My "steely blue eyes" take in more sights in Thurso and Nairn

Hello again, folks,

I am trying to get you to Nairn as quickly as possible, but first, I must mention our  effervescent hostess at 4 Princess BnB in Thurso.

The very small sign indicates the  premises of the 4 Princess  BnB
(Source: http://bstatic.com/images/hotel/org)

She was, as my travel journal for the rest of Sept. 11 attests:

 ... very very talkative, but pleasant. She said my steely blue eyes were "evidence of my Norwegian ancestry." [I thought that was so cool: so I have steely blue eyes. Wow. As far as I was concerned, she could carry on and just talk and talk. But to continue with my journal record:]

We settled ourselves in our very small room, which fortunately had its own bathroom in the room, not off the corridor outside, as in Stromness and Fort William. 

Then we walked up the street for dinner —  nice cheese appetizer, which was a mistake, alas, for my innards later on. I had a teriyaki stir fry — many veg (onions, broccoli, carrots, green peppers) but no noodles. Greg had a fish platter. 

It was rainy and cool the evening we made our way to the Holborn Hotel and the Red Pepper
Restaurant  (Source www.nightmove.co.uk)

We sat at the table to the right by the wall . The night we were there the place was packed.
 (Source www.nightmove.co.uk).

Home by 8:30 pm — watched Poldark, the trial episode. I fell asleep, woke at  1:00 am, awake for  two to three hours. Grrrr.

September 12, 2016

We probably could have caught the 9:00 am train to Inverness, but we didn't rush. Nice breakfast: yogurt, fruit, scrambled eggs, dry toast for me. Pain and diarrhea, so I  took a whole codeine and felt better after a while. I would likely be enjoying the trip much more if I felt better. 

Our hostess again regaled us ... [in fact she had me laughing so hard at her comments about the state of my health, I almost didn't notice my stomach cramps on the way to the washroom.]

Then we headed out; it looked like rain and was very windy. We came to the train station and took turns going for walks. I found a nice park, The Mall, by the river.  

[This afternoon while writing this rather dull account, I decided to spice it up by adding Internet pictures and of course, more information: viz. "The Mall dates from Victorian times, but the new foot bridge was completed in 2009 after the old one washed away in a flood in 2006. The new bridge ... goes across the river in a single span." Source: https://www.geocaching.com/geocache] 

Source: http://www.caithness.org/bridges/gallery.php?gallery=0&image=5.
Photographer: Bill Fernie, and  taken on a much nicer day!

Then, while Greg walked, I  read a book by Trollope I had bought at a used bookstore:

It was a charming cubbyhole. Source: http://caithness-business.co.uk/business.php?id=1053

Now we are waiting for the imminent arrival of the train back to Inverness.
***
The train was delayed 15 minutes and seemed to go rather slowly at other times with the result that we missed the connection to Nairn by just a couple of minutes. Our conductor was miffed that they wouldn't hold the train. However, the next one came in just under an hour [for the 15-minute or so trip to Nairn].

Our BnB at Nairn, Cawdor House, is a stone's throw away from the station. A very enthusiastic young German couple run it, and we have a bigger room that we have had so far.

The outside of Cawdor House on a day very like the one on which we arrived.
 (Source: booking.com)

The postmodern photo-art was created by our host.
 (Source: booking.com)

[We decided to explore Nairn High St. and walked down to the shopping area. On the way, we ran into the young woman from the BnB taking the laundry into a laundromat. We all said hello, and later I reflected that being the arty one in the family, i.e., her husband, had its uses]. 

We walked to a park by the sea shore (nearby, the Moray Firth joins the North Sea). I put my hand
 in the water just to feel close to PEI (Source: booking.com)

The BnB proprietors recommended the Classroom Bistro down the street, where we had a very nice meal. I had sea bass, boiled potatoes and mixed vegetables cooked just right. 

Source: www.theclassroombistro.com

Back at our BnB, our TV wouldn't work, so we read our books.

***
And that is the end of the excitement for that day.

In which we make our way to the Orkney Islands

Taking the bus to Inverness is faster than the train

When planning the trip, I was puzzled that it would take seven hours to get from Fort William to Inverness by train. But, as a glance at the map made clear, we would be going back south to Glasgow only to come back up north: but this time on the west side of Scotland, not the east side. Taking the local bus would take only a couple of hours, so I arranged for that.  

Leaving Fort William on  the bus 

In the early morning at the bus station in Fort William, which was really just a series of bus stops with benches, we were all alone except for two other travellers. One was a man on whose hat were the words Prince Edward Island. Turned out he and his wife were United Church ministers, who had been living  in Vernon River but were living now near Ottawa.  

Except for the scary narrow road, whizzing traffic, and  daredevil  touring bicyclists, it was a pleasant journey. Prettier actually than the much vaunted trip to Fort William, but admittedly,  the day was clearer. The sheep looked like rice kernels thrown on the hillsides. Middle-school children rode the bus to their school.

At some point in the morning, we ate our breakfast sandwiches packed by the proprietor of the Bed and Breakfast back in Fort William. We had to leave before breakfast, so she made us a nice little packet of comestibles instead.

We wait for the train in Inverness

The train station at Inverness was a five-minute walk from the bus depot through a parking lot and past  a lot of chain link fencing . We followed the people ahead of us who assured us this was the way.   Once we got to the station, I was put off by the fact it cost 20 pence to use the washroom: or as I cleverly noted,  20 P to pee.   But it seemed , as I observed people’s comings and goings, you could  activate the turn stile without actually paying. That seemed to me far more reasonable.  

While we waited the 90 minutes for the train to Thurso, we took turns going outdoors to glimpse downtown Inverness: many stone buildings, very ornate hotel next door with a wrought iron staircase, as I recall.

.

Helpful cab driver makes a lot of sense

Once on board the train, we shared our table with our new-found friends from Canada . They were heading further into Caithness than we were, so we bade them good-bye at Thurso and alighted onto the platform into a downpour of rain.

I had arranged, in a series  of emails with a local cab company, to have a taxi waiting for us for the short trip to the ferry terminal at Scrabster.  Richard of Ormlie Taxis had also advised us that a cab ride to Castle Mey could be rather expensive. That helped with our travel plans. He also warned us of an impending rail strike but said not to worry, as there would be alternate transportation, and his driver would find us at the station.

And indeed he did, looking rather wet and a bit anxious, as we were last passengers off the train. He spoke strongly against going directly to Scrabster, as the ferry terminal there was not yet open, and we would be sitting for several hours, with only an overhang for protection, in the pouring rain.

Instead, he recommended visiting the local museum “where there is a café.” He would return at 5:30 pm to pick us up.  This seemed a bit daring, but we said yes. The museum was excellent, and we absorbed a lot of local history and listened to stories recorded from elderly members of the community in a local dialect almost unintelligible to us (something about a desperate couple eloping).

Then we had a tasty snack and tea in the café. I had a rather odd chicken curry, as it turned out to be a chunky chicken sandwich flavoured with curry, not curry on rice as I was expecting. We also enjoyed a carrot parsnip soup, which, like the goulash soup Greg had had in Glasgow, could have used more seasoning. Nevertheless … comfort food for a wet afternoon, friendly staff, and a cheery space.

We were early leaving the museum, but it had stopped raining, so we found a bench outdoors and  sat with our luggage, wondering if we had made a big mistake in thinking the taxi would return. I did a bit of window shopping. A pedestrian mall had been constructed in the environs of the museum, so we didn’t have to look out for darting cars. 

Just as we were becoming a bit antsy, lo and behold, the little cab returned, scooped us up, and took us to Scrabster just as planned. I highly recommend  Ormlie Taxis.

Arriving at the Orkneys

Excellent crossing I remember very little about. It was dark when we arrived at Stromness, one of the two towns on the Mainland, the largest of the 70 Orkney Islands, hence the rather misleading name (for an island).

The woman at the ferry counter called us a cab . A man from the local tourist bureau on his way “back to Scotland” recommended our choice of a Bed and Breakfast and said to say hello from him to Joy, the proprietress. 

My journal notes:

   

We have a nice room with our own bathroom next door off the hall. We watched A Midsomer Murders repeat … to bed at 11:30… awake at 4:00 am (grrr). Read an architecture magazine for a while; back to sleep about 6:00; alarm [placed in the  in the armoire this time] went off at 7:15.