AND YET ANOTHER READER STEPS UP AND “HITS ONE OUT OF HERE” – SCOTLAND 2008

EDITOR’S NOTE: Apparently, one of my loyal readers, found something in my babbling about Scotland. That stirred memories of his, and his leader’s, rambling around, in the Highlands. He has now, put those memories to paper. And as always, my readers display writing skills, that I only wish I possessed. This author, we’ll call him T Church, visited many of the places that we explored, and writes about his impressions of landing amongst his ancestors. His story stirs up more memories for me. So, without more wasted words, here goes. T Church writes:

THE OUT OF TOWNERS IN INVERNESS, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE ROUNDABOUT  

Jimbo Red’s stories about travelling around Scotland inspired me to dig back in my memory for stories about our short trip there back in 2008. Here is a short story that, for us, was a little like Jack Lemon and Sandy Denis’ experience in New York in the Out of Towners – it could also be called – A stubble jumper from the wide open spaces of Manitoba ends up in a maze of small narrow streets in Inverness. We had spent a wonderful two weeks in Norway and arrived in Edinburgh on May 28^th for a whirlwind tour of that historically rich city. We trudged the city for 2 days – walking about 8 hours a day, never really scratched the surface of all the things to do and places to see, but loved every minute of it. 

On the 30^th we caught the train for Inverness. We shot over the Firth of Forth and had a comfortable scenic journey to Inverness albeit in the pouring rain. I was amped and pumped because we were picking up a car in Inverness and I was going to be driving for the rest of the trip on “the wrong side of the road”. Nothing that a farm boy from Southern Manitoba couldn’t handle – right? Our Tour of Northern Scotland was planned to the nth degree by a guy named Mike and dubbed “Mikey’s Secret Scotland” – all of it wonderful and all of it off the beaten path. Little did I know what was in store for me. 

We got to the car rental shop in a hotel on the outskirts of the City and of course the car was not ready. They said go for lunch and it will be ready by the time you get back. So off we go in the pounding rain. They had omitted telling us the lunch place was on the other side of the street and that the street was really a freeway. It was so noisy with the rain and the trucks and cars, we couldn’t hear each other so we gave up and went back to the hotel where we had lunch in the bar and I conducted a skillful cross examination of the bartender on driving in Scotland where he cavalierly told me it was a breeze and that I would have it mastered in no time!  

When we went to pick up the car, they told me the one I wanted was not available but I was in luck as they had a nice Mercedes Benz sedan for us. Great I thought. Luxury I thought. What I didn’t know was that the streets and highways in Scotland were about 8 feet wide and in some places, that included part of the ditch! Over the course of the next 3 weeks I drove that car all over Northern Scotland on the narrow twisty roads and trails that Mikey laid out for us – most of it with the passenger side wheels scrapping against the rocks, bushes and whatever else was on that side with a look of pure terror on my face as I was sure I was going to collide with whatever was coming at me!  I came to love the single track side roads so I didn’t have to deal with oncoming traffic.

We packed the car up and I carefully entered the address of our B&B in our GPS which we called Wanda. I took three turns around the parking lot as a warm up, took a deep breath, headed for the exit, almost turned the wrong way directly into oncoming traffic and finally got out on the road and into what I, not so fondly, came to call the “Jaws of Hell” – AKA – driving in Scotland. I had not gone far when I ran into my first roundabout – Scotland’s Dirty Little Secret! I not so silently cursed that SOB bartender who had failed to mention that little issue of Scottish driving.  

Not a lot of roundabouts in Southern Manitoba – like none – so I was woefully unprepared for them.  With my hands locked like vise grips on the steering wheel and a look of pure terror on my face, I shot around the roundabout with Wanda yelling at me to take the 3^rd exit and was spit out God knows where but for sure going in the wrong direction. Between the pouring rain, the roar of the cars and trucks, horns honking and gut clenching fear of hitting another roundabout and the incessant voice of Wanda telling me to “make a U-turn when possible”, it was pure unadulterated hell! 

An hour later after 100s of wrong turns and a lot of yelling and cursing by me and enduring shouts and cursing and getting the finger from my lovely Scottish kin, I got to the B&B. I had to pry my hands off the steering wheel in order to unpack the car in a frenzied search for the bottle of Scotch for a drink that I so desperately needed!    

In the morning, I girded my loins for another foray onto the roads of Scotland but to my utter amazement; we had a wonderful day. We were off to a little town called Cromarty and our map showed that we needed to cross the Cromarty Firth on the Nigg Ferry. I parked on the entrance ramp and soon the Ferry arrived. The unload ramp came down, one car drove off and the guy on the Ferry waved us on – yes it was a one car Ferry (technically two but not two Mercedes Benz sedans!) – see attached picture!

I carefully drove on, parked and set the emergency brake with a sickly feeling in my gut because I realized that when we got to the other side of what was about a 20 minute ride, I would have to back that bloody huge beast off the Ferry and all I could envision was that I would screw it up and back off into the Ocean. I stepped out of the car and bashfully waved to the Ferryman who I later learned was Steven and asked him if I would have to back off the Ferry. He looked at me like the stupid stubble jumper from Manitoba that I was and says – “Oh Aye and please stay in your car!”   I got back in grumbling to myself and then lurched into a state of high alert as I felt the car begin to move! I hopped out and looked over at Steven who had his hand on a big lever and a bigger grin on his face. The damn Ferry had a turntable on it and he was turning the car around 180 degrees so you could drive straight off! No doubt I had made his day as another simple sucker fell for his deception about backing off the Ferry.

He waved me over and I spend the rest of the trip talking to this great guy – although talking was not necessarily communicating because although he was speaking English, there were no subtitles and I could only understand about every 5^th word he said. He did manage to suggest a few side trips for us and also to give us a tip on using Skin So Soft to deal with the ‘midges” – those vicious little biting bastards that may be worse than mosquitoes! By the end of that day, although I had not mastered the roundabouts and driving on the “wrong side of the road”, I was able to drive and breathe at the same time and we were off on an absolutely super trip around Northern Scotland.

Thank you T. Church, for the great memories. Aye these Scots, had a strange sense of humour. I can just see him, later, in the pub, with his English hating friends. There, telling them how he had got another “colonial” crapping himself about backing off of the ferry. Over laughter, he probably then went on to tell them, how he had made you spread “Skin So Soft” all over your body to ward off the bugs. I expect they thought themselves, very, very amusing. Your memories, reminded me a lot of our first outings in Scotland. Also, I believe my GPS had that same lady, Wanda, haranguing me, as I drove. I agree, it was intimidating, up to the point where you started to “finger” them back, and to ignore their humour.