Sunday morning saw an early departure from the lovely glamping pod and a quick drive down to Lochboisdale for our ferry back across to Mallaig - aboard our old favourite vessel M V Lord of the Isles. We are both fond of “LoTI” as she is known - a good friend of ours used to Captain her and we had a memorable crossing to Uist on the bridge on one occasion. She is also the only ferry we have ever got on and off again in the same place without ever travelling anywhere- when visiting Byron on storm-bound days at Lochboisdale over Christmas!
A quick wander into the terminal building - Lochboisdale is one of the ports which hasn’t yet had its infrastructure upgraded and the little old terminal is really quite charming - although I bet the staff might call it something else! It also has a decent little book exchange- the terminals all have these again now, they were discontinued over Covid and it took a while for them to get up and running again.
The rain had made an appearance by the time we got on board, and more to the point, so had the midges, so unusually for us we settled ourselves inside in the observation lounge to watch the remaining traffic loading up ready for departure. This was far from a full crossing - we think there were a few vehicles nominally on the standby list but they didn’t even wait until all the booked traffic was on board to load them. We meanwhile were at the head of the second line of cars to drive on - not as good as it sounds as that means we line up along the sides and then all the bigger traffic - campervans, small commercials and the dreaded caravans - slots in to the middle, and thus gets to drive off first…and then delay the rest of us all the way to Fort William!
Anyway - breakfast time! CalMac breakfasts are legendary, and it’s a must-do on an early sailing. After that time to head outside and see what wildlife was about…
There, the view back towards Uist. Nothing outstanding on the bird front this time, but we did see some lovely close-in Dolphins and some further away Porpoises, plus an unexpected Seal which popped up and looked at us. MrEH spent almost all the remaining time out on deck, I popped out a few times but mostly settled down to read my book.
The ferry is of course the fun bit of the journey back - once back on the mainland there is over 500 miles to be driven, although this time round we opted to break the journey a couple of hours north of home. It makes for a more relaxed journey back, giving us time to stop for a late lunch in the southern Highlands.
Yes, of course we bring back some of the delicious Dunes Larder home baking to be enjoyed on the way back and our first day back at home!
Some nice views on the way back through - the Glen Ogle viaduct above is always a favourite, and this time round some handy roadworks/traffic lights saw us stopped right opposite it, so obviously I grabbed the chance to hop out and take a quick photo!
Onwards then, and before we know it the border back into England flashes past and suddenly it truly feels like the holiday is over. The next time we see the Scottish border it will be next spring, but that will likely be the rather fancier one across on the eastern side of the countries. For this time though one more change of drivers and then the final few hours driving down to Grantham and our bed for the night, followed by an early alarm, a quick breakfast and the last couple of hours home. Another adventure over and done.
Robyn
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