Friday May 24 – Back to Boston

So sad to leave our relatives, and their lovely house!  And we were dreading the long trip back, though we were eager to see our kitties and Dave again.  Did some last packing and trip prep, then SarahP and Jim drove us up to Arnos Grove for the long tube ride back to Heathrow Terminal 5.  Hugged goodbye and then hurried in, and the journey started off on the wrong foot, literally.  Sarah’s rolling suitcase tripped her, and she hit the deck in Arnos Grove.  A TFL employee hurried over, but she was ok.  And we re-reminded ourselves that we didn’t need to hurry.

Believe it or not, Heathrow was a madhouse.  We checked our bags with no problem, then waited in a long security line, and finally were lucky to grab a table at around noon at a packed J.D. Wetherspoon outlet and breathe for a while.  We had a fine beer/cider and paninis.  We were on British Air 0213, scheduled to leave at 14:40, but they hadn’t posted our gate yet.  I checked again when I got a second beer and told Sarah that I had some good news and some bad news.  The good news was that the gate had been posted, but the bad news was that it was miles away and we’d have to take another shuttle to get to it.

Oh well, hoisted up our luggage again and trundled down to the right place, where we got the right train, and finally got to the right gate, where we found a seat and waited some more.  And that was just the beginning of waiting!  Time to board at last.  This time we were in the middle foursome (again) of the second-to-last row, and we were next to a family with three very young kids.  One of them kicked a glass of wine over on Sarah about halfway through the flight, but the parents generally did a heroic job of helping the kids through the painful experience of trans-Atlantic travel.  And I was on the aisle at least.

But after we were fully boarded, we continued to sit and sit and sit at the gate.  I had started watching The Barbie Movie, but it was more than halfway over, and we were still at the gate!  The pilot eventually came on the intercom, a little miffed, and said that since it was such a crowded day at Heathrow we had to get “wing walkers” to help us taxi through the airport, and they weren’t showing up.  They finally did show up and we got going, but we then had to taxi for another half hour or so before taking off at last, about two hours after we were scheduled to.

Luckily there wasn’t a strong jet stream that day and by the time we made landfall over Newfoundland and then landed at Logan at last, we’d made up much of that time and were not far after the scheduled 5:00PM arrival.  Long line at immigration, but it moved quickly for us natives, and then baggage retrieval was quick, and customs was just a couple of officials smiling at people and asking a few questions if you looked suspicious.  Walked past some people blowing up an air mattress for some reason, then got outside and we were back in Boston on a hot, sunny day.

Waited for the Logan Express bus, and realized what was going on.  The sidewalk we were on was right in front of the wing of the International Terminal that they’ve devoted to housing immigrants.

The bus arrived after not that long and we were whisked through surprisingly light rush hour traffic up to the Anderson RTC, where Dave was waiting.  Wrestled the big suitcases into the back of Olive, and then made it back home.  Boy were we glad to see the kitties safe and sound, and they were even more glad to see us!

So how do I sum this up?  It was a very ambitious vacation, covering three distinct phases (Scotland, London, Norfolk), all of which were fantastic.  We did, saw, experienced, and enjoyed, many great things.  I hope to never forget the beauty of Western Scotland in Spring, the awesomeness of seeing the clocks in Greenwich, or the gentle ease of rural Norfolk.  But a lot of time and effort was spent on travel, and I could feel myself getting older by the minute as we sat or stood or bent double (when the tube was crowded) through endless trains, planes, and automobiles, as well as busses, shuttles, lifts, escalators, people movers, stairs, tunnels, and ramps.  It was wonderful and I’d do it again, but maybe not for a bit.  And of course, the best thing was visiting family and friends, and seeing first-hand once more that the world really is filled with good, friendly people.

Thursday May 23 – London a Last Time

Another round of packing the next morning, and trying to clean out the last yogurt, fruit, and perishables from the frig.  Mickey and family and friends were going to take over the house that coming weekend, and so preparations for that were mixed in.  Took some last pictures of their beautiful house and garden, and then it was time to pile back into the Kia Sportage for a return to London on yet another nice Spring day.

We retraced our route back to the Northern Circular Road, got stuck in city traffic as expected, and then finally made it back to the house in time for lunch in the sunny back garden.  That afternoon was spent doing some final packing of the large suitcases (SarahE was able to fit Mom’s embroidery in hers), and a few errands up on the high street.

The main thing was getting provisions for our dinner that night with Mollie and Leon.  They came over after work and we were very glad to see them.  We had a great dinner and loved meeting Leon for the first time.  Great to see Mollie again too, and we all had lots to say about the political situation.  Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had just called for a July 4th general election, and this could be a pivotal one for the UK.

Mollie and Leon had work the next day and so didn’t stay late, and we finally went to bed ourselves.

Wednesday May 22 – Water and Ducks

There was lots of rain overnight, and the weather wasn’t much better in the morning and so we decided on a lazy, local day.  There was an entertaining pheasant in the garden (and feeder), SarahP had an online Pilates class, and I had a good book.  Some errands (such as a new kettle) were run as well.

After lunch though, the rain had turned into just a mist, and SarahE and I wanted to go exploring.  The local pub had made up some placards describing various walks around the village, and we chose one and then set off.  We strolled into the town, and then turned into a small eco-garden, where we saw overflowing ponds, ducks, geese, and lots of goose and duck shit.  Many of the waterfowl had young ones, and we were especially entertained by the greylag geese, the Egyptian ducks, and all their young ones.

We continued up the lane to the Great Massingham airfield, where drug smugglers are rumored to land once in a while, though the airfield is defunct.  Walked along the old airstrips in the nice and misty day, watching birds and trees, and then turned down Mill Lane back to Station Road back towards the center of town.  Stopped by the Great Massingham village hall to inspect the newly cleaned tennis courts (no one was using them!) and the bowls court.

Walked around St. Mary’s church and then finally to our real destination (if we had one), the Dabbling Duck pub.  This is the local in Great Massingham, and we had a very relaxing ale and cider, while watching and listening to a few of the local denizens.  The day turned brighter and brighter, and a few hardy ones actually sat outside.  Eventually made it back to the house, where the remainder of the new vegetables were being planted.

We had reservations at the other pub they’d talked up for that evening.  And after changing to our dinner clothes, we took off for another great meal at the George & Dragon in Castle Acre, which is the home pub for the local brewery, Duration Beer.  We were seated at a small table in their dark and book-lined dining room, and SarahE and I couldn’t resist splitting their mixed grill for two, which included a jerk half chicken, wild boar sausages, steak, ribs, and some great onion rings.

But we couldn’t linger and rushed back to the house.  The final episode of that year’s MasterChef was on that night, and we were kind of excited.  Brin ended up edging out Chris and Louise, though they all produced fantastic menus.  Watched another installment of Race Around the World after that, and then to bed.

Tuesday May 21 – Blickling Estate

Something they have all over the place in Europe are preserved “country houses,” sometimes with beautiful gardens.  There aren’t many of these in the States, Castle Hill is the nearest we get in the Boston area, though this is put to shame by some places in Europe.  SarahE and I really wanted to go see one, especially because that would mean a non-challenging walking day, and May should be a great time of year.

SarahP and Jim were scheduled to play tennis that morning, but the courts were being cleaned and so that was called off.  They thought going to a country estate was a good idea though, and we considered a few.  They are National Trust members and had a great guidebook that we consulted, and we settled on the Blickling Estate.

Had another excellent breakfast that sunny morning, and then headed East on the A1065 to Fakenham, and then onto the A148, passing Little Snoring and Great Snoring, to the B1354 through Briston, and eventually to Blickling Road.

Another pretty full car park, though many of the people were there just to walk the extensive trail network around the 4600 acres of the grounds.  We paid our entry fees (the lady asked if I was from Holland), and then strolled down the path past the local, to the grand entrance to the estate.  The house itself was not yet open for the day, but we were fine with passing through an atrium out to the formal garden, which is 55 acres itself.

The gardens are impressive, and they’re maintained in great shape.  I couldn’t believe how close they mow some lawns in England, while keeping the grass healthy.  And the massive rows of yew bushes were trimmed exactly.  We just skimmed some verbose interpretive signs (they were filthy rich and had nothing better to do than boss gardeners around and insist that their gardens be au courant, on the few occasions that they left the city for their country house), wandered past some lovely beds of roses and peonies in the Parterre, and then up the winding path to the Temple.  They had some exotic Atlas cedars and redwoods there, like the ones we’d seen in Kew the other day.  They also had plenty of English oaks.

We walked back up to the huge house from the gardens, and around the back of the house to the walled garden, which we found even more impressive.  They grow a large amount of vegetables there, possibly enough to feed a hungry group of aristocrats.  But the most amazing thing is their collection of fruit trees, many varieties of apples, pears, and cherries, which are all pruned and trained to form trellises over the pathways.  And fully half of the walled garden is not planted at this time.  I said hi to a gardener, whom we’d run into again later.

OK, time for the house!  It’s got a grand entrance, a portcullis, and then a dark and spooky entrance hall.  The National Trust really does a great job, we’d seen several of their properties before, and they had an extensive staff of very knowledgeable docents and thorough documentation in each room, many of which were remarkably restored and filled with period furniture.  The Hall was built in 1616 and the history of the estate is actually kind of interesting.  The money that was poured into it sure must have supported a lot of people and continues to do so through the aegis of the National Trust.

This was a more interesting tour than I’d anticipated.  They have restored some of the kitchens and bedrooms (with hidden en suite bathrooms) to how they were when the house was last active, between the wars.  And some of the massive parlors and dining rooms date to the Tudor period.  Details such as the English oak paneling and trim, the original or restored wood floors and tapestries, the paintings, and the grand halls are really worth seeing.  I kept on struggling with trying to imagine how it must have been to live or visit there but could not.

The most impressive of all the huge rooms is the well-lit library, which is filled with 14,000 volumes, “one of the most historically significant collections of manuscripts and books in England.”  Maintenance of the collection is ongoing, and a team of book restorers were working in the library at the time.

Wow, enough of that!  I for one found the house fascinating but was ready to get outside at last.  We’d all wondered about the weathervane on the main house, and I found out from the docents that it was meant to be a bull, like many of the emblems we’d seen on the walls inside.  The ancestors of Anne Boleyn (which name derives from “bull” (or vice versa)) had owned the estate before the Hall was built, and when the nouveau riche Hobarth family took it over they wanted to show off the heritage of the wife of the king, thus the bulls.

What to do about lunch?  They had two cafés, and a pub in the middle (the local we’d passed earlier).  Jim, SarahE, and I lounged at a picnic table outside the Bucks Arms with drinks, while SarahP detoured back to the car for a change of clothes.  We then went back to the front entrance of the estate for lunch in the Stables café.  Pleasant lunch, but wouldn’t you think that a “sausage roll” would have a sausage in it instead of being just pastry flavored like a sausage?

We wanted to check out some of the walks in the lovely grounds of the estate.  It was a great day for a walk, and we set off over the fields and into the woods.  We found a 600-year-old lime tree, but we got a little lost.  We thought we were on a path that would lead us to the Mausoleum, but the path dead-ended in what was apparently a foresters’ work area.  We bush-whacked a bit and could see the right path, and a guy on the path ended up shouting directions to us as to how to get back to it (I picked up a few nettles in doing so).  It turned out that he was the same gardener I’d exchanged pleasantries with earlier.  He volunteers in the garden and often walks the paths with his wife and dog, who were both very polite as well.  Anyway, saw the Mausoleum (it was not that impressive) and then wound our way back to the car park.

OK, we were toast and ready to hit the road back.  SarahP and Jim were anxious to stop at the Fakenham Garden Centre though, and SarahE and I wandered around there while they grilled an employee about vegetables.  The garden center carried the same line of battery-operated garden tools that I use, but we didn’t buy any.

The really fun thing about the garden center was the three-wheeled sports car we saw in the car park when we got back outside.  Two ladies with helmets (this must have been the Fakenham edition of Top Gear) came out, gracefully consented to us taking pictures, and drove off.

Finally back to the house after an adventurous excursion, and some of the new vegetable plants got planted while some of us recovered.  SarahP and Jim cooked us dinner, and then it was time for more Cabo and bed.

Monday May 20 – Birds and Seals

We’d been to Titchwell Marsh on our trip back in 2009.  But again, there was lots of winter weather involved and the trip was not entirely successful.  So we were psyched to try it again!

SarahP had some great home-made granola, and this made an excellent breakfast with some vanilla yogurt and grapes.  She also had gotten me some very good green tea, which has recently been legalized in England.  And SarahE tried a gluten-free cereal Jim had gotten and was instantly hooked on that.  So it was a good breakfast, and after that we hit the road for the North Sea.

Stopped at the store in the center of Great Massingham first and got some snacks, cheddar crisps and digestive biscuits.  Then headed North past Houghton Hall and up cross-country to Thornham and the entrance to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds property in Titchwell Marsh.

This car park was already pretty full too, even on a Monday morning.  But we weren’t surprised by this, it was a great time of year for watching birds, the weather was partly overcast and not too windy, and all of us older people were at the beach on a Spring day.  The visitor center was having some work done, but they’d set up an admission table outside, and we were soon paid up and walking out through the woods, over the dike out to the salt marsh.

They’ve constructed a network of dikes to create freshwater lagoons for migratory birds, and have some “hides” for people to watch the birds.  We saw lots of expensive optics being deployed, as you would expect at a wildlife refuge.  We also saw a lot of wonderful birds, many with broods.  I won’t try to catalog them all, because I’d fail miserably.  But the most interesting to me were the black-headed gulls, the graylag geese, and the avocets.  As we proceeded out towards the sea, over the main dike, the weather got windier and colder and I needed my windbreaker and gloves, though some people were suffering in shorts and t-shirts.

The path eventually led out onto the beach, over a line of dunes, and it was low tide again.  The exposed beach was massive, and we immediately walked out to the edge of the sea.  There was a huge array of wind turbines in the middle distance to our left, and another huge array, hull-down in the far distance to our right.  In front of us were low-tide ledges interspersed with seaweed, lots of small shells, and holes for clams and worms.  It was a lovely beach on a partly cloudy, slightly windy day.  I’ve never seen more razor clam shells in my life, it was impossible to walk on the beach without crunching them underfoot.  There were several old hunks of metal that, 80 years ago, had been WWII defenses.

We meandered down the beach to the East, towards where it dipped down to a deep, winding wash where the dikes and the marsh let out into the sea, which separated the PSPB site from Brancaster Beach.  We walked up the wash a bit to see the common seals (called harbor seals in North America) and grey seals which take a break there.  There were about 25 seals, sleeping and/or flapping their tails at each other, having a rest at low tide.  I could imagine that when the incoming tide rushed in over the wide beach and filled the wash, the seals would take off again for the sea and a nice dinner.

Walked back up the beach past ruins of a WWII tank, crunching over shells, and to the entrance back to the dikes over the marsh.  It actually became a hot day as we left the sea and re-entered the woods, and I stripped off several layers of clothing.  We detoured down the Fen Trail, which became a boardwalk path, out over the swamp, where we saw even more varieties of birds, flowers, and reeds, then made it back to the visitor center (I bought a hat) and the car park.

Great walk, but we were getting a little peckish and were glad we had snacks in the car.  Drove back to Great Massingham for a late lunch, which we ate out in their lovely garden on what had become a sunny, gentle day inland.

SarahP and Jim had mentioned two very good pubs near them, and we went to one for dinner, the Rose and Crown in Harpley.  We got a very nice table in their almost deserted garden room; we had a great meal, and I had a couple of local beers.  They had a curry special, which Jim and I went for, and I found it excellent.  A very leisurely dinner, then we settled our bill and took off for some Cabo and/or TV before bed.

Sunday May 19 – Beautiful Massingham

We’d managed to get another round of needed re-packing in there and were ready for yet another change of climate.  It probably wasn’t going to be as cold in Norfolk as it had been in Scotland, but it hadn’t been very cold there anyway.  Oh well, you never know what you’re going to get in the Spring, and so we brought a little of everything in our packs for Great Massingham and were glad we did.

Another breakfast of tea, cereal, yogurt, and fruit.  Jim and I went out to the good old Tesco to fill the Kia Sportage with petrol and then we piled in and hit the road for the Northeast, though traffic works tried to delay us.  It actually wasn’t that bad a trip across the Northern Circular Road (the A406) a few miles over to the M11, and then accelerated to highway speed up to where we branched onto the A11 in Great Chesterford.  We eventually made it to Swaffham (notorious for Liz Truss), and did a big food shopping trip in Waitrose.  The plan was for Jim to make a few meals (chili con carne that night), but to have another few meals in some of the great pubs they have in Norfolk.

The last town before Great Massingham is the lovely town of Castle Acre, and then we were suddenly there, a little familiar and a lot different.  We’d been to their house once, on our trip in 2009, and at that point there was snow and ice everywhere, one of the biggest snowfalls they’ve ever had around there.  Nothing had been in bloom, and we didn’t have much of a chance to hang out in their garden.  This time was very different and SarahE and I were just delighted with the sunny day and the incredible number of plants, vegetables, and some trees that they have in their garden.  So many things were in bloom or just a little before or after it!  I especially liked the hollyhocks, reminiscent of the hollyhocks we had by the kitchen door in Westport when we were growing up.

Their narrow garden goes straight back a long way, and at the end they have a garden house, with a new deck and a great room on the second floor that could be used as a remote bedroom.  The garden house overlooks their neighbor’s field, which was planted with something I couldn’t identify and goes to the horizon.  Out in front, across the road is another field and this is used by livestock.  OMG, more sheep!!!  These were very diverse though, a mix of white sheep, black sheep, gray sheep, Anglicans, and lambs.

After putting food and clothes away and touring the garden, it was time for lunch and then an excursion.  We drove down to Castle Acre and started off by turning down Pye’s Lane, parking where the barbican used to be, and exploring the 11th century castle.  Again, we’d been here in 2009 but that was a lot different.

We walked around inside the ruins of the old house, and then climbed up on the walls and walked around the path.  It was a beautiful, sunny and warm day by then, great weather for an outing in the English countryside.  We continued past the castle and down Bailey Street to Blind Lane, where we passed through a fence and walked along the River Nar.  Castle Acre is at the junction of the River Nar and Peddars Way, an old Roman road.

The Nar is a chalk stream, featured in an article in the May 2024 National Geographic.  It’s in the process of being restored, though I doubt it will be restored to the major waterway it was in the medieval period, linking Castle Acre to the Little Ouse.  The walk along it is lovely, with many kinds of wildflowers (and mud) and aquatic weeds waving in the current in the cold stream.  We followed it downstream and saw many people enjoying it, including a group of kids swimming and horsing around in the water, whose parents really needed to be paying better attention.

After a stretch along the river, we took the path around the back of the massive Castle Acre Priory complex, another 11th century construction that is mostly ruined but still used to some extent.  Some of the architectural detail in the ruined old buildings is remarkable.  But mostly what we were doing is trying not to step in sheep shit or get swarmed by rabbits (some were very active).  We looped back by St. James Church (not named after St. Mary), and through their graveyard, then up High Street through the center of town and back via the old bailey to the castle and on the other side, the car park.  We passed a house they might have bought when they were house hunting, but they ended up with a better one.

A great walk!  It definitely tired us out (is that what we were trying to do?).  But Jim managed to stay on his feet long enough to make dinner, and we all contributed by eating it.  We dismantled the framing of an embroidery Mom made back in the 80s so SarahE and I could (hopefully) fit it in our suitcases and bring it back to the States with us on the plane.  A little more TV and/or cards and then it was time for bed.

Saturday May 18 – Sitar in Church

By the time I came down for breakfast on Saturday, N was already in his chair, exercising all possibilities with the food in front of him as a toddler will do.  Sarah and Jim had thought of a couple of things for us all to do that day, but they involved getting the bus, etc., and we didn’t know if such a huge expedition was warranted.  So we decided to first of all go to the playground and then see what else we felt like doing.

Got the right jackets on and got N into his stroller, and then headed down the street and up into Friary Park.  The morning was a little overcast and held a slight hint of rain, but also hinted at clearing up.

On the way to the playground, SarahE and I gawked at their Statue of Peace.  This is supposedly a statue of Queen Victoria in the guise of “peace,” and is dedicated to Edward VII, who was known as “the great peacemaker” (I never called him that) because he strengthened relations with France after England had been annoyed with them for years.

Besides the nifty statue, they have a great playground there.  N tried all kinds of playground contraptions, and I was tempted to try them too.  If I’d been younger, I might have.  Best of all was a rope jungle gym; he was able to balance across one part but decided not to venture onto the next part, which was a little too precarious.  Next time!  He also did a great job piloting a ship through an imagined storm while several adults rocked it for him.  When he got tired out, we checked out some road re-paving equipment parked nearby (he’s enthralled by all kinds of trucks) and went for a stroll around the park and then back to the house.

Had some lunch and N took a nap, and I decided that was a really good idea, so I did too.  We were going to a concert that night!  But after a nice nap I went out for a constitutional and walked up the lane toward the North, seeing a good number of comfortable-looking houses and also a spooky church.

Soon time to hit the road … we were going to another church, but first we had to get N back home.  It was no problem getting N-in-stroller on the SL1 bus, but more of a hassle than expected transporting him down to the Arnos Grove platform and then up from the Turnpike Lane platform.  Even with four adults we needed some advice, but he wasn’t about to give us any.  He just looked worried.  Back to his house eventually, and had another nice but short visit with Hakey.

From there it was only a few blocks over to the Hornsey Lane Train Station, and we just caught a Great Northern train down to the Highbury & Islington station.  We were a bit early for the concert and so took a break in a nearby pub with the imaginative name of “Brewhouse.”  The place doesn’t get very good grades because one cask beer they advertised was off (they seemed offended that someone actually wanted to order it), and they tried to forget our order.

Oh well, time to get out of there and we joined the rapidly forming queue at the Union Chapel on what had ended up as a warm, sunny day.  Chloe and Graham were meeting us for the concert and were already up near the front of the queue.  We were very excited to catch up with Chloe and to meet Graham for the first time.  They’re such a nice couple of people!

What we were going to see was an installment in the Union Chapel concert series, with the great Niladri Kumar on sitar, accompanied by Yashwant Vaishnav on tabla.  I’d never heard of them, but was very excited, especially when I heard various people who *did* know them talking about how excited they were.  One person said he’d been trying for years to see Kumar in India to no avail, but now had a chance to see him in London.

We few attendees who had booked dinner before the concert were shown in a side door, and Graham nicely stood us to a round of drinks before we got our food, a very good chicken thigh, rice, and courgette dinner for me.  SarahP had slipped into the chapel when they opened doors and was able to save us seats in a pew almost exactly in the middle of the chapel.  As it turned out, the show didn’t start until 30 minutes after we’d thought, but that gave us plenty of time to talk.  Graham and I mostly talked sports, though I was also curious about his teaching career and his recent retirement.

Then the guys came on, tuned up, tuned up some more, played a long introduction, slowed down a bit, then speeded up a bit, then really got into it, and then *really* got into it.  Kumar showed absolutely amazing technique on the sitar, jumping around all over the keyboard, and sometimes bending sixteenth notes with his left hand having to span two feet between frets.  And Vaishnav was just as awesome on the tabla, striking it with his fingers, his thumb, or his wrist to get different sounds, and sometimes playing so fast his hands disappeared, becoming a blur of motion.  I’d seen these instruments played before, but never as the main attraction.

This was supposedly Indian classical music, but some audience members were apparently a little disappointed at what they considered more of a popular concert than a classical one.  Not us!  Some of the audience knew songs of his, and when he asked for requests, he was flooded with them.  Kumar played a wonderful mix of folky melodies and more structured rhythms.  At one point he smiled at us and played a Deep Purple riff.

And I have to say that Union Chapel is a beautiful place.  By the frequency of braziers around the nave though, I assume it gets very cold in the Winter.  And it was funny to be sitting in a church and see a neon sign saying “Bar” on the door to the parish hall.

Wow, we were gushing with Chloe and Graham about what a great concert we’d just seen, and hurrying to the tube stop.  But then SarahP stopped us short; we said a fond farewell to our friends and twisted around, heading for a bus stop for the 43, which goes all the way to Islington.  It was a quick ride past Muswell Hill up to Friern Barnet, and then a short walk back home.

Friday May 17 – Original Timepieces

Another London thing we’d never done was to go to Greenwich and see the Royal Observatory and the Maritime Museum.  Jim and SarahP were interested in doing this as well.  It had been a long time since they’d been there, and the Docklands area of London had grown up a lot since then.  This was a gorgeous, sunny Spring day, and after breakfast we got things together and set off.

Up at the corner and this time we went South on the 43 bus instead of East on the SL1.  Took this down to Highgate, past the very familiar neighborhood of Muswell Hill and Highgate Wood to the Highgate tube station on the Northern Line.  Took this down to Bank, where we switched to the Docklands Light Railroad.  This is an entertaining, open-air stretch through central London and then the Isle of Dogs peninsula, which is shot through with canals and docks, though we saw no boats there.  And as with Boston, London seems to have grown taller and taller in the time I’ve known it.  There are huge buildings everywhere, even in what used to be a maritime/industrial part of the city.

We got off at Island Gardens, a couple of stops shy of where we might have detrained, because Jim and SarahP wanted to find the pedestrian tunnel under the Thames, where they hadn’t been for a long time.  There was a slight question if it still existed, but it did and after touring the actual Island Gardens for a short time and gawking at the Old Royal Naval College across the river, we climbed down and down the stairs on the North side before the long, sloping walk under the river.  Riding bikes is supposedly not allowed there, but there were several scofflaws, and also a dank smell and a few leaks in the walls.  This freaked out SarahP a bit and she took off; we other three proceeded at our normal pace but perhaps didn’t find it as romantic an experience as it had been in the past, though the walls didn’t collapse.  Whatever, it was kind of fun and popping up right next to the Cutty Sark on a sunny day was even better.

So we wanted to go to Greenwich, but there are several sub-destinations there and some debate ensued about where we were headed.  Google maps aided our decision but led us astray twice because of construction.  And believe it or not, the place was crawling with people!  We’d chosen May for our trip partly because schools would still be in session, but this was a historic area of London on a sunny day in May and Greenwich was an anthill of not only tourists, but also of huge school groups on outings.

It was long, confusing, and hot, but we made our way up Pepys Walk, Lord Nelson Road, and King William Walk to the hill that the Observatory sits at the top of, and at last up to Flamsteed House itself, dodging South Asian tourists hogging the Prime Meridian.  We thankfully pushed past everyone and his cousin, and then paid for our entry into the Observatory, though when we got in, we found it infected by a noisy school group in the toilets.

Oh well, things became calmer when they exited, and we snapped a few pictures on the Prime Meridian and then toured the museum.  Wow, I loved this place!  It started off slow with some interpretation about the astronomers and families that had lived in Flamsteed House, and part of the interpretation stayed on this level and touched simply on time, astronomy, and the timeline of the discovery of how to calculate latitude and longitude.  But other parts of the interpretation got very detailed and the stories it told were fascinating to me, especially because I’ve read the Longitude book by Dava Sobel about John Harrison’s ordeal in solving the problem of calculating longitude.

And the absolute highlight of the museum was that they actually had the originals of Harrison’s clocks on display!  I was just tingling with fascination seeing these.  The other three saw me geeking out and diplomatically proceeded to the next few rooms before I breathlessly caught them up.  Boy, I had to tear myself away from there, I was ready to settle in until closing time.

Got back outside finally and saw some other great stuff, including a super-sundial on the deck of the Observatory.  This had suddenly become one of the first places I’d recommend to someone visiting London, though there are a lot of people there and it’s a long walk uphill on a hot day.

OK, time for lunch!  I hinted that I’d seen a few pubs on our way up from the Cutty Sark, and the others were amenable.  The first one on our way back was the Greenwich Tavern, and though the outdoor tables were all full, when we pushed inside, we got a nice table and had an excellent lunch.  I got a Niçoise salad and a pint of Brixton Reliance.

It was time to get going, and after getting twisted around looking for the tube station in the middle of the tourist wasteland around the Cutty Sark, we got back on the DLR to Bank, and then the Northern Line to King’s Cross, where we switched to the Piccadilly Line.  SarahP and Jim had been tapped to host N that night and the next day.  So they got off at Turnpike Lane to retrieve him while SarahE and I continued on up to the Arnos Grove stop.

We’d been told that there was a local there, and when we turned left out of the station, we found ourselves at the door of the Arnos Arms, which is really a pretty big and relaxing pub, with a dining room, a games room, and a garden.  It was mostly empty, and we got a beer (Abbott real ale) and a cider and relaxed for a while, tucked at a nice table behind the Dr. Who pinball machine.

Sooner than we’d expected we got a text that SarahP, Jim, and N were back, and we drank up and then headed for the SL1, and back to the house.  Had some more fun playing with N, watching Peppa Pig (which I could comment on, but will refrain), and eating dinner.  Then a little more TV after N retired, and then to bed.

Digression on Beer

All in all I had some fine beers on this trip to the UK.  I’d anticipated what had been foreshadowed on my last few trips there, that the American beer revolution would influence what’s served in the UK, but I was still shocked by the extent of this.  The American “IPA” style is all over the place, at least 50% of the beers I encountered there were so labeled, though as we all know, the American “IPA” style is far removed from what that style was originally.

I was fine with this, as I’m an “IPA” fan, and had some very good ones, though the ABV in the beers I samples was generally too low to be worthy of the American style.  The Americanization is thorough, there were even some beers labeled “West Coast IPA” and that meant California/Oregon rather than Wales.  It’s too bad this infiltration meant that English “real ale” was hard to find, but I took what opportunities I could to sample cask beers and original styles.

Here are a few beers (mostly bottled) that I found remarkable:

• Old Crafty Hen – This is a strong ale, mixed with the original formula for Old Speckled Hen, first made by the Morland Brewery and now by the Greene King conglomerate.  The maltiness is of the best English quality, and the body is thick and tasty.  This had a lot of what I like most in a beer.
• Abbott – This is the Greene King flagship and was available everywhere.  I had it on cask and in cans and it never failed.  A very solid English ale.
• Proper Job – This is a distinctive IPA made by the St. Austell Brewery, that we’ve driven by in Cornwall.
• Duration Brewing in Castle Acre makes some very good beers, some of which were available in Norfolk pubs on cask.  The ones I tested were very good, though more American than English.
• Hobgoblin – This Wychwood IPA was recommended to me in Scotland and is a thin but tasty IPA.
• Fuller’s ESB (had bottles only, never saw Fuller’s in pubs) used to be my favorite beer and is still way up on my list, as is their London Pride.
• Skye Brewing in Uig makes a number of ales, named generically like “Gold,” “Red,” and “Black.”  None I tested were worth writing home about.
• A couple of other ones worth mentioning are Eigg IPA, which I had at the Atholl House, and National Trust Kentish Pale Ale, which I had at the Blickling Estate and was made with NT Farm-raised hops, yeast, and water.  Both were tasty and delicate.
• Had many opportunities to try Brewdog products, but only tried them once or twice.  Brewdog is headquartered in Ellon, Scotland, and markets internationally.  Don’t waste your time.

One related note: draft ciders are now everywhere in the UK, and SarahE gleefully sampled quite a few.

Thursday May 16 – Kew Gardens

We’d been to London a good many times before, but there were several major things we’d never done there and had always wanted to.  One of them was to see the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and this seemed like a great time of year to do that.

SarahP and Jim decided to have an “admin day” at home … doing laundry and that kind of thing …. while SarahE and I went for it.  The day was completely overcast, and rain was forecast, but that was fine.  After breakfast we grabbed the SL1 back to the tube at Arnos Grove, and then the Piccadilly Line down to Hammersmith, where we switched to the District Line.  The two tube lines parallel each other for several stops, but you want to change at Hammersmith rather than the other stops, because there you just have to cross the platform instead of climbing stairs, etc.  We crossed the Thames and got to the Kew Gardens stop soon after that, and then walked down Lichfield Road, past several small cars and expensive city houses, to the Victoria Gate into Kew.

Paid for our admissions and got lots of advice from a very friendly attendant, and then started clockwise around the outside of the huge gardens.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but this was delightful!  There were very few other people there on such an overcast day, and we were in an exotic arboretum, separated from the city sounds and bustle by a tall wall.  Some trees that I loved were the varied types of lime trees (called lindens elsewhere), the astonishing Atlas cedars, the ubiquitous English oaks, and the massive red oaks.

We both love trees, and this was a wonderland for us.  I was gobsmacked by the majesty of the Atlas cedars we saw, some of them were so big there’s no way you could capture the sprawl well in a picture.  The English oaks were also very large, but at the same time were compact, the distinctive oak-shaped leaves were about half the size of oak leaves I’m used to.  And speaking of size, the red oaks they had there were thicker, and their canopies were denser than I’d ever seen.  This tree originated in America but is very different from the ones we see in Maine.  And speaking of American trees, they had a thick stand of tall redwoods.

We were having a great time, and this is a very large garden.  We wandered by the Great Pagoda, which has some delightful toys in it, by Queen Charlotte’s cottage, where the royal family used to retreat to a country house in the middle of London, detoured on the Woodland Walk, and paused at the Syon Outlook by the mysteriously small Thames River (it’s so much bigger a few miles downstream).

Had a nice sit-down lunch outside at the Pavilion Bar and Grill (which outrageously had no beer on that day!?!), toured the large Temperate House greenhouse, wandered past the closed Treetop Walkway and the lake, and then it really started raining.  We were prepared though, and it didn’t hurry us.  We got up to the Northeast corner of the gardens and were just in time to tour Kew Palace itself before it closed.  This is a handsome, small palace, with a small and tidy garden behind it, and the interpretive materials there are good, as is their reconstruction of the rooms.  The royal family’s residence there was tragic, as it was basically done to discreetly sequester George III during the height of his madness, which was (probably) bipolar disorder and tore apart the family.

Wow, most of the day was gone and we had to time it right to rendezvous with the others for dinner at Mickey and Hakey’s house at 6:30.  We stopped for a needed cup of coffee at the Orangery, and then walked down the Broad Walk back to Victoria Gate, and then to the tube stop.  This was another efficient tube ride.  We could see the Piccadilly Line train speeding into Hammersmith right next to our District Line train, and when we stopped, we just had to run the 20 feet across the platform to board it.

Got to Turnpike Lane, followed the directions we’d been given, and arrived at Mickey and Hakey’s house at exactly 6:30 and exactly at the same time as SarahP and Jim, and then Mollie, in their cars!  It was wonderful to see Mollie again, and then Mickey and our great-nephew N upstairs, and Hakey when she soon got back from work.  We’d last seen MM&H back in 2019 at Dad’s funeral and had never met N before.  We talked and talked … Mickey got take-away from Nando’s delivered for dinner … and loved hearing about their jobs and seeing where M&H live.  And it was fun to play with N and great to see a kitty again, a role ably filled by Xiaowo.

The evening ended too soon, but Mickey had to leave on a business trip the next day and it was getting late for us older folks.  Said goodbye to them and to Mollie and then piled in the car for the short drive back to Friern Barnet.  A little TV and then bed.

Digression on Cars/Transport

When we’d been to England before we’d seen lots and lots of Vauxhalls, Fords, and other West European cars such as Peugeots and Fiats.  But this time there was a very different mix.  As mentioned, we had a SEAT Ateca (manufactured in Czechia) in Scotland and did our driving in a Kia Sportage (South Korea) after that.  There were other makes from Czechia, Poland, etc. and also many varieties of Asian autos, such as Hondas, Toyotas, and Mitsubishis.  There were still a good number of Fords, but much fewer, and it was very rare to see a Chevrolet.  There were fewer electric cars than in the States, but still a significant number.

Many London busses were also electric or switched off their engines automatically when stopped.  In fact, the London transport system impressed us even more than it had before.  The Tube keeps expanding and keeps running on time.  We had a couple of great experiences on the National Rail network.  And the reticulation of bus lines is just amazing.  Even in the outer parts of London there were busses going in all directions, not just in toward the city center.  And when we got out of a concert in Islington on a Saturday night, it was just one bus ride home.

Wednesday May 15 – Back to Inverness and Gatwick

Our last day on Skye dawned sunny and we didn’t want to leave but had to move on to other adventures.  We successfully finished all breakfast food, and then made sandwiches with whatever was left.  I was last and made a three-decker masterpiece of sandwiches, with ham, prosciutto, cucumber, red pepper, hummus, and all the remaining Branston pickle.  We’d pretty much done it and consumed all we’d bought, only a half-full jar of mustard remained!

Stripped the beds, folded up the brochures and maps they’d left for us and returned them to their stand, cleaned the last dishes and put them away, slammed the doors shut, put the key back in the key box, and then said goodbye to the Farmhouse, and piled into the SEAT for the drive to Inverness.

We pulled through Dunvegan and continued down the A863 past lovely Loch Bracadale, shimmering in the sun, Dun Beag Broch, and then down to Sligachan, where we saw the old bridge (one of the most popular sites on Skye) swarming with people, and joined the A87 to cross to Minginish and the Southern part of the huge island.  This was the route we’d come up a few days ago when we’d first come to the Isle, but this time we saw it with more jaded eyes.  It was different, but just as beautiful, especially the huge mountains of The Cuillin to our right, the port of Sconser where you catch the ferry to Raasay, and the kyle over to Scalpay.  We stopped in Broadford to fill up with petrol (£59.25), and soon we were crossing the Skye Bridge back into the Kyle of Lochalsh.  A few miles past that, we turned left on the A890 to take the Northern route back to Inverness (we’d arrived via the Southern route).

We pulled over and took a break at the lovely Loch Carron overlook, and then continued North and East, parallelling the train tracks that run from the Kyle Of Lochalsh to Inverness, surrounded by more breathtaking mountains, occasional farms and towns, and lots of sheep.  This was as breathtaking as any other part of the Highlands we’d seen, and even more deserted.  Eventually the farms and repair shops started to occur more often and we knew we were getting close to Inverness, though we were still in the middle of nowhere, and we had a decision to make: to get back into town and stop for lunch there, or to find a rural spot before that.  SarahE consulted the map and saw a place called Rogie Falls a bit ahead, and we decided to stop there.

This small car park was about half full, and we grabbed the only picnic table and had an odd lunch.  My sandwich masterpiece was delicious but wanted to slide apart.  After that we walked down the steep trail through a beautiful, sunny and shady forest, to the falls.  They were pretty spectacular, seen both from an overlook and then from the cable bridge just downstream, lots of water (the “Black Water”) running over tumbled rocks and cascading into a pool at the bottom.

Didn’t linger long, because we had to go catch a plane, and before we knew it, we had joined the A9 and were back in the suburbs, and then crossing the Kessock Bridge over the strait between Beauly Firth and Moray Firth into Inverness.  We turned left on the A96 for the last stretch, between large farms and fields of crops up to the airport.

Returned the SEAT to the Avis lot and then trundled into the airport, where we passed through the small security check and settled in at the North end of the terminal, waiting for our 2:55PM flight.  There were only three gates and plenty of room in the terminal.  I went over to their bar, the Thistle and Stag, and had a nice pint of porter.  Soon it was time to queue up for the last baggage size check, and then out on the tarmac to board the plane.  Goodbye to Scotland!

Got into Gatwick on time at around 4:35PM, and probably had a less stressful journey back to Friern Barnet than we had had on the way down, but it was close!  We took the shuttle to the South Terminal, stopped at the Marks & Spencer in Gatwick to get meals to heat up for supper, and then got some good advice from a rail employee about what platform to wait at for an express train back to London.  Returned to St. Pancras, took the tube to Arnos Grove, the SL1 back to the lane, and stopped at the Tesco Express for beer before finally getting back to the house at about 7:30PM.  Phew!

Heated up the meals for supper, watched a bit of TV, and then to bed.  One phase of our UK adventure was over.

Short Glossary of Scottish Place Names/Prefixes

• Beag (or bheag when it is lenited to pair with a feminine noun – small (Loch Snizort has a small inner part named “Loch Snizort Beag”)
• Cnoc - hill
• Dun – fortress or castle; note that this can be used as a separate word or as a prefix (“Dun Fiadhairt,” “Dunvegan”)
• Glen- - this prefix means glen
• Inver- - this prefix means confluence of waters or river-mouth (“Inverness,” “Invermoriston”), akin to the Gaelic prefix “Aber-”
• -ish – no idea!  but many peninsulas and other areas have proper names ending in “ish,” such as Trotternish, Waternish, Minginish, and Uiginish
• Kyle – strait or channel of water (“Kyle of Lochalsh”)
• Loch – lake or fjord, note that this word is used for both fresh and salt water, makes no difference
• Rubha – point, cape, headland (Brothers Point is also called “Rubha nam Brathairean”)

Tuesday May 14 – Trotternish Peninsula, West

Ack!  It was our last full day in Skye.  Though we’d done much of what we’d wanted to do, a big one that was left was to visit potteries, and another was to visit the town of Uig.  There was also one remaining local walk in the book we’d found at the Farmhouse that seemed really intriguing and do-able.  And on my list was the Fairy Glen, which when the others read about it seemed like a must-visit.  So we had a plan: drive to Uig stopping at potteries, visit the Fairy Glen, and then see what time it was when we got back.

Had breakfast and then made sandwiches with our renewed provisions, got water bottles and packs together, and we were all set.  I should say that we hadn’t yet filled the petrol tank, the SEAT Ateca had been doing a marvelous job in many respects, especially in absorbing potholes on B roads with a shrug.

Got on the A850 East again, but this time after a few miles we turned right onto Old Dunvegan Road into the small town of Edinbane, which has a charming stream running through the middle.  We stopped at the Edinbane Pottery.  The only staff there was one potter, who was a little preoccupied by what she was throwing, but cheerfully answered questions.  Jim and SarahP didn’t find exactly what they wanted though, so we left, telling the potter that we might be back.

Pulled back onto the A850 toward Portree, but this time when we got to the crossroads at Borve, we took a left toward the North, up the West side of the Trotternish Peninsula on the A87, instead of continuing into Portree.  This was another beautiful stretch of road, even though it was raining lightly.  We passed a pair of standing stones in Kensaleyre, and then drove North up the coast of Loch Snizort Beag.

As we were approaching Uig we missed the sudden right we had to take to get to Fairy Glen, Sheader Road, but then doubled back.  Sheader Road showed signs of petering out after a few hundred yards, but then suddenly there was an overflowing car park with people parking on the road and a traffic enforcement guy handing out tickets!  Where did all these cars come from?  We managed to find a spot and double-checked with the parking official that it was a legal one, quickly purchased our parking pass, and then grabbed our stuff and started down the trail in the drizzling rain.

Fairy Glen is apparently one of the most popular places on Skye, and we had to admit it was beyond charming.  The footpath wound between low but impossibly steep hills, covered with greenery and sheep, like we’d just arrived in Hobbiton.  We expected to see round wood doors in some of the small hills.  Though we’d been on our feet for days now, the setting did some magic on us and we almost wanted to run around and up some of these strange, small hills, which got bigger as we went deeper into the glen.  But there were discreet ropes and signs discouraging us from doing this.  They must get even more people there regularly than we saw on a rainy Tuesday.

The centerpiece of the glen is a hill topped by a rock formation that looks kind of like a castle, called Castle Ewen.  It looks a bit imposing but is not a very hard climb, though with the rain and the worn rocks and the mud (and the sheep shit) it was kind of slippery.  I climbed to the small top though and managed to stand up there and gaze around in all directions before I decided I’d better climb down before I fell off.

Again, this was a charming place, and if you were so inclined you could definitely sense invisible fairies dancing all around you, even in the rain.  There are many references to fairies in Skye and legends about them, like the Fairy Flag displayed in Dunvegan Castle (accompanied by four possible origin stories).  From the Fairy Glen we had a lovely view across the valley of Glen Conon, with waterfalls cascading from the cliffs opposite us.

We walked through the Glen and the path dumped us out on the road with dire No Parking signs all along it.  We hopped back onto the footpath after a bit though and followed it back to the car park.  Still a lot of stuff to do that day.

We drove back down Sheader Road and turned right on the A87, which curls around Uig harbor and dead ends at its ferry dock.  And the harbor area was chaotic!  The whole ferry dock, which is one of the main jumping off points for the Outer Hebrides, was a construction zone, as they were re-building the massive car park.  We were able to thread through it and get just beyond the dock, where a few businesses were open, including the Uig Pottery.

We looked around and loved a bunch of things we saw there, including an assortment of pottery quaiches.  We got Dave a pottery puffin (though we hadn’t seen any, we were hoping we would), and SarahP and Jim got bowls for their kids.  I waited outside after a while and saw that the Skye Brewery had their store just near the dock, which I toured quickly, though I opted not to get anything.

Right, time to find a place to eat our sandwiches, though with the persistent light rain and the fact that the center of town was a hole in the ground this seemed like it would be a challenge.  We drove a bit and noticed that the A85 took a sharp turn up the hill behind town, so we followed that and then SarahE noticed that there was supposedly a scenic turnout up that road.  We stopped there and it sure was scenic, though there was nowhere to sit, and the sheep shit was everywhere.  We stood and ate our sandwiches in the rain, looking out over the harbor.  This was about as far North as we got (except possibly for Rogie Falls the next day), approximately at the latitude of Juneau, Alaska.

This was a beautiful spot too, and it was spooky how the whole harbor could be covered with fog in one instant, and then in the next it would clear and the whole scene would be revealed, and the sun would almost peek out.  There were even a few nice-looking boats in the harbor, though most of the boats I saw in Skye looked unseaworthy at the best.  We realized that this turnout was the road up to the Quiraing, which is the “A+” hike we’d been warned away from.  And the funny thing was that, though we were the only ones there when we got there, the crowd soon followed, and we were barely able to get out of the informal car park with some jerk parking on the road.

Ok, back down the steep, switch-backing road, left on the A87 again, and then we climbed up the opposite hill out of town.  Just as we did, the fog cleared again and the huge ferry from the Outer Hebrides was steaming into the harbor.  Good thing we got out of town before it disgorged its passengers.

We re-traced our steps, back onto the A850 at Borve, realizing this was the beginning of our farewell to Skye, the last time we’d see some of these amazing sites.  Just as we were about there, I convinced people to turn off and go see the Fairy Bridge that I had glimpsed from the road.  It was a small, old stone bridge to nowhere, over a raging stream.  There was no documentation, so that made it even more charming.

Back in the car and farewell to the ruins of St. Mary’s and the Millennium Stone, then a final drive past Dunvegan Castle up to our beautiful Farmhouse.  The cuckoo was still making his almost comical call, like a broken clock.  But it had turned into a hazy, sunny day, there was still time in the afternoon, and we were determined to get one more thing in, the Fiadhairt Peninsula.

A few miles up the Claigan Road there’s a little grass area on the right where you can park, and if you then cross the causeway at the foot of Loch Suardal, you can turn onto a farm path, go through a stile, and up the hill onto the moor.  We’d read about this walk in the local walks book, but nowhere else mentioned it and there was no one else there the whole time.  The path winds up between two hills, then downhill across an isthmus between a cove of Loch Dunvegan and Camalaig Bay.  We were delighted by the fact that there was such a huge, unpopulated area, by the beautiful day, and by the sea, the moor (though we got our feet wet periodically), the wildflowers, and the hills.

I’d gotten a glimpse of Dun Fiadhairt Broch when we crested the prior ridge, but then we crested another and it was majestically in front of us, across another stretch of moor that promised lots of hidden muddy patches.  I went for it anyway, entranced by the broch 100 yards away, with an opening outlining the blue sky.  This broch was almost as well preserved as the larger Dun Beag Broch we’d seen the other day and was apparently rarely visited.  I climbed up the steep slope, through the opening, and its real nature revealed itself to me: this was the broch of huge black slugs.  They were all over the place!

The others had found a way around on some surrounding hills, avoiding the swampiest parts, and we all clambered around the homelike insides and the walls.  From the broch you got a view of the entrance of Loch Dunvegan between two low hills; it was on top of a hill, but mostly hidden from the sea (and maybe from Vikings) except for that sneaky vista.  We all loved this place, it was a fantastic, mellow, mysterious, lovely last walk on Skye.

We returned over the surrounding hills but had our directions a bit wrong and had to then clamber over and around another high hill to get back to the isthmus, and the farm path back to the road.  We found a huge fish skeleton, missing its head.

Back to the Farmhouse one last time.  They had a washer and dryer there, and I’d done a load earlier in the week.  But I did another big load after our last hike.  I set it on an “eco” setting, and it took over three hours to do that one load!  Oh well, the clothes dried quickly enough for us to get them packed before bedtime.

We had to finish all remaining food, and Jim made a large omelette for dinner with all remaining eggs and mushrooms, and we made a good start on emptying out all jars of condiments too.  Soon it was time for a last round of packing, TV, cards, and then bed.

Digression on Boats/Water

One thing I’d always anticipated when thinking of Scotland was that I’d be able to experience the Atlantic Ocean on the Scottish coast.  When we’ve been to California, I’ve been able to experience the Pacific by wading in it, looking at tidal pools, feeling the seaweed, etc.  Unfortunately, I really didn’t get this connection with the ocean in Scotland.  The tide was always low, there weren’t good opportunities for wading, and there wasn’t much seaweed or flotsam of any kind, though I saw some jellyfish at Neist Point.  I saw some tidal pools, but they were mostly choked with algae.  And I was anticipating seeing the Atlantic in angry mode on a Northern coast, but there was never much onshore wind.  Oh well!

Note that I did get a good feel for the North Sea beach, later in Norfolk.

And there were so few boats!?!  We saw an ugly tug tied up in Portree and some ugly boats moored in the harbor, a small sailboat off of Neist Point, saw the big, handsome car ferry off of Uig, and saw a relatively very small cruise ship in Loch Dunvegan, and a couple of outboard launches ferrying passengers into town and back from it.  There were a few boats on moorings in Uig, some of them handsome.  But that was it.  And some of the boats I saw on moorings or in marinas waiting to be launched looked dangerously unseaworthy.  Scotland was not good for boat watching.

Monday May 13 – Beach and Castle

We were all captivated by the descriptions of the Coral Beach right near us on Loch Dunvegan.  And the book of local walks that had been left at the Farmhouse was even more insistent that we needed to go there.  And of course, we had to go see Dunvegan Castle and Gardens itself at some point, so we pencilled that in for the afternoon, since the weather forecast was again not great.

We were running out of provisions and so couldn’t pack lunches, and we wanted to do something about that later that day.  But after breakfast we loaded up with tea and water anyway, and this time turned right out our driveway, heading up the Claigan Road.  We passed a couple of small lochs, and some intriguing looking turnoffs, then eventually made it to the small group of houses and farms called Claigan, and beyond it to the car park for the Coral Beach walk.

Wait, where did all these cars come from?!?  The car park wasn’t packed to overflowing, yet … but again, there are tourists crawling all over Skye, like us.  It’s a fun mile-long walk along the shore and the meadows to the beach, and we saw many birds (ringed plovers, hooded crows, et al.), shells, rocks, seaside cliffs, old stone walls, and sheep of course.  Made it out to the crescent of the coral beach at the end of the trail, and it was as lovely as we’d expected.  The day was mostly cloudy, but the water was sparkling between the white of the coral (actually algae skeletons) and the turquoise of the depths in between the sand bars.

You may have noticed that every time I mention the tide in Scotland, I say it was low.  I was frustrated, I wanted to see high tide, and the charts I found online (I used several sources to be sure) told me that it would be high in Loch Dunvegan that morning at 10:55.  Well yeah, it kind of peaked then and then got lower.  But this “high tide” was nowhere near the high water mark that was obvious on the shore.  I guess that tides vary a lot in Scotland and that we were just in the wrong phase of the moon, or something.  Oh well, it was a beautiful beach, and SarahP even took off her shoes and waded in the water.

I climbed the hill at the end of the point, avoiding sheep shit, and then down the back of it and around back to the beach.  Right across from us was the little island of Lampay, and out in the bay was the island of Isay (old chap), with some dramatic cliffs.  We got lovely views of the coast along the rest of the Waternish Peninsula, and again we could see across The Minch to the Outer Hebrides.

This was a peaceful, lovely spot, and we met some dogs and found lots of shells, strange seaweed (some looked like plastic but was not), and brightly colored, small pebbles in the white coral and sand.  We eventually dragged ourselves away and started back up the pretty walk to the car park at the end of the Claigan Road.  This was yet another spot on Skye we really liked, and it didn’t have the feel of an industrial tourist spot.  Maybe it was all the mud, which sometimes you couldn’t really distinguish from the sheep and cow shit.

Ok, back down the road and we decided it was lunchtime and we should head to the café at the entrance to Dunvegan Castle, and then tour that.  I had a brie and bacon croissant in the MacLeod Tables Café, that didn’t really have much brie or bacon or croissant in it, and a citrus drink, though I was tempted to try the Moxie of Scotland, Irn-Bru.

Renting the Farmhouse entitled us to free admission to the Dunvegan Castle and Gardens, and the experience was worth the price.  Actually, we did the gardens first and they were very enjoyable.  They have a variety of gardens, and I particularly liked the Water Garden, which cleverly used a local stream as a water feature, and the Round Garden, which featured a huge and venerable monkey puzzle tree and the biggest yew hedge I’ve ever seen.

The others enjoyed the Walled Garden most.  I had an amusing conversation there.  A guy near me was on the phone with his mate, updating him on Dunvegan and getting his mate’s advice on what else to see on Skye.  He reported to his companion that his friend had told him, “There are three things you should see in Portree: the road out of town to the North, the road out to the West, and the road out to the South.”  I laughed and told him that had been my impression of Portree too, and he was glad to get confirmation.

We wandered around down to the dock from which Dunvegan offers seal-watching trips and were glad we hadn’t rented Dunvegan’s Laundry Cottage, which is in a very busy spot right next to the dock.  Circled back up to the entrance to the Castle after that and went in.  This is the ancestral home of one branch of the MacLeod clan (note that the personal name is spelled with a capital “L”, but the mountains named after the clan are not).  It’s a nice place, but the outside of the Castle is really much dingier than you’d think from its many well-lit pictures, and the interior is a little worn too.  They’ve got some nice rooms and some nice views, but it’s a mishmash of weird architectural styles that Victorians tried to unify into a storybook “castle,” and is not really successful at being anything.

Another strange thing is that their collection of artifacts is all over the place.  This is possibly because the MacLeod clan had to abandon their ancestral home when times got bad for them, then were able to get it back, but in the meantime much of their legacy was scattered to the winds.  Note that Clan MacLeod is descended (the prefix “mac” means “son of”) from a Norseman named Leòd, which in Old Norse means “ugly.”

Anyway, the Castle is in a lovely spot.  Next up was the rest of the gardens on the other side of the Castle, the Rhododendron Garden, which was a little past, and the Wild Wood and kids’ play area, which was one of the best parts of the castle!  We played.

Enough of that, back to the car and it started spitting rain, so our timing was great.  We drove into town again to the Fasgadh Stores and loaded up with provisions.  This was harder than it sounds because we knew we’d have to finish everything we got since there was no way we could bring it back on the plane.  We did a good job.  The store is one of those places that sells food and also sells everything from shoelaces to phone charge cables.  If they don’t have it there, you don’t need it.

Back to the house, and then soon out to dinner again, this time at one of the remaining restaurants in Dunvegan we hadn’t visited, The Old Schoolhouse, which is an old schoolhouse.  This place was full and busy, and we had to wait a bit more than we would have liked, but the undermanned staff was doing as well as they could.  And SarahE and I loved it because we both got the lamb shank and found it excellent, I can still taste it.  Jim got langoustines and SarahP got an array of starters, that was enough for lunch the next day for her as well.

So that was pretty much it for Dunvegan, a really nice, very small town.  We missed Jann’s Cakes and the most expensive restaurant in town, The Dunvegan.  We also missed the Giant MacAskill Museum, which looked kind of like a hole in the ground and never had any cars in their lot.

Back to the house for the typical evening’s entertainment and soon to bed.

Sunday May 12 – Duirinish Peninsula

Perhaps it was time for a more mellow day that Sunday, or maybe not.  One thing we all wanted to do was to go see Neist Point, thinking that a) it would be beautiful and scenic, and b) that it would be less crowded, being way West.  Unfortunately, we found it was one of the most popular hikes on Skye, but we were also right about it being beautiful and scenic.  Though the day was mostly overcast and hazy with a threat of rain, and the hike was exhausting, this was one of our favorite places.

Skye roughly can be divided into a North bit and a South bit.  The South bit has the bigger mountains and Sleat Peninsula, which we’ll have to visit next time.  The North bit is one central hub, with three peninsulas sticking out to the West and North, the Duirinish, Waternish (with Dunvegan), and Trotternish Peninsulas.  Most of the tourist sites are concentrated in Trotternish, anchored by the “big” city of Portree.  Today we’d be heading directly away from that, thank Dog.

After breakfast we made our sandwiches, loaded our packs, and hit the road.  On a whim, I threw my gloves and winter hat into my pack, and I needed them, though a flannel shirt and my anorak were plenty warm enough for my torso.

We started South through the small town of Dunvegan again, but then turned right onto tiny Mill Road, along the base of Loch Dunvegan (where they presumably used to have a mill), and then right again, Northwest on the B884.  This was another up and down, mostly one lane road, and luckily there were only a few other cars on it.  We skirted up the West side of Loch Dunvegan, past scattered farms and holiday cottages, and around the beautiful hunks of the Macleod Tables.

The road kept getting rougher and twistier and the small towns along the route got smaller and smaller.  As usual in Skye, we were surrounded by steep hillsides with happy sheep all over them, the sheep meadows interspersed with clumps of gorse and sudden bits of lochs.  We passed the breathtaking Loch Mor, a tiny encapsulation of all the beauty around there.  And at last we climbed up and up one more steep headland, and we were finally at the car park for Neist Point, which was packed!!?!

Where had all these cars come from?  We sure didn’t see them on the road leading out there.  Many were camper vans and apparently had been there for a while.  I could see that, it was a beautiful spot.  But jeez, we were suddenly back in a mess of people again.  Oh well.

We grabbed the first spot we saw, put on our coats, etc. and started up the last bit of the road to the concessions (shut) and the start of the paved trail out to the Point.  There was a strong Southwest wind again, and several people besides me had their hats and/or gloves on.  To our left was dramatic Moonen Bay, with cliffs in the near-ground on Waterstein Head and sheep impossibly clinging to its slopes, then more and more cliffs beyond that, until the coast of Skye disappeared around a distant cape.  We could see waterfall after waterfall on the cliffs in the distance, some plunging dramatically, directly into the bay.

A long cable rose up to the trailhead from a low point further down the trail, that presumably promised some access to a beach, though almost everything there was cliffs.  We inspected the rusty old mechanism and then started down the trail, trying to avoid the sheep shit all over it.  The concrete path wound down the center of the Point, with steps down the first steep hill, then sharply up the next hill.  We stopped there and walked out onto the plateau to the right of the trail, looking down all the time to try to step around the huge piles of sheep shit and the occasional cow pie, but really wanting to look up and out to sea.  From there we got great views of the next headland out the trail, and the large Neist Point Lighthouse complex out at the tip.

Got back to the trail and continued up it.  A shepherd was lying down with a sheep near the cove to our left, and after some puzzling SarahE figured out what he was doing.  The sheep wasn’t wounded, it was giving birth, and the shepherd was trying to coax it into the best position, sometimes using his crook to assist.  The trail went steeply down again, and then we were at the shuttered lighthouse complex, with lots of outbuildings and cliffs beyond it.  We kind of split up and wandered around the tip of the Point, gawking at the forest of cairns that people had made there and at the fractured basalt rocks past that.  The tide seemed to be out, and the cliffs were exposed, with tidal pools and explosions of wildflowers rewarding the small number of people clambering over them.  We’d left the bulk of the crowd behind us at the lighthouse, and we had a lovely hour or so, exploring the cliffs and the boggy moorland in between.

We ended up at the jetty in the best shelter that Moonen Bay could give.  This held the remains of a small concrete mole with precarious steps leading down to it, and the ruins of equipment that had been used to unload boats and run the goods up to the lighthouse complex with a cable system.  The lighthouse itself has been vacant since 1990 and is currently operated remotely, though it must have been busy and isolated at one point.

We found a little shelter at the jetty and ate our sandwiches.  The sun had started to poke through from time to time, and the day had warmed up.  Ok, we were rested but knew it would be a strenuous hike back up to the trailhead, and it sure was.  We took several breaks on the way, and the changing sky and the breathtaking sea and cliff views helped us to not concentrate on the fatigue.  The sheep giving birth was gone, and a possibly new-born was spied through binoculars.  There was also a white-tailed eagle sighting.

Finally made it back up to the trailhead and the packed car park.  BUT … the guidebooks told us that now we had to climb even further up the clifftop, over sudden bogs (wetter the higher you go in Scotland), past some more piles of sheep and cow shit, until we got the iconic view of the Point and the lighthouse.  We got there and it was as spectacular as advertised, but we didn’t stay long.  We were ready to get back in the car.

Loaded up, turned around and didn’t drive off the cliff, though it was close.  And though the road had been seemingly deserted in the morning, by this time the single track was crawling with other cars and caravans.  We and they mostly did the right thing of pulling over and/or backing up to a wide spot to cooperate in two-way travel.  But some of the people clearly were reaching the end of their patience and were on a fucking holiday (or going to work), so needed these others to get out of their fucking way.

Wow, that was a strenuous day in several ways, and we finally made it back to Mill Road, into quaint Dunvegan, and back to our deserted Farmhouse.  But it was still mid-afternoon, and the day had become borderline nice, though more weather might be coming.  We had to get outside again, so after a cup of tea we got together and walked up the long path from the Farmhouse past the barn and up into the hills.

Ooops, that was thunder!  We turned around and slowly headed back.  The thunder got closer and the sky to the South looked black, but we made it back to the house, and then the skies opened and we had a half an hour of hard rain.  Then the storm was gone, and the light on the moors, the forest, the Loch, and the Tables across it were beautiful again.

We’d made reservations at another place in town, the Atholl House, for that evening.  This is an inn with a small dining room, and we had quite a nice meal.  I had an absolutely scrumptious mackerel pâté and a chicken and mushroom pie.  Then back to cards, TV, and bed.