Saturday, May 14, 2005
It really is shocking, this lack of updates...in my defence I can offer only the lack of a suitably speedy internet connection at home, the fact that one has to pay for it in the first place (a desk job with unfettered net access is really the key to this blogging malarkey!) and my own bone idleness...
Anyway, here - at last - is a much awaited (by me at any rate) mini-post...
The return of the bus.
The Banana Bus made its long awaited and keenly anticipated return to overnight (camping) action over the Easter holidays…which already seem like a dim and distant memory (only 8 weeks until the summer break!)
We’d had many plans and permutations in mind and were hoping to make some inroads into addressing the issue of the chronic neglect of the bus – only 462 miles covered since the tail end of November – and, more importantly, some inroads into the inroads and outroads of the North West coast.
Ignoring the doubters who’d said, when we moved to Ardnamurchan, you’ll need a slightly more practical vehicle, we’d insisted we’d make regular use of the van for overnight trips and the like. That was in September last year. We’ve been to Mull for one night since then. That said, regular use has been made in spite of the low mileage. The campervan has been employed in its more traditional role – that of the Volkswagen Transporter, Volkswageningly transporting load upon load of logs around the peninsula to fuel our woodburner, and a sterling job it’s done too. I wrote last year of my unnecessary surprise when the bus was able to cope with a few tonnes of rubble and aggregates without so much as a rumble but I’ve again been staggered by the sheer ease with which it can carry in excess of a ton and a half of tress about our twisty, hilly roads. That, however, is another story, worthy of a blog on its own…
Incidentally, before I return to the holiday I must make mention of our other, practical vehicle – a Peugot Diesel Estate. How country can you get? Fuel efficient – yes; cheap to insure – yes; easy to drive – yes; acceleration – yes (a turbo no less!); boot space – yes; tea and coffee making facilities, bed, leisure battery, sliding door, elevated viewing position, space for eating and drinking and storing tents, windbreaks, awnings, folding chairs and an ability to move from the front to the back seats to attend to a sleepy toddler? Alas, no…
I digress. Off we set on Easter Sunday morning, over the Corran Ferry and left up the A82 towards Fort William and some petrol at under the 98p per gallon of Strontian. A mere two hours drive from An Gearasdan found us in Inverness – not bad progress considering the car journey is usually around an hour and a half to an hour and forty five. No stopping in the big smoke for us though, we roared off (okay, 32mph) across the Kessock Bridge and into the Black Isle where glorious sunshine welcomed the bus as it sped along the A9 and then off onto the rather scary long downhill straight towards Dingwall. This was my third or fourth trip to the Ross-Shire market town since we moved North and I must say that I like it more each time. It has something of a faded grandeur to it, rather like my favourite Borders town, Peebles.
The principal attraction of Dingwall today though, proved to be the 24hour Tesco. Six items in the café for – I think - £1.89! Sausage, black pudding and potato scone went very well on the three rolls that I bought (not all for me) to set us up for the rigours of “the big holiday shop.” Star purchases today – 59p scrubbing brush for the van’s carpet and a ten quid box of very nice Australian red. The handy vacuum pack and tap would prove a boon in the van.
The A*** winds west-ish out of Dingwall towards Strathpeffer, which is a beautiful Victorain spa-type village (town?) much beloved of the Wallace Arnold and Shearings crowd. We’ve yet to stop here but each time we pass through we remark how lovely it looks and that we must stop here next time. Its proximity to Dingwall is probably the factor mitigating against this. Leaving Strathpeffer we pottered on towards Ullapool – a newly beloved destination of ours – and remarked (as is now customary for us) on how odd the signpost at ***** is, in that if you turn right it says Ullapool (West) but the left hand side of the sign reads **** (South). How does that work?
Just west (or was it south?) of Garve we witnessed some quality old-dear-in-a-wee-car-no-I-don’t-use-it-much-sorry-did-I-nearly-hit-that-parked-car/building/child? Type Sunday driving and I had to push the mighty two litre engine up to a whopping 45 to pass…the worrying part is that within ten seconds of passing she had disappeared completely from view.
That lovely facility in the bus to be able to move from the cab to the rear was being put to good use on the journey. Ben, securely fixed in the back, was whingeing and moaning for no good reason that we could fathom and consequently Gail had to make a few well judged runs to the rear on suitable straight bits to silence him. There are times when that 60quid portable DVD viewer in Woolies seems like a good buy…
The road down the side of Little Loch Broom just outside Ullapool never fails to delight, stunning as it is it has the added benefit of allowing us a chuckle at the signpost for “Letters” (a wee hamlet on the Southern shore of the loch). A few spots of rain had given way to a lovely afternoon as we rolled into town at around 4 o’clock. Unusually for us, we didn’t go in anywhere for a tea or coffee and managed to restrict ourselves to buying just one book in the Ullapool Bookshop – the excellent (read it in two days) “The Further North You Go” by our old friend (no, not really), Tom Morton.
Having established that there were no suitable anorak/raincoat/mac-type things for Ben to be had in the town we bought a cake (excellent apple and cinammon number) and returned to the van – stopping only to pause at the estate agents window and say “how much!?” (220k) for a two bedroom cottage on the shores of Loch Broom.
Suitably starving – why no refreshment stop in Ullapool? It’s only occurred to me as I type this and now I’m becoming annoyed by it – we pushed on to our intended stop for the night at Scourie. The drive was nothing short of spectacular – not the speed or anything – it was more the beautfiul Assynt scenery. Billy Connolly always used to say of Scotland “there’s nobody here!” and nowhere could this be more true than in the far North West. We were able to drive for miles at a time without spotting either house or hostelry. The magnificent Kylesku Bridge
was a sight to behold as the sun shone on the **River ***. The bridge, built between 1978 and 1984, replaced the old ferry. Bizarrely, in another example of small world syndrome, the bloke on the Corran Ferry on the way home told us – after initiating a T25 related conversation (“I love the beasts!”) – that he’d once been the Kylesku ferryman…
Anyway, here - at last - is a much awaited (by me at any rate) mini-post...
The return of the bus.
The Banana Bus made its long awaited and keenly anticipated return to overnight (camping) action over the Easter holidays…which already seem like a dim and distant memory (only 8 weeks until the summer break!)
We’d had many plans and permutations in mind and were hoping to make some inroads into addressing the issue of the chronic neglect of the bus – only 462 miles covered since the tail end of November – and, more importantly, some inroads into the inroads and outroads of the North West coast.
Ignoring the doubters who’d said, when we moved to Ardnamurchan, you’ll need a slightly more practical vehicle, we’d insisted we’d make regular use of the van for overnight trips and the like. That was in September last year. We’ve been to Mull for one night since then. That said, regular use has been made in spite of the low mileage. The campervan has been employed in its more traditional role – that of the Volkswagen Transporter, Volkswageningly transporting load upon load of logs around the peninsula to fuel our woodburner, and a sterling job it’s done too. I wrote last year of my unnecessary surprise when the bus was able to cope with a few tonnes of rubble and aggregates without so much as a rumble but I’ve again been staggered by the sheer ease with which it can carry in excess of a ton and a half of tress about our twisty, hilly roads. That, however, is another story, worthy of a blog on its own…
Incidentally, before I return to the holiday I must make mention of our other, practical vehicle – a Peugot Diesel Estate. How country can you get? Fuel efficient – yes; cheap to insure – yes; easy to drive – yes; acceleration – yes (a turbo no less!); boot space – yes; tea and coffee making facilities, bed, leisure battery, sliding door, elevated viewing position, space for eating and drinking and storing tents, windbreaks, awnings, folding chairs and an ability to move from the front to the back seats to attend to a sleepy toddler? Alas, no…
I digress. Off we set on Easter Sunday morning, over the Corran Ferry and left up the A82 towards Fort William and some petrol at under the 98p per gallon of Strontian. A mere two hours drive from An Gearasdan found us in Inverness – not bad progress considering the car journey is usually around an hour and a half to an hour and forty five. No stopping in the big smoke for us though, we roared off (okay, 32mph) across the Kessock Bridge and into the Black Isle where glorious sunshine welcomed the bus as it sped along the A9 and then off onto the rather scary long downhill straight towards Dingwall. This was my third or fourth trip to the Ross-Shire market town since we moved North and I must say that I like it more each time. It has something of a faded grandeur to it, rather like my favourite Borders town, Peebles.
The principal attraction of Dingwall today though, proved to be the 24hour Tesco. Six items in the café for – I think - £1.89! Sausage, black pudding and potato scone went very well on the three rolls that I bought (not all for me) to set us up for the rigours of “the big holiday shop.” Star purchases today – 59p scrubbing brush for the van’s carpet and a ten quid box of very nice Australian red. The handy vacuum pack and tap would prove a boon in the van.
The A*** winds west-ish out of Dingwall towards Strathpeffer, which is a beautiful Victorain spa-type village (town?) much beloved of the Wallace Arnold and Shearings crowd. We’ve yet to stop here but each time we pass through we remark how lovely it looks and that we must stop here next time. Its proximity to Dingwall is probably the factor mitigating against this. Leaving Strathpeffer we pottered on towards Ullapool – a newly beloved destination of ours – and remarked (as is now customary for us) on how odd the signpost at ***** is, in that if you turn right it says Ullapool (West) but the left hand side of the sign reads **** (South). How does that work?
Just west (or was it south?) of Garve we witnessed some quality old-dear-in-a-wee-car-no-I-don’t-use-it-much-sorry-did-I-nearly-hit-that-parked-car/building/child? Type Sunday driving and I had to push the mighty two litre engine up to a whopping 45 to pass…the worrying part is that within ten seconds of passing she had disappeared completely from view.
That lovely facility in the bus to be able to move from the cab to the rear was being put to good use on the journey. Ben, securely fixed in the back, was whingeing and moaning for no good reason that we could fathom and consequently Gail had to make a few well judged runs to the rear on suitable straight bits to silence him. There are times when that 60quid portable DVD viewer in Woolies seems like a good buy…
The road down the side of Little Loch Broom just outside Ullapool never fails to delight, stunning as it is it has the added benefit of allowing us a chuckle at the signpost for “Letters” (a wee hamlet on the Southern shore of the loch). A few spots of rain had given way to a lovely afternoon as we rolled into town at around 4 o’clock. Unusually for us, we didn’t go in anywhere for a tea or coffee and managed to restrict ourselves to buying just one book in the Ullapool Bookshop – the excellent (read it in two days) “The Further North You Go” by our old friend (no, not really), Tom Morton.
Having established that there were no suitable anorak/raincoat/mac-type things for Ben to be had in the town we bought a cake (excellent apple and cinammon number) and returned to the van – stopping only to pause at the estate agents window and say “how much!?” (220k) for a two bedroom cottage on the shores of Loch Broom.
Suitably starving – why no refreshment stop in Ullapool? It’s only occurred to me as I type this and now I’m becoming annoyed by it – we pushed on to our intended stop for the night at Scourie. The drive was nothing short of spectacular – not the speed or anything – it was more the beautfiul Assynt scenery. Billy Connolly always used to say of Scotland “there’s nobody here!” and nowhere could this be more true than in the far North West. We were able to drive for miles at a time without spotting either house or hostelry. The magnificent Kylesku Bridge
was a sight to behold as the sun shone on the **River ***. The bridge, built between 1978 and 1984, replaced the old ferry. Bizarrely, in another example of small world syndrome, the bloke on the Corran Ferry on the way home told us – after initiating a T25 related conversation (“I love the beasts!”) – that he’d once been the Kylesku ferryman…
