Stornowaying and what next

Just before returning the little van, with its two new front boots, we had a final trip around the area to the south of Stornoway. As you can see the weather was rather more oppressive then a week ago but quite dramatic anyway:

Alongside having naughty exhausts on tuned up cars, one of the major pastimes here seems to be owning, restoring and then not using older tractors. On our little afternoon run we spotted several and took pictures for a friend's father who is pretty knowledgeable about such things. (We have shared his Fordson tractor background in a previous blog post to educate you all).

Here are some examples, living in the gardens of various houses:

All nicely cared for then parked out in the grim weather to deteriorate again it seems. Strange behaviour but if you don't have a suitable garage or barn, maybe understandable.

The May weather had returned with a vengeance, our bit of the UK and our potential next destination of Orkney being the only remaining area with met office strong wind warnings (shown in red on their website:

We had that "surely this cannot continue for several days" feeling. Oh, how wrong you can be. The route we would follow to Stromness (Orkney) is the blue line. The colours represent wave height where the blue bits are up to about 2.5 metres and the green bits are pretty rough. Off Cape Wrath our track would be through 4.5m high waves and we were not too tempted to do that:

Even if we went out there, the longer term forecast was miserable with many days of strong to gale force W or SW winds. Coming back around Cape Wrath into those would be no fun at all and the alternative route down the east coast to Inverness then through the Caledonian canal locks just isn't practical with only two crew on board. We would need some extra "competent crew" for a canal return. So, instead,  we stayed put and enjoyed a bit more Stornoway time, visiting the local arts centre which was a lot like the one in Tobermory. Similar as it hosted an exhibition that we struggled to understand. Here is the information on what we were being inspired by:

and here are the exhibits:

We "got it" way more than the Tobermory offering but to be fair that was not difficult. Nice coffee mind you.

Since Ullapool isn't terribly Nordhavn 47 friendly and the weather was still "interesting" we decided to have a little day trip on the CalMac ferry. The biggest drawback is the 6:30am check in time for the early sailing (there are two per day). However, we managed it and then were mystified by the CalMac boarding process. You have printed boarding cards which they collect but they also want the tickets. Why have both we wonder? On the way back the same game happens. Seems that they could save a fortune each year by cutting out one of the two little pieces of card! 

Having managed the early start, we also managed a CalMac breakfast to fortify us for the day ahead during the 2.5 hour crossing. Ullapool was a very pretty little village / town. Not full of the usual drab, unpainted, rendered buildings that are basically boxes with windows. No, Ullapool had character and folks seem to like painting their rendering white so the whole place feels more alive and prosperous. They even have a clock that tells the right time:

  

Quite rare these days in our experience. They have a very good coffee stop (The Cult) and an equally good lunchtime retreat, The Arch Inn. Even though a coach load of the "Lochs and Glens" type of tourist had arrived (for those who don't know what that means, have a look at  Lochs and Glens website and bear in mind that the smiling people sitting on a coach on their website picture are around 20 years too young and way too happy) the Arch was quiet. Probably as it involves a little walk along the waterfront from the main body of the town to get to it.

The waterfront and view up the loch to the east are lovely:

and the little bits of cloud hanging to the hills added to the atmosphere. A great setting:

We wandered along the riverside walk, met a friendly local lady with her two dogs, the younger of which was very good at losing his ball behind a fence and then crying  / barking to prompt her to try and recover it by lassoing it with his lead.  Heading back to the waterfront ready to catch the last ferry back to Stornoway (5:30pm) we spotted the pub that gets more than a little abuse on review sites like Trip Advisor. Apparently this place has the least customer friendly landlord / bar man and the inside needs more than a good deep clean. On the up side it is reported to have good beer. Perhaps that is why all the clientele were sitting outside:

although since they all seemed to be drinking Tennants chemical factory lager, they missed out on the one plus point of the place.

The ferry, Loch Seaforth duly arrived. Not the best looking ship but one of CalMac's newest in the "big ship" fleet. She was built in 2014, nicely fitted out and in pretty good condition internally too:

For the trip back we had front seats in the "observation area" and that let us see the proliferation of pot markers that were out in the deep water channel the ferry uses as well as the Summer Isles:

Berthing in Stornoway was a bit slow thanks to the Hebridean Princess - the little converted ferry which is now a wildly expensive up market cruise ship. You've seen her in the blog before. Well, she had entered the harbour area before us and had to back into a berth with the wind taking her off it. That seemed to be quite a performance indeed so we had to hold station whilst they finally got some lines ashore and used their winches to pull the ship closer to the pier allowing us to safely reach the ferry berth. A good day out - the crew found some waterproof trousers and a nice jacket in a local store. Both much needed up here whilst the south coast was sweltering in 30 degrees plus temperatures. 

We had no desire to move on thanks to yet more gales in the forecast. Instead we did some plotting and planning and opted to head south to the Uists, probably down to South Uist first during a brief lull in the weather that is due.