Holiday Snaps part Three (ripples on the water)

(By the way, you can now click on the photos for a better image, wahey new camera!)

So, where were we?
We'd crossed over to Harris, driven up to Lewis and had another packed day on Tuesday. Wednesday was a free day with the option of a half day tour. Did we have an extra lie in? Did we heck!

We clambered back on the coach, me somewhat stiffly after all the steps of the previous day, this time heading up the east side to the "Bridge to Nowhere". The tarmacked road leads right up to it, originally it was designed to join up with the road on the West side but funds ran short so it's a rather grand start to a footpath instead.



Down on the shore was the lovely beach at Garry Sands.


There may have been a feep or two as well! Mostly, they just stood on the roads in front of the coach but being in the back, we mostly saw them sprinting away to the side!

We found a quieter part of the beach and there was time to let my hair down somewhat!

It was a beautiful spot, though!

We carried on to Coll pottery and may have had a purchase or two (but that'll have to be for another post!); before wandering back to Stornoway for lunch. Stornoway was an interesting place, if a little bizarre! Somehow, it seemed so out of place to have a Superdrug and a Woolworths! The roads were in straight rows but the coastline wasn't so it was rather easy to get lost! Ws went around the museum which had onr of the Lewis Chessmen in, had lunch in the Library!, and explored the shops. At dinner on Tuesday night, one lady mentioned a wool shop...well, my wool radar had failed me for once- but I was under the impression it would be a wool-free hol. this time!

So after dinner we decided to go for a bit of a recce. We walked as far as the shops petered out on the main road and discovered a rather dingy little shop down a dark alley. It was shut, of course but it did mention the magic word, KNITWEAR! We found another possibility in a craft shop but it was only Wednesday afternoon that we got lost once again and actually found the yarn shop, we zigged instead of zagging!

Well, it did have an assortment of mainland goodies but somehow I (for once) didn't act like a kid in a candy shop! We'd decided to cross the river and explore Lews castle grounds anyway so we had a little retail therapy along the way anyway. I'll do a goodies post once I've got everything under my belt, shall we say I got some geniune regional goodies instead.

This is Lews Castle, beautiful but unfortunately, unusable. A certain owner took one too many internal walls down to open it up, making it unstable in the process so now it's condemned.

There's a pretty visitor's centre with wooden replicas of Lewis Chessmen guarding the gates.

And inside an interesting tale of a local man, Namely Lord Leverhulme, one of the Lever Brothers and a millionaire in his own right. He bought the islands in the twenties, made the (somewhat inadvisable) castle renovations and built the bridge before giving it all away to a trust which now manages certain areas of Lewis.

They respect art and craft over there a lot more than the mainland, look at the tree...

A house for the wee folk, perhaps?

You'll have to click on this one for a panorama of Stornoway (we have a clever pic stitching thingummy too!)

A little additional retail therapy later, we had another excellent meal (honey roast Gammon with Peaches, salad selection and mint chocolate mousse for dessert!), we went to our room to pack our cases ready for the morning. Here's where the ripple in our perfect holiday happened. I'm not being funny, I know it was a complicated trip but I was extremely angry with how we were handled that night.

I had noticed a wind-type noise the first morning at the Caladh and being a light sleeper it had disturbed me minorly, then on Tuesday night, a loud fan-like noise started up around 8pm. It was disturbing but the noise stopped unexpectedly at 10pm so I got a reasonable nights sleep then. On Wednesday night, the noise started again, even louder, so much so that it vibrated the walls but i wasn't too worried because I expected it to stop. It didn't.

Around half-past eleven, after desperately trying to sleep and getting more and more wound up, I checked with the neighbouring room (for that read I accused him of keeping his bathroom fan on- I'm not proud of that one!) then went down to reception to complain. I was told there were no other rooms available, that the only fan-like noise was the kitchen fans but that they were DEFINITELY turned off at 10pm. I had informed the girl at reception of the noise the night before-which stopped at 10 but she insisted it must be noise from the industry out back. I was skeptical, we were in the middle of the hotel and no one else was complaining but she just kept reiterating that she was sorry but there were no other rooms available as the hotel was full.

When I returned to our room, I told Hub of our discussion, he got dressed and went to investigate. He too went down to reception, this time speaking to a male who had the nouse to actually CHECK the fans. Lo and behold, 3 of them were on FULL! They were switched off at 12.30am, I was so wound up by this point that it was around 3am before I got any sleep...and then they switched them on again at 6am! Okay, they weren't loud but when you're listening out for a noise like that, it's enough to start the adrenaline again. To my knowledge, neither myself or hub have recieved a proper apology and for that, I'm still angry.

I don't exactly do very well on 3 hours sleep.

we went to the Butt of Lewis which is the most northerly point on the island.

It was pretty, but all I wanted to do was sleep. Hubbie definitely took the photos on this one. We did travel on to a local museum and had a civilized elevenses with tea and cakes (lots of cakes!)and I did try to make light of the whole thing as I could tell it had stressed hub out but that doesn't mean I didn't have a very rough morning.

We returned to Stornoway with half an hour to spare before the ferry crossing, enough time to grab a butty and join the crowds boarding on foot. Can you see what a beautiful day it is? The weather was definitely being kind to us and the crossing was extremely smooth, considering it had been cancelled the day before!

I snapped this one through a rather mucky window, our last views of Stornoway as we departed.

Gratuitous Sweater shot number...oh, I don't know, 3 maybe?

That point 5 cardi definitely came in handy and Mister P is sporting his Wendy Fusion ensemble. (don't forget you can click on them to make 'em bigger).

Despite being a much longer crossing (2 hours 45 mins), you could actually see land on the horizon so it felt like it should have been shorter. As we came into the wide bay, the sea was so calm then as we traversed the loch, the water was like glass as we glided through it. It was truly beautiful, despite seeing so many breathtaking views, this topped them all!

This was taken just as we left the ferry on the coach, it's the tiny village of Ullapool. Our views were all too brief as we raced along the road to Inverness then on to Aviemore and Coylumbridge to our final hotel, a Hilton, our swankiest yet! We had a wonderful room with not one but TWO Queen size beds so we were able to share a bed for the first time all hoilday!

I slept well that night!