The 15:45 to Glasgow goes alongside the Cairngorms

Very scenic and also predominantly sunny. And so many trees after the sparseness of the Outer Hebrides. A long trip though, after the early start and bus from Ullapool to Inverness. I'm feeling a bit travel worn and end of trip loneliness for the solo traveler is rearing its nasty head. The solution I know is rest and more rest.

This is what I call a library

Opposite the bus station in Inverness.

Multimodal travel in Scotland

Delta to AMS and KLM to GLA
GLA AirPort Express bus to downtown
Scot Rail Glasgow to Oban
Scot Rail Inverness to Glasgow
Scot Rail Glasgow to Euston (London)
Cal Mac ferry Oban to Castlebay (Barra)
Cal Mac ferry Ardmohr to Eriskay
Cal Mac ferry Berneray to Leverburgh (Harris)
Cal Mac ferry Stornaway to Ullapool
HI transport bus Lionacleit (Sth Uist) to Lochmaddy (No Uist)
HI transport bus Lochmaddy to Berneray
HI transport bus Stornaway to Callanish Standing Stones (Lewis) return
City link bus Ullapool to Inverness
To come: Tube/Rail to Epsom and Heathrow
It's no wonder I've explained the trip planning for this one as "advanced"!

Contemporary Inverness

Coffee and cake in the renovated C19th covered market. No one gives a toss about me wheeling Fiorello through and parking at a table. The way it should be.

Outside the Scot Rail station in Inverness

A bittersweet memorial to long forgotten wars during the age of empires.

Thoughts at the end of an adventure cycle

I woke at 4:30a in the Ullapool youth hostel, after a dream filled sleep in the staff quarters. There'd been a mix up in my booking, which had included a request to reserve a lower bunk in the 6 women dorm. Either the reservation card hadn't been placed on a bed or perhaps someone in the dorm decided to ignore it. Well, it was resolved in the best way possible: a private room vs. sharing with other resentful occupants. I've stayed in enough hostels to know how it goes. So, I woke with a start 2 hours pre-alarm, took down the towel I'd used as a curtain and saw the silent misty moodiness of the sea loch. The trip's now gently receding into the dreamlike place of memory, where the discomforts, anxieties and ambivalences disappear and you only remember it was often sunny, the people's you met along the way were hospitable, and the miles and miles of open one lane road, with passing places, unfolded a stark, beautiful landscape dotted with ewes and spring lambs, tiny villages and many roofless black houses and shepherds' huts. Everything is green, gray and brown. The tiny flowers in the machair are fairy bowers, and the gulls, oyster catchers, robins, blackbirds, and doves play second place to the sound of the cuckoos ringing from hedgerow and peat valleys. It's good to have a break from the enormous Scottish cooked breakfast, an a break from living out of a waterproof bag and front satchel. Time to get on the bus to Inverness and turn home.

Ullapool waterfront

At the head of a very scenic sea loch. The Youth Hostel is about 2/3rds down.