Arran (from CalMac site) |
After spending New Year's Day recovering from the Hogmanay festivities, it was time to get out of the city and head for the fresh air. Deb and Susie picked me up in their hire car on Saturday morning at 10am (a reasonably civilised hour) and we headed off on a circuitous route towards Arran. After the recent gales it was still pretty windy, with plenty of squally rain, but the car was nice and warm and we had a plentiful supply of music in the form of Susie's MiniDisc collection.
The plan was to head out of Midlothian down the A7 towards Biggar (I'm still not sure why), but due to some last-minute confusion we ended up in Peebles (Scottish Borders), which is probably nicer anyway. We almost hesitated and swerved via Rosslyn so we could check out the bizarre and infamous chapel there, but decided to save it for another day. Various villages appeared as we followed the very picturesque Tweed valley for a while (the Tweed being ferociously in flood due to the heavy rains), heading South-West across the Southern Uplands into South Lanarkshire, finally hitting the M74 at Abington.
Up the M74 for a bit to get back on course for Ardrossan (from where we would catch the ferry to Brodick on Arran), and then off at junction 8 down the A71 into East Ayrshire, finally settling on Ayr (South Ayrshire) as being a likely spot for lunch at about 1pm. Found a low-key restaurant next to a pub in Ayr, usual soup or jacket potato kind of menu, but very welcome all the same, and then heading off with an eye on the clock, and with the intention of hitting the ferry terminal in time to catch the 15:15 (there's a minimum of 30 mins checking-in time at the terminal).
After that the trip developed into something of a rush, and a futile attempt at finding a chemist open so Deb could buy a Sinex jobbie to alleviate her worsening cold (every single chemist and many other shops were closed since 2nd January is traditionally a holiday in Scotland), but we finally arrived -- in the now very gale-like weather -- at the Caledonian MacBrayne (aka CalMac) Ardrossan ferry terminal with about 20 mins before the sailing. Only one car in the queue, but the sea was blasting the harbour wall and bouncing over it, the water being a grey/brown colour and a worrying number of white peaks leaping around in the Firth of Clyde.
The guy in the other car came over and informed us that the ferry had been cancelled because the Firth was too rough -- just what we didn't want to hear after making such an effort to arrive in time! He said there might be a sailing at 6pm, which would possibly leave from Gourock (26 miles up the coast) if Ardrossan was still too rough. He said we'd be best to go back into "town" (Ardrossan actually looked quite rough in places, especially around the ferry terminal, with its half-boarded up battered old pubs) to wait and then come back later to check the situation. His suggestion of the coffee-shop at the large Safeways a couple of miles up the road seemed reasonable enough, especially since we'd very nearly ended up there in the Great Quest For a Vick's Sinex but were in too much of hurry.
And so it came to pass that at half-past three on a Saturday afternoon, we found ourselves sitting amongst families of shoppers eating (much to Susie's amazement) sausage, egg, chips and beans in the Safeway's supermarket just outside Saltcoats, North Ayrshire. After we'd grabbed coffee and doughnuts (and possibly the worst hot chocolate so far during the trip), Deb and Susie read the papers and did the crossword, while I conscientiously read up on the history of Scotland (from 4500BC) in the back of my recently-purchased Rough Guide to Scotland. Time passed slowly, like waiting at an airport when your plane's delayed. Families came and went, the history of Scotland unfolded, children cried, coffee was drunk. By 1746 (Battle of Culloden) -- actually 4:45pm -- we realised we might as well head through the dark and the lashing rain back to the ferry terminal, to find out what the situation might be, and whether we could actually get to Arran at all or if we'd end up having to resort to some land-based Plan B.
On arriving back we found about a dozen cars waiting, with the rain slightly abated, but the harbour lamp-posts bending in the still-strong wind. Susie hopped out and bought us a return ticket to Arran -- the total of 57 quid for one car and three people leaving us somewhat stunned -- and we settled in to wait some more, now sheltered in the warmth of the car with the inane conversation of a local FM station's football phone-in show for company (hardly surprisingly, this sent the girls to sleep). I finished reading the Rough Guide's history briefing, taking me from Culloden up to devolution.
Five thirty finally came, and I nervously watched the sea bashing the harbour as we rolled onto the 120-car capacity Caledonian Isles (CalMac's biggest ferry), joking about wills and life insurance, although in fact I was quite terrified. We climbed out of the car, up the stairs and headed straight for the bar at the back of the ship, which I was surprised to find involved staggering zig-zag style down the corridors (despite not having touched a drop all day!), because we were rolling so much in the harbour. The girls each ordered a single malt so I asked for the same (despite not being a whisky drinker), partly for Dutch courage but also because it felt like the right thing to do as we headed off in the stormy sea towards one of the islands, and I'd recently decided to have a go at drinking the local produce of my newly-adopted home (well, it all looks so appealing in those top-shelf bottles with the Gaelic names evoking images of mountains, glens and peat bogs...).
We settled in a corner of the bar and nursed our Machallans, grateful for the comforting warmth after watching so much stormy weather. As the boat turned round ready to leave Ardrossan harbour, a quick glance out of the window revealed huge white crests bashing against the harbour wall, the blasts of foam spraying way over the wall even higher than the miniature lighthouse on the end. My heart was in my mouth, but we were on board now...
Deb encouraged us to tackle The Scotsman's cryptic crossword, despite protestations from Susie and me that we didn't know how to do them, but this turned out to be good fun, and a useful distraction from the worries of the weather. There were a few stomach churning moments as we pitched and rolled and the distant streetlights of the mainland rose into view right at the top of the rear window, and then sank back down again, but as we neared the other side things calmed down a little. Still, I periodically had to climb up on the seat and search for something like a horizon to gaze at, to help my stomach feel less queasy (and several times I wondered whether the whisky was such a good idea after all).
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Arran (from CalMac site) |
At about seven o'clock we arrived safely on Arran, driving out of the raised nose of the ferry onto the rain-lashed Brodick harbour, in the pitch black -- there seemed to be no streetlights at all (in fact we saw some lamp-posts the next day, so maybe they weren't working because of the weather). A quick scan of the local FM stations brought us some suitably "diddley diddley" Scottish music via Radio Scotland (a variety of Ceilidh-type fiddle/accordion stuff with the odd bit of bagpipes thrown in), and we headed off anti-clockwise round the coast towards the youth hostel in Lochranza, cooing at the beautiful little villages such as Corrie and Sannox full of whitewashed cottages facing the Firth: squat little croft-sized buildings with twin bay dormers on the top. (If Brodick is at 3 o'clock on the island -- half-way up the Eastern side -- then Lochranza is 12 o'clock.) We soon began to wonder how much one of these cottages might cost, and whether learning to knit Arran sweaters would be sufficient to eke out a living on the island...
At the Northern end of the island, on the other side of Glen Chalmadale (which the rough guide had said would be full of deer but thankfully wasn't, since due to the winding road and the pitch darkness we were a little worried about collisions) we found Lochranza and the youth hostel about ten to eight. After quickly booking in, paying and dropping off our bags, we headed to the nearby hotel which -- the hostel noticeboard told us -- would stop serving food at half-past eight. A couple of drinks and some decent food later (veg chilli and chips for me, soup plus steamed chocolate/orange pudding for the girls) we were definitely ready for an early night, despite it only being 9:30pm.
On the other hand, not having been to bed before 2am for some time, I reckoned that a coffee and a further read of the Rough Guide before lights out might be a good idea, so I bought a couple of sachets of instant coffee and a twix from the hostel "shop" (ie. the counter where all other transactions take place), and after a quick visit to the kitchen, tiptoed upstairs past the sign that frowned "No Food Or Drink Beyond This Point" -- a reminder of the old-fashioned and puritanical nature of British youth hostels, along with the signs reminding guests that alcohol isn't allowed, and to be back in the hostel for 23:30 "ready for lights out at 23:45"... I couldn't help remembering all those totally different (in fact, quite cool) hostels I'd visited in Europe, such as Strasbourg with its 1am bar.
As I lay on my bunk in the six-bed dormitory on the all-male first floor, I was also reminded of a school trip to the Lake District when I was about 11, probably my first ever youth hostel trip. Staying at Buttermere hostel, I'd excitedly smuggled a large bar of chocolate into bed for a midnight feast, but then fallen asleep before eating it all, which meant that I'd woken with melted chocolate all over the previously-pristine white cotton of my sheet-sleeping bag. Of course, this large brown stain looked rather suspect when I took my bedding downstairs the next day and I was really embarrassed in front of all my school chums...
As I climbed into bed, I noticed that 22 years later the sheet-sleeping bags were still exactly as I remembered from that first time. In fact, the only things in the hostel that I could identify as being any different from my first visit were that there was now a PC behind the main desk, and the sign about the alcohol ban had now been extended to say "no alcohol or drugs".
After tossing and turning for some time, unable to sleep, I began to think that the coffee might not have been such a good idea after all, but then a glance at the dormitory floor revealed another suspect -- a glowing white patch of luminous moonlight bright enough to light up the whole room. The stormy clouds had now thinned out almost completely to reveal a huge, white full moon. I stood at the window for quite a while, watching the wind blow the small clouds past the moon at alarmingly high speeds. I tried to spot enough stars to work out which way was North, reminded of my growing obsession with seeing the Northern Lights (since I'd discovered that they're often visible from Scotland), but eventually realised with some disappointment that the dormitory window faced South. I briefly considered going out for a walk, but the weather persuaded me otherwise. The wind and rain were the only sounds to be heard, and a single light in a distant house at the head of the loch was the only other sign of life. It was midnight.