My taxi picked me up at 4:45am. ‘Congratulations’ I said as I shook the drivers hand in greeting, ‘You are the first man I have ever seen at this time of the morning who I haven’t been sneaking out on.’
The gates open and they turn out to lead not directly onto the plane but rather to an exit where 2 coaches stand by. I follow the crowd onto one of them whilst continuing to feign a quiet assurance that I know exactly where I’m going. There’s a lot to be said for Herd Mentality. In such situations I suspect I would follow the crowd straight into a human abattoir rather than suffer the indignity of hesitating, looking around and immediately becoming ‘the lost tourist’ who everyone is quietly judging.
I managed to bag the last window seat right at the back of the plane. It wasn’t so long ago that I encountered my first self check-in kiosk and had to find someone friendly-looking in a uniform to talk me through the process. There’s a certain satisfaction to the fact that I now know there is a scroll button on the seat allocation screen. My life is pathetic.
The air stewardesses are up doing their bit. From this perspective at the back of the plane I can see all 3 of them down the aisle as they point out the exits just slightly out of sync. It looks like a badly executed S Club 7 dance. I have brief concerns that they somehow know what Im thinking because theyre all looking pissed off and the blonde closest to me is looking pissed off in my immediate direction. But then I realise that Im being paranoid and they indiscriminately want us ALL dead. Cant say I blame them, Ive been on the plane 7 minutes and Ive already identified 3 people whose oxygen masks I intend to sabotage.
I have encountered a prominent negative to sitting at the very back of the plane. The stewardesses spring forth from behind the curtain and give you a mini hernia every single tme. The angry looking frowning blonde from the S Club 7 dance is now a smiling blonde with angry eyes which has only served to make her more scary. She has, however, offered me coffee – So I think I love her. The coffee is too cold and too strong. My endorphins are gagging on it, but at least theyre awake. A hot breakfast is served. The less said, the better. The unspoken etiquette of the fairly regular flier is that youre allowed to not be able to identify the food, but youre not allowed to criticise it. Airline food is what it is. It would be like criticising a sausage for being meat (Unless its an airline sausage. Fuck knows what’s in that!)
What I will say is this – When faced with an airline breakfast, eat the mushrooms last; Theyre MEANT to taste funny (insert ‘fun guy’ reference here) The after-taste is just as bad but youre less inclined to suspect you’ve been poisoned.
The plane begins its descent through a dark grey cloud and lands in a puddle. I have resigned myself to the fact that this is not going to be a tanning holiday. However, I am for the first time in my life in Scotland. I would be lying if I said it has been my lifelong aspiration to visit the place, but since it is effectively my neighbour I should at the very least pop in once, say howdy, and maybe make off with some of its cutlery.
Im now sitting in Glasgow airport awaiting my first coach en-route to Oban. I have spoken to precisely one local since disembarking the plane and I already know that my crisply enunciated English accent isn’t going to do me any favours here. In an ideal world I would adopt the perfect Scottish dialect and roam freely among the natives as one of their own. I did give it a whirl but I just sound like an English ponce mocking the Scottish accent. I’ll give my inner Australian the reins for a bit and if the Scots turn out to be Aussie haters too then I’ll just buy a whiteboard and pretend to be mute.
The first leg of the coach journey from Glasgow Airport to Oban skirts around the edge of Loch Lomand and the views are lush and spectacular. Unfortunately they are muted significantly by the reminder that I get obscenely travel sick when I travel by coach. Ive been on this god-awful vehicle for an hour now and I am ready to hurl a kidney. Half an hour later the coach mercifully pulls to the side of the road for a changeover. I spend the 5 minute respite between coaches hunched over on the floor of the bus stand, gasping fresh air down my throat whilst having my hair stroked sympathetically by a little old lady. Yeah Scotland – Tremble before me!
Im now sitting in Glasgow airport awaiting my first coach en-route to Oban. I have spoken to precisely one local since disembarking the plane and I already know that my crisply enunciated English accent isn’t going to do me any favours here. In an ideal world I would adopt the perfect Scottish dialect and roam freely among the natives as one of their own. I did give it a whirl but I just sound like an English ponce mocking the Scottish accent. I’ll give my inner Australian the reins for a bit and if the Scots turn out to be Aussie haters too then I’ll just buy a whiteboard and pretend to be mute.
The first leg of the coach journey from Glasgow Airport to Oban skirts around the edge of Loch Lomand and the views are lush and spectacular. Unfortunately they are muted significantly by the reminder that I get obscenely travel sick when I travel by coach. Ive been on this god-awful vehicle for an hour now and I am ready to hurl a kidney. Half an hour later the coach mercifully pulls to the side of the road for a changeover. I spend the 5 minute respite between coaches hunched over on the floor of the bus stand, gasping fresh air down my throat whilst having my hair stroked sympathetically by a little old lady. Yeah Scotland – Tremble before me!
The scenery is beautiful though. The next coach hurtles parallel to a fast-moving river which carves its way across a perfectly green landscape that ascends into a lushly forested mountain range. Further down the route multiple stream-like waterfalls cascade down the mountains into calm glass-like lochs.
We pass a police station. It is simply a cottage with a single blue and white ‘Police’ sign hanging up outside and a single police car parked on the drive. Its very quaint. Now would be the time to carry out that bank heist my future mortgage payments rely so singularly upon. Too bad I’m preoccupied with deep breathing.
Its 1:00pm and Ive reached Oban. It’s a very lovely little seaside town not entirely dissimilar to Lyme Regis or Hastings – 2 places I have a lot of time for. The coastal air is particularly salty, which is something I have always found pleasant. Upon arrival to my hotel the receptionist cant be apologetic enough as she advises my room wont be clear until 3:00pm. Its no bother to me. I leave my luggage in reception and head out to explore the local area. I toddle up to McCaigs Tower – a Coliseum-esque monument overlooking the town. Its not far away but sits smugly atop a near vertical hill. I arrive at the top of it with burning lungs and sweaty, reddened skin. A fairly attractive man who possibly represents my only viable option for a holiday romance looks me over bemusedly as he passes me on his way down the hill, and I grin at him as brightly as I am able to muster before collapsing into a patch of long grass and some plant which turns out to be quite sting-y while I regain the ability to regulate my air intake. McCaigs Tower was historic, and the surrounding area is well manicured and attractive. But ultimately it just wasn’t worth it!
I plunk-plunk back down the hill with something that could be described as the antithesis of ‘gazelle-like grace’ and head to the main square to see one of the local schools performing some bag-piping in the main square. Ive never really enjoyed the sound of a solitary bag piper but I have to confess that as part of an orchestra they make for quite a triumphant and pleasing musical sound. I stay there for an hour before massively over-tipping them and heading back to the hotel via an early dinner. I fall asleep to 8 out of 10 cats. Decent English-speaking television = Definite plus to local travel.
Its 8:30am Thursday morning, which means its Basking Shark Day! Im currently sitting on the boat ready to head out and I am surrounded by quasi-professional divers. It occurs to me that Im the only non-diver on a tiny boat heading out on a shark spotting excursion around a near-derelict island inhabited by tourist hating inbred natives. Too many B-horror movies start this way. I briefly attempt to reassure myself that in B-Movie world I have the most chance of survival because in the real world I have the LEAST chance of survival. But then there is always that crushing reminder that this IS the real world. Bugger.
Some diving with seals is done. I try on the snorkel and mask just to see if I have magically conquered my heart-stopping dread of feeling confined and claustrophobic in the hateful contraption but the moment I put it on my chest fills with ice and I hyperventilate. Fortunately I cover it fairly well and by the time Ive pulled the mask off my head I have enough composure to smile gratefully at the skipper as I hand it back and advise that im really more of a ‘seer’ than a ‘doer’. Im here for the sharks anyway. Good luck to the seals, but I couldn’t give a starfishes ass about swimming with them and I certainly don’t want to exchange a heart attack for the privilege.
There is a radio call that an Orca has been spotted in the area. We spend some time pursuing it but don’t find it ourselves. Fortunately, we do find 3 Basking Sharks, and they are the reason Im out here. They are entirely unafraid of anything and so when the boat stops directly ahead of them they simply continue on beneath the boat and resurface on the other side. A huge dark shadow looming close beneath the service of crystal clear water, a huge fin disappearing beneath the waves as it passes beneath my very boat – Its everything I have been hoping for. Well almost everything. Basking Sharks can grow to around 9 metres long. The ones we see are between 4-5 metres. Theyre still spectacular, but Im not checking ‘see Basking Shark’ entirely off my to-do list until I see I really big one!
I have also mentally added ‘See Orca’ to my to-do list.
At 5pm the excursion dumps me on the island of Coll where I am to get the Ferry back to Oban. The Wicker Man has been fresh in my mind ever since I scared myself with the B-Movie/inbred local island concept, and if I see any giant wooden human effigies towering on the horizon of this predictably quaint and idyllic island I am going to be very upset! Seems harmless so far though. The sheep roam freely and I was also pleased to spot a rabbit hopping along the path. My Ferry is scheduled to arrive at 7:10pm and until then the box terminal is locked up and empty. The houses are tiny and basic rectangular bungalows. I stop in the Island Café for dinner. Its one of only 2 places on the island to eat and I came here specifically because everyone else was going to eat at the fancier hotel. Ramble Junkie – Professional Loner. I shared a boat with them all for 8 hours. Really nice people, but I need my bubble back.
The Ferry arrives and exploring it blows my mind. It has a multi story car park, general seating, a TV lounge, a snack shop and café, a bar, a restaurant, showers, and an observation lounge. This is a Ferry?! Im used to the idea of a Ferry being a simple floating contraption big enough to accommodate 20 or so cars from one side of the River Thames to the other. Walking around this one makes me think of a game I played long ago – Starship Titanica. Though in reality I struggle to find any link between the two barring the fact that Ive been walking for 15 minutes now and Ive encountered the same frikking staircase 4 times but been entirely unable to find the Observation Lounge its supposed to lead up to.
The ferry journey is 4 hours long and the sun set within the first hour, effectively making the outside world obsolete. I have come to the conclusion that Purgatory is a 4 hour ferry ride in the dark.
Ive woken up characteristically early on my last full day in Scotland. Breakfast starts at 07:30am and I like to be down there in enough time to make the rushing busboy nervous. Plus I like to bag a window seat. Im going to head to the Sea Life Centre. I always end up at the local Sea Life centre whenever I travel someplace new. The bus leaves once an hour and somehow I managed to miss the 10:20 one even though I had been at the bus stop since 09:40. I take myself to the corner coffee shop and sip at a Vanilla Latte while I glare at the traffic for the next hour. At 11:20 my day begins.
The Seal Sanctuary/sea life centre is a pleasant little place. I watched Seals and Conger Eels being fed and I held a Spider Crab in the touch-pool area. This very year the Sanctuary opened the Terry Nutkins Nature Trail which was a very pleasant little walk. I resolved to see a Pine Martin, but quite honestly all I saw were trees. The optimist in my wants to believe they were there somewhere though.
The Seal Sanctuary/sea life centre is a pleasant little place. I watched Seals and Conger Eels being fed and I held a Spider Crab in the touch-pool area. This very year the Sanctuary opened the Terry Nutkins Nature Trail which was a very pleasant little walk. I resolved to see a Pine Martin, but quite honestly all I saw were trees. The optimist in my wants to believe they were there somewhere though.
My bus arrives at 3:15pm which will get me back into Oban at 4pm – AKA the time everything closes. This is the one issue I have with Scotland. Public transport is so time-consuming and opening hours are so short that one is unable to ‘pack a day’ the way this particular one likes to do. However, I resign myself to dinner and an evening of TV and packing. I find myself in an American Diner, which seems the obvious pitstop for an English woman visiting Scotland (?) But the Scottish venues keep trying to feed me seafood and vegetables. Ive shamelessly ordered Steak, and lots of it.
The view overlooks the sea. No surprise there. Everything here overlooks the sea. Im actually quite bored of the sea now. Its not the sea’s fault, I easily become bored of consistency. Im now starting to suspect that that my favourite thing about the sea is that it is tidal and so goes away intermittently.
Its my last morning in Oban. My train leaves in less than an hour and Im spending my time perched on the dock looking down at a whole multitude of varied Jelly Fish I am overwhelmingly glad to not be sharing the water with.
Its my last morning in Oban. My train leaves in less than an hour and Im spending my time perched on the dock looking down at a whole multitude of varied Jelly Fish I am overwhelmingly glad to not be sharing the water with.
Ive reserved my seat on the train so Im not in a rush to join the queue which is accumulating at the station over my shoulder. The rail company ensures Reserved seating by slotting little Reserved slips on the numbered seats, and the commuters are surprisingly compliant with the rather ignorable concept. Mine is forward facing and a window seat. Jackpot.
On the way home I get talking to some local dude who claims to live down the road from the Seal Sanctuary and that he has Pine Martins in his garden all the time, which reassures me somewhat.
The journey home, in its entirety, takes me 14 hours. I get home at around midnight where my puppy Moo is ready to receive her tribute in the form of bacon I accumulated at my airport dinner stop.
Normality resumed. Now to pay off my debts – save – and get back out there! I think I want to see the Northern Lights next…!
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