woodstove; the peat fire burning all night finally allowed me to get warm indoors, probably for the first time since arriving in Scotland.  And because it`s such a slow time of year for tourists, I had the place almost to myself (aside from a very shy French backpacker boy who just about jumped out of his skin every time I talked to him). 

My whole reason for going to Lewis was the Standing Stones of Callanais (pronounced “Callanish”), and they didn’t disappoint.  It’s a henge similar in concept to Stonehenge (but even older), and pre-dates the Egyptian pyramids; this is an ancient place we’re talking about.  No one knows exactly why or how it was constructed, but because the shadows line up perfect once every 18.6 years in tune with a slow lunar cycle, it’s thought that it was built for astronomical observation and religious ceremonies.

Callanais Standing Stones, Isle of Lewis

If this was down south, as Stonehenge is, within easy reach of London, it would have the millions of visitors a year that its more famous cousin sees.  As it is, even in summer you wouldn’t be overwhelmed by hordes; and in the winter, when I visited, you can stand in the circle (they let you go right up to the stones, unlike Stonehenge where you have to keep your distance) and marvel at it, and wonder about its significance, and just drink in the physical beauty of its setting on a hilltop in Lewis.  The only onlookers I shared my view with were sheep – and they’re not a rambunctious bunch, generally.

And it’s a lovely trip just getting there and back —there’s a very handy public bus that runs in a big circle around centre of Lewis from Stornoway, and stops at a few of the sights including the Callanais stones.  (There are a couple more I’d have liked to see, but the winter bus schedule did not lend itself to visiting more than one in a day.)   I shared my bus on the way back with junior-high-age kids who’d just got out of school; it’s been a while since I hung out with 13/14-year-olds and they’re pretty amusing.  I eavesdropped on one boy making a prank call to a youth helpline —he told the counsellor at the other end that he was on the bus and was getting “the eye” from a girl aged about 20 whom he thought was pretty, and wondered if he ought to go talk to her.  Apparently, the counsellor urged him on (really?) because as soon as he ended his call on his cell phone, he came down the aisle and plunked himself in the seat next to me, and started to chat.

Apparently *I* was the “20-year-old” in question.  (But, just for the record, I was NOT eyeing up a 14-year-old!  I see nothing wrong with younger, but there’s a definite limit on HOW MUCH younger. 14’s way past that particular line.)  I had to laugh.  He was a cheeky little git, I’ll give him that, and I’m sure in a few years he’ll be breaking hearts all over town.  Just hope he aims a little bit closer to his own age next time.

Anyway, I’ll definitely go back to Lewis —in a slightly warmer season next time when more things will be open and more people will be around (I like having a dorm room to myself, but hostels are a lot more fun with other backpackers around to chat to.  Especially if they’re cute Aussie boys.)  But, even in winter – when it is, without doubt, spectacularly beautiful and even more dramatic -- I’m so very, very glad I got a wee taste of the Hebrides; I think this is going to become one of my favourite places on earth as well.  (I have another couple of isles on that list, that I’ll tell you about next.)

And, hey, if anyone’s up for it, there’s a big “Hebridean Celtic Festival” every July on Lewis – kind of the northern version of Glastonbury.  Anyone fancy coming along?