What a mad day!
It felt very strange leaving North Wales on Friday, waking up in Motherwell on Saturday and finding everyone speaking with broad Scottish accents, particularly as Hamilton looked like any British town really. Today we really hit Scotland proper, travelling through breathtaking landscapes, ferrying across peninsulas and approaching a fishing village that looks a bit like the opening credits to Balamory!
Last night had been a late one with Ady sitting in the awning watching iplayer and me sitting in the van on my laptop, occassionally chatting and drinking lots of cider 🙂 So this morning was a fairly late start. Ady got up, fed the kids and then came back to bed! We finally all got up and started packing up at about 10am. It doesn’t take long and having the awning to put things in, particularly if it is raining is a huge help. We are loving our trug for washing up too, don’t know why we left it so long. I know it’s funny to be pleased with an awning, a trug and a little chopping board but these are the things that make such a difference to living in a very tiny space :).
We pulled away about midday and the satnav said the journey was 76 miles and included a ferry. Unsure about the cost of ferries I asked it to reroute without including the ferry and it said it woudl be 114 miles. We decided to head for the ferry port and aslong as it was under £20 it would be worth the saving in fuel and travelling time / wear on Willow. We had a bit of a drive around Hamilton to find a supermarket to get fuel as our satnav is rather old and tired and has not had updates so is not aware of some places, new roads or different road layouts and gets confused. We decided today a decent map is in order really so we can properly be aware of where we are. We have a little map in our C&CC book and a great big Childrens Map of the UK with lots of interesting facts but not much in the way of navigation assistance. Sat nav is fab but I think being able to look at our journey on a map too and plot it more would be good, particularly for this leg.
So we headed off, through Glasgow and then alongside water for ages, trying to decide if it was sea or loch and if so which one (see, map would tell me that!). We reached the ferry port (Gourock to Dunoon) and had to borrow cash off Davies as they didn’t take our debit card. Must remember that and carry cash in the van! It was £18 something which made us feel it was worth it and the crossing was mad. The wind and rain and sea spray made for a very rocky and wet crossing. The kids and I got out and stood for a while and then nipped to use the loo. Getting back in was almost impossible for me as I struggled to hold the door from swinging out my hand into the car next to me and swing in / climb up into the van. The bloke in the car next to me was wetting himself laughing at my antics!
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We then travelled from one peninsula coast to the next through some incredibly beautiful landscape, barely seeing another car. We did see loads of roadkill though including pheasants, a baby deer, rabbits… we’ll certainly not starve on our foraging missions here! Loads of gorgeous places to pull over and spend the night too. Really looking forward to all that :).
The summit of the drive was at Tighnabruaich view point which was gorgeous. We stopped and took photos of the amazing view and then decided it was cup of tea o’clock to recover from the crazy ferry trip so put the kettle on and had tea or hot chocolate and biscuits, appreciating both the view and the antics of various people who stopped to take a photo. Ady jumped out to take a few shots for some people including a beautiful and very friendly family who are holidaying in the UK from Africa (two of the most gorgeous children I’ve ever seen). We caught up with them again later in the day at the next ferry point.
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The battery ran out on the satnav so when I restarted it it found the new route and asked again about ferry crossings which when we realised we had a second one to make. At that point we were just 15 miles away from the hosts but feeling poor so rereouted for not using the ferry and it quoted 76 miles so we decided ferry it would be! This time it was even more at £28 so we won’t be doing ferries again every time, although when compared to fuel it is not really so pricey I guess. Our hosts said the locals rarely use the ferries though…
This crossing was equally rough and wet but we just had to get a self timer. Love that you can see Willow’s roof in the bottom left corner.
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How we didn’t lose the camera overboard I don’t know! 😆
The ferry pulls right into Tarbert and although our hosts are not right on the front they are up high so can see the ferries from the windows. We arrived to find a note to say to come in and they would be home about 630pm so had a quick explore round the house. We’d not actually discussed where we’d be sleeping but it’s a four bedroomed house and all the beds were made up looking ready for us and sure enough we are in the house. The kids have a bedroom and so do we, complete with basin in the room, comfy bed and gorgeous views. Couldn’t be better.
We grabbed some stuff from the van and unpacked and then dinner was ready – roast chicken which the kids devoured. Davies having second and third helpings of the carrots and cauliflower and the kids both saying how much they love cauliflower. This is my kids, who only used to eat smooth peanut butter in white sliced bread!!! If *nothing* else WWOOFing has done wonders for their diet! 🙂
We had apple crumble for dessert and were told working hours are 930 til lunchtime and that’s it. Days off will definitely be Thursday this week as they are both out working (Carina is the village GP, Ed is a permaculture teacher and also writes for Ecology and Archaeology magazines). They are adamant we spend time off and exploring! They have a nearly 13 year old son who is very lovely; friendly, loves having WWOOFers here and particularly was excited to have children near his age. He won Davies and Scarlett over by chatting to them loads and they spent an hour or so after dinner all playing in his bedroom with a toy pirate ship. He seems very sensitive and ‘nice’ and happy to still play despite his age – I think the three of them will get on well.
Ady and I helped dry up and chatted to Ed and Carina, learnt that they know our hosts from Cookes West Wood Farm pretty well, Ed and Wilf have done courses together. Small world 🙂 Everyone retired to bed at 930pm and I have full signal on phone and mifi so have been able to have some computer time to upload pictures, blog etc. No real idea what the work will entail yet but first impressions are very favourable – kids have already declared they ‘love it here!’ 🙂