We took another ferry off Mull, but this time from Tobermory to Kilchoan. The ferry was much smaller, and only had two cars on it during our ride, so there wasn’t much camouflage for the behemoth’s alarm going off every time we rolled over a wave. Which we did quite a bit!Nevertheless, we made it to Kilchoan and drove off without incident.
Continue readingFiled under Scotland, United Kingdom
This school holidays I’ve piggy backed on a friend’s holiday as she’s in Scotland visiting family. So we’re wandering around the West Coast for a week or so.
Filed under Scotland, United Kingdom
We left Edinburgh at some ungodly hour of the morning, with the promise of dirty bad weather ahead: gale force winds and blizzards in the north. Good time to get out of Dodge!
More fun awaited us at the train station, as all the trains on the board had a platform assigned, except for our trusty 8.30am to King’s Cross. Hmm. We wandered about, looking for info, and at 8.15am all the screens went blank. More hmm. Lots of people were now wandering around looking slightly panicked. Since it was now 8.25am and no info on the screens, I found a harried-looking person with an official-looking badge and asked her where our train might be. She said she “guessed” it would be Platform 11, so we rushed over there, and successfully boarded before the train left.
The wifi system gave us free access to the train update webpage, which was a font of information, such as telling us that all further trains north of Newcastle were now cancelled due to the weather, and apparently shortly after we left Edinburgh, Waverley Train Station was closed until engineers could assess the building! Scary stuff.
We were continuing nicely until I used my 15 mins of free wifi to post this on facebook. This apparently jinxed us well and truly, and we stopped. This was apparently due to signal failure somewhere, but since at least three trains passed us in the opposite direction I’m forced to conclude that it was actually Signal Jinxing that caused the problem. We started again, then stopped. Then started, and stopped.
Eventually we limped into King’s Cross Station almost two hours late, but hey, at least we hadn’t been blown over like the truck in Scotland!
After two short tube hops, we burrowed out from the Underground at Lancaster Gate, to be faced with Hyde Park on one side, and our hotel on the other. Great location.
The same can’t be said for the state of the hotel. It’s a bit similar to the Tyddyn Llan: it’s an old building that is a bit in need of some love, but this one is even more so. The furnishings are all a bit old, the carpet has bare patches, the floor creaks and we can hear the people in the room upstairs – whenever they move it sounds like elephants tapdancing on the ceiling, the tiles in the bathroom are cracked, there’s a bit of a musty aroma, mixed with stale cigarette smoke from the “smoking” rooms… and the lift is only big enough for two people, or one with luggage!
Nevertheless, the bed is big (it’s two single beds squashed together, which at least gives us room!) and the bathroom has hot water, even if the pressure isn’t great and it’s liable to change temperature if you look at it funny. The room size isn’t too bad: there’s room for all our stuff, and it’s conveniently located and relatively reasonably priced.
We wandered out quite early for dinner, as we’d missed lunch due to the train fracas, and stopped at a pub near Paddington Station which looked quite nice. The food was pretty dull, but at least they had Aspell on tap.
Next stop was the Sainsbury’s in Paddington Station (like everyone else in London, it seemed!) for supplies: yoghurt and pineapple for dessert and some GF bread to augment brekky.
The walk back to the hotel was pleasant; while it’s cold here, it’s nowhere near as cold as Edinburgh was!
Filed under England, Scotland, United Kingdom
Our last full day in Edinburgh we thought we should head back to the shops, as I was starting to think about all the pressies I needed to buy! Our first week in the UK wasn’t really conducive to the purchasing of pressies for people back home, as we were either with family, or in places where there weren’t a lot of souvenir shops. We’d been tossing up the idea of going to The Playhouse which was directly opposite the hotel, to see We Will Rock You, but decided against it in order to support the more commercial enterprises of the city.
Souvenir shops are something the Scots seem to do very well! I was looking for a few things in particular, and went into heaps of different shops, and they all seemed to have these things (I won’t mention what they were – it’s a surprise!) at exactly the same price! I ended up buying the stuff I wanted mainly from a place on the Royal Mile, because it’s got the cachet, right? Tshirts, woolen items, dodgy coasters, they all went into my bags, which were very heavy by the end of the day.
R on the other hand, was in his element, because the other thing the Scots do well in the tourist precinct is whisky shops! We chose a few 50ml bottles of interesting and different single malts for pressies as well as R picking up a bottle for himself.
We also stopped into a pub for lunch just off Princes St after wandering down in the bracing (bitterly cold!) wind. I chose my lunch off the “Light and Healthy” section of the menu – a Baked Potato with Bacon and Brie! Not the healthiest thing I’ve ever eaten, or the lightest, really. A bit of an understatement. The potato was about the size of a human skull, with some bacon slices (not just bacon bits as I’d expected – slices!) and chunks of brie shoved inside. Yum! I suppose it did come with a side salad, rather than chips…
The entertainment over lunch was watching the traditional New Year Edinburgh Derby, where one section of the pub would roar at something, then the other half would roar at something else. We left before it finished, but not before each lot of supporters had roared for a goal.
We did find a Middle Eastern restaurant just off the Royal Mile too, in case anyone is looking for a break from haggis and neeps. Unfortunately we found it just after we’d had lunch, so we couldn’t sample its wares. It does look a touch out of place next to all the “ye olde” woolen mill shops and kilt factories.
After a long day of souvenir-shopping, R decided he wanted an evening of a couple of wee drams of scotch over a traditional pub meal for his last night in Scotland, so we headed up the street to our “local”, the Conan Doyle. They lived up to expectations, providing a couple of scotches R hadn’t had before, and my new favourite cider, Aspall, on tap. Again, I tried to go for a slightly lighter option for dinner, starting with a nice grilled field mushroom. However, as you can see below, it was Scotland-ised, being served with another slice of bacon, smothered with cheese and swimming in a cream sauce! At least there were a few sprigs of greens for garnish. Thank goodness Edinburgh has a lot of hills, otherwise I don’t think I would be able to do up my jeans anymore!
Then for main, I ordered grilled seabass with rocket mash and vegetables. Hmm, rocket mash, I thought. Must be a wilted bed of diced rocket or something. No, they were missing a comma in the menu, and the lovely fish arrived on a mountain of potato mash with a pile of peas and a few more sprigs of rocket. Sigh. I tried. You really get your money’s worth with food here!
Off to London in the morning, so an early night after packing up our stuff and squeezing as much as we could into our bags. Too much pressie shopping!
Filed under Scotland, United Kingdom
After the frenetic night that was Hogmanay, things are much quieter here on New Year’s Day!
We slept in and missed the dubious delights of breakfast at the hotel, so trundled up to the Conan Doyle pub for a Scottish Breakfast (or part of one for me- no Cumberland sausages or Haggis) and giggled at the lads up early looking for a drink, when the bar didn’t open until 12.30. Kind of strange that nothing else was open (not even the Tesco Expresses) but the pubs were!
We found this out in great detail after breakfast as we’d hoped to get some washing done and so walked down to the nearest launderette, a km or so down Leith Walk. We got there, only to find they are closed until Tuesday. We hadn’t figured on this, since most launderettes at home are unattended. This one apparently is not, so we huffed and puffed our way back up the hill with the same dirty clothes in our backpacks.
Lunch was the next mission on our list, and finding something relatively GF that wasn’t pub grub turned out to be more difficult that we thought. I was a bit sick of heavy meat meals, so we kept walking until we unearthed a Pasta Fresco cafe near the Royal Mile which among the Italian dishes, did baked potatoes. I had mine with Coronation Chicken, a combination which sounds weird but tasted great. The waitress told us she’d had a big New Year’s too, but had managed to turn up for work with a huge (manic?) smile.
We checked out a couple more souvenir shops on our way back to the hotel, but didn’t find those elusive perfect gifts. More shopping tomorrow hopefully – even though it’s a bank holiday, most of the tourists will have headed home so there won’t be as many crowds.
The rest of the day consisted of an afternoon nap – the first I’ve had since Chefchaouen! Then we wandered out again for dinner, this time another Italian place called Jolly, for the hugest plate of chicken and king prawn risotto I’ve ever seen. So much for a slightly lighter meal! I can’t wait for London where we might be able to get smaller meals like sushi or salads occasionally – I don’t think my tummy’s been empty ever since we landed at Gatwick!
We finished the day with another local delicacy – a deep fried Snickers. I’d wanted the classic of the Mars Bar, but the chippy had run out, presumably with the influx of the world’s 80,000 biggest party animals the night before. It tasted pretty good though – just like a hot melty Snickers bar, really!
Maybe it’s the comedown from New Year’s, but I’m starting to get a bit homesick now, and missing family and friends. Plus, having to go out for every meal is fun to begin with, but it would be nice to just have some toast and a cup of tea now and then! It’s three weeks since we left home, which so far has been my travel limit. Another week and a half before we head back to Australia though, and moving down to London tomorrow will probably help. The frequent moving from one place to another, which is unfortunately our modus operandi in order to fit as many things in as possible, is taking it out of us and it’ll be nice to be in one place for a week.
Filed under Scotland, United Kingdom
Hogmanay was amazing! Princes St and a lot of the surrounding streets were blocked off to make the street party, and there were thousands and thousands of people wandering around between the stages and the bars and food stalls.
There were about 5 different stages with various bands playing – pop, folk, electronic and rock, and the two separated “extra ticketed” areas were the Keilidh (traditional music section – I could hear bagpipes) and the gardens section where the rock concert was.
I was a bit unsure about this at first, as the crowds in the street party were huge, with thousands of teenagers drinking. Think a cross between the Big Day Out with the Royal Show and multiply it by a hundred! Not really my scene, these days. Nevertheless, we had a great time. We watched a few of the smaller stages for a while before heading to the gardens section, as you couldn’t come back in if you left. Once we’d gone in there, there were a few less teenagers, but still thousands of people! The Princes St Gardens is on an incline looking down into a slight valley, facing Edinburgh Castle where a lot of the fireworks were coming from.
We wandered in quite late, so the best spot left was behind a tree (at least it was a deciduous one so we could see through it!) People were pushing to get through quite a bit, mostly because they were all getting pissed and didn’t really notice, I think! There was a no glass policy, but people were bringing in all sorts of things and the portable bars were doing a roaring trade. No bins either, so people just dropped their rubbish where they stood. By the end of the night it was quite literally a sea of plastic bottles and other rubbish.
Our spot under the tree got quite muddy quite quickly, as it’s been a bit drizzly for the past couple of days and it was on the hill. We ended up moving back slightly to a temporary barricade right at the back of the gardens which we hung onto and helped people get past without too much slipping, but a lot of people refused to take a hand and took a tumble instead! So many people were so drunk they hardly noticed, or bounced back up, only to slide again. Our boots were sodden with mud by the end, but we managed to not cover ourselves completely in it.
It was quite a sideshow, watching people trying to get past without slipping over. One guy managed to make it right to the top while balancing three open cups of beverages, without spilling a drop!
The concert itself was great. I’d listened to Primal Scream a bit before, and they really got the crowd moving (even though dancing in the slippery muddy slopes was a bit scary! We dug our heels in and wiggled where we stood for the main part.)
We got to talking with a couple next to us, a Scotsman and his Scandanavian(?) partner who had seen the band before and were really into it. They wished us a happy new year with a swig from their hip flask and helped us give a hand to those affected by the slipperiness.
The fireworks were amazing – they had a small show on the hour until midnight, when they were going off for a good six or seven minutes, from the walls of Edinburgh Castle, and all along the ridge of the Royal Mile. They were so close I thought people would get burnt from the debris, but they had it perfectly measured I think.
The band continued for most of an hour after midnight, even though it was raining by this point. It’d held off except for some drizzle for most of the evening, but started raining more heavily after midnight. Thank goodness I’d swapped my slightly warmer coat for my raincoat, and thank goodness again for my layers of Icebreaker merino!
We left just as Primal Scream was just finishing the last song, Rocks. The security staff had started taking down the barriers at the back (and some had fallen down, too – that’s how muddy it was) so we were able to clamber up the back bank rather than attempt the slide down the long muddy gauntlet we’d been watching people fall over in all night. This was was still very slippery, but at least there was a tree and a couple of the barricades to lever ourselves up with.
It was a relief to get back to the hotel and have a hot shower – we were both aching from the cold and from walking and standing bracing ourselves in the mud for 5 hours or so. The chippy around the corner from the hotel was doing a roaring trade, so we stood in the queue to get our own. Pretty terrible chips, as they were cooked really quickly to get then out to the customers, but at least they were hot!
So that was Hogmanay! A definite experience, but I don’t think we need to experience it again.
Filed under Scotland, United Kingdom
After packing up, driving two hours and dropping the car back to its owners Thrifty in Wolverhampton, we hopped on the train and headed north to Edinburgh. The train was a bit squishy and quite warm, and although the booking page had assured us we were booking two window seats facing each other over a table, in reality we had two window seats one behind the other. We nabbed one of the aisle seats so we could sit together, and I sat there holding my breath at each stop waiting for someone to tell me that was their seat, as people seemed to be doing at every other seat!
We arrived at Waverley Station as it was raining (of course) so we hailed a taxi to take us the short drive to the hotel. We’re staying at one of the Holiday Inn Expresses, and it’s very boring and anonymous, but still it’s kind of nice to be in somewhere boring after all the “character” hotels we’ve stayed at! The outside is lovely anyway, as the building is an “historic” one. There was a moment of panic on check-in, as they couldn’t find our reservation, which I had dutifully carried out on their website, and prepaid! Thank goodness I had the reservation confirmation with me, as apparently their reservations department hadn’t passed it on. Only eight months of notice, thanks guys! We managed to get a room at least, and they gave us a drinks voucher, which was nice.
As we were settling in, there was some noise out on the street, and noticed they’d put on fireworks, obviously to welcome us to town. Yay!
There are the occasional creaky “character” floorboards we’ve come to expect, and breakfast is a bunfight (almost literally) as there is nowhere near enough space for everyone booked into the hotel to eat breakfast. Wonderful shower though – awesome pressure and nice and hot.
After checking in we wandered out into the chilly evening to find some food. I was craving something not hearty or traditionally British or Moroccan after the huge servings of meat we’ve been having so far on this holiday, so we were looking for Thai or Chinese or something similar. We found the No. 1 Chinese Restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel, and set on combination stir fry with gusto! Yay for crunchy vegies!
This morning after the breakfast skirmish, we wandered around to the Royal Mile. Because it’s New Year’s Eve, there were thousands of tourists wandering around. We walked up to Edinburgh Castle, but were put off by the huge crowds.
We had a look in some of the souvenir shops, and contemplated tartans, but R already has a traditional kilt from his last trip, and my family doesn’t seem to have any affiliations. I’ll pick up a few souvenirs before we leave though. We did see dog kilts, which would be a hoot next Christmas on the family doggies, but the largest size they had as for Scottish Terriers, and all our dogs are much bigger than that!
After wandering down the Royal Mile to see Holyrood Palace, we started walking up it again in search of lunch.
After popping into a whisky shop to R could taste a couple of new and different expressions (the shop had a resident dog, Maggie), we ended up stopping at the oldest pub on the Royal Mile, which was first opened in 1740-something. Not bad! Unsurprisingly, they had some “traditional” Scottish food, so R had a lamb hotpot, and I explored the “Stovies” – basically potato and beef, mashed together. Imagine cottage pie mooshed. Tasted pretty good, but bland and salty at the same time.
After lunch we wended our way through the ever-increasing crowds, through a shopping centre (and over a scarily see-through pedestrian bridge – my fear of heights was on full alert!) and back to the hotel to prepare for our Hogmanay evening.
Filed under England, Scotland, United Kingdom, Wales
Two Weeks Away 