the road to Ireland
For the next few days, we were en route through dim weather from Skye to Coleraine in Northern Ireland. The sun did pop through from time to time, and it barely rained after we left Glasgow.
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the road to Ireland
For the next few days, we were en route through dim weather from Skye to Coleraine in Northern Ireland. The sun did pop through from time to time, and it barely rained after we left Glasgow. | ||
 The ferry from Skye to Mallaig |
Alistair, our guide, deposited us at the ferry landing in Armadale just minutes before the ferry to Mallaig was due to pluck us up and carry us over the water. The ferry was small, homey, and uncrowded, and we had a delicious lunch in the cafeteria. One BIG difference between public food in the United States and in the United Kingdom: in the UK, public food is fresh, home-made, tasty, and served by people who clearly care. |
There was a two-car train waiting in the unmanned station in Mallaig, without a crew, but several people on it HOPED it was the train to Fort William, and so we believed it was. Sure enough, at the appointed time the train crew showed up, fired up the engine, and away we went down the first coast-hugging section of another "one of the most scenic train rides in the world."
For nearly an hour the train climbed over, tunneled through, or circumnavigated tree-covered points between lovely little coves, each dotted round-about with cottages. This is old and gentle land geologically, with none of our western defiles nor scandinavian fjords. Despite the lowering clouds, it was a glorious train ride. |
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Two hours later, after winding past a couple of lovely lochs and up and over a mountain range, we were back at the coast in Fort William, right at the opposite end of the rift valley from Inverness. We emerged from the train station into another touristy town, and were grateful to find a suitable hotel with a firm bed and an uncensored bath within minutes.
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 | Fort William is where one goes to climb Britain's highest mountain, Ben Nevis ...but it will come as no surprise that we never saw any mountaintops. Climbers were wandering about town dispiritedly looking for favorable weather reports.
The next morning we dawdled, repacked, worked on the Skye postings for the website, and finally checked out with just time enough before our train to Glasgow for a quick picnic expedition to the Safeway next door to the train station. The ride from Fort William to Glasgow was, after the trips to Inverness, Kyle, and Fort William, sufficiently unmemorable that I didn't take a single picture.
Glasgow came as somewhat of a shock after our several days in small places: it struck us as a bustling, desperate, grey city. Except for restaurants and bars nothing is open after 5pm, and the people scurry homeward with dark looks on their faces. |
The city fathers have made an effort, but it seemed wrong-headed and anti-human to us. We were glad to find a place to settle very near the station from which we were to leave early the next morning, and to find Chad. We enjoyed a lovely oriental meal, but there was only two other tables full in the restaurant.
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 Glasgow Central Train Station |
 inside the world's largest ferry boat |
Very early the next morning we were away, glad to be out of Glasgow. After another gentle but unmemorable train ride we were shepherded efficiently through the boarding sheds and onto the Stena Line's ferry to Belfast across the Irish Sea from Stranraer. It felt more like a big casino, slicing the water with nary a shudder or wave, and not quite two hours later we were climbing into a taxi for the short ride from the dock to the train station in Belfast.
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We hope we will be pardoned for not lingering in Belfast. We didn't expect we'd see any violence, but that's where it is, in some neighborhoods where the tension between religionists and nationalists too often ignites into bloodshed. We hurried onward on a very bumpy train across wide, green fields, heading north again to visit with a Servas family who live in the countryside near Coleraine -- pronounced "coal-rain".
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 Agricultural Northern Ireland |
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