Rush hour on Tiree
Hi folks,
its me, Nigeyboy. Well as you may or may not know I'm not quite away on my travels yet. However as a little warm-up I was recently over on the island of Tiree, which for those of you not in the know is off the West coast of Scotland, more or less South West of Mull. The squad consisted of Graham and his brother Rab who are regular hillwalking companions and Graham's freinds PJ and Dagmar.
The trip started as planned with me setting off from Glasgow in the wee hours and getting within 5 miles of Oban in what I thought was good time. Unfortunately I hadn't allowed for the road works or the **** parking in Oban....result; a 2 mile run with about 20Kg of gear,food & wetsuits etc at 7;45am.... and as most of you know I'm not exactly a morning person. Anyway I arrived at the ferry terminal with about 2 minutes to spare, panting like steam engine and thinking that I'd done pretty good, even if I had left a trail of cornflakes from the car to the ferry because the box had split. In fact the Ferry had tried to leave 5 minutes ahead of its scheduled departure time and I only have Graham's diplomacy to thank for them deciding to depart at the correct time. Those of you who know Graham will realise that my use of the term diplomacy is probably somewhat generous...............but it did the trick , so I for one ain't gonna knock it ;-) .
After a fairly smooth crossing we arrived at Scarinish (Ferry pier on Tiree) just after lunch and made an emergency pit stop at the local butchers for some provisions. Then it was on to the croft to dump our gear before heading over to a beach known as the Maze for a little surfing and boogie boarding. Apart from a 1/2 hour invasion by some kite surfers we pretty much had the place to ourselves and enjoyed the rest of what was a lovely sunny autumn day there before heading back to the croft to warm up (and chill out) in front of the Aga... oh yeah, and eat loads of lamb chops.
Day two saw the waves refuse to cooperate so we jumped on the bikes and headed for Ben Heinish the Islands highest point and after climbing that we headed back to the croft to ......you guessed it , chill out in front of the Aga where Rab treat us to his homemade bread and soup. By the evening it looked like the weather may improve so PJ, Graham and myself took the boards for a wee paddle at Balevullin. Although the waves dissapointed the wildlife didn't, as a seal popped up between PJ and myself as we were paddling back in at sunset. Have to admit that totally made my day :-)
Day three and the weather was total pants, so I spent the morning making a good pan of scrambled eggs served on thickly buttered toast, and then trying to convince PJ that cholesterol is good for you ;-). Unfortunately all good things come to an end and I had to catch the ferry back at lunchtime. Although the others stayed on for another day, they later assured me that I didn't miss anything as the weather remained pretty bad.
Well that's all for now folks. Hope your all well, but if not and you need cheering up, check out the picture Rab took of one of the beaches (the Maze) we were surfing form at Tiree...............then get back to your day job, ;-).
Very best to you all
Nigeyboy