Isle of Lewis – Miriam Drori, Author

I have been reprimanded for keeping you in suspense for too long. It’s time to reveal all … in the middle of this post. No peeping!

***

The day starts well. After a delicious breakfast, our wonderful hosts drive us to the start of our walk. The walk is long and solitary. We don’t see another soul for its duration, although footprints show us that others have gone this way. The most difficult thing we do is to walk uphill through tall grass and bogs. Fortunately, the rain starts after the most difficult part of the walk. Our feet are soaking, but it’s all part of the fun … isn’t it? Finally we arrive at a beach with pillars of rock.

When we walk up the hill to the bus stop, it’s sunny and rather windy.

Back in Stornaway, we have plenty of time before the ferry leaves. We spend it in a book shop. It’s very windy outside. When someone opens the door, instead of using the revolving one, a lot of dirt flies in.

As we walk towards the ferry station, beside the sea with its high waves, we notice that no one else is going our way. Strange. Then, at the entrance to the building, there’s a blackboard on an easel. On the blackboard, in white chalk, someone has written: FERRY CANCELLED. The man behind the desk confirms that, due to the weather, this is indeed the case, and the next ferry is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 9:30.

It takes a few seconds for the full ramifications of this news to sink in. We’re going to miss our flight to London, and D will miss his flight back home, unless…. We need some travel information, so we head for the tourist office. It’s closed. It seems it usually stays open late to serve people who arrive on the evening ferry and, as that was cancelled, they closed. What about those who are stranded on the island because the ferry back to the mainland is cancelled?

We do have some luck. We get the last room in the hotel. And it has a hair dryer which we use to dry out our boots and socks as much as possible. The smell still lingers. The woman at the desk is very helpful and finds out a lot of transport information, although, in the end, it doesn’t really help us. M1, the friend I’d arranged to stay with for two nights, is also very helpful and finds out some phone numbers for us, but we don’t manage to book anything except for another night in our house in Achiltibuie. (Luckily, it hasn’t been let out to more holiday makers.) When we go downstairs for a meal before the hotel restaurant closes, we’re still discussing our options.

One option is for D to take the bus straight from Ullapool to Inverness tomorrow. Then he’ll be able to catch a later flight to London and still arrive in time to catch his flight home. That would leave me to arrange transport to London, drive to Achiltibuie (I’ve let D navigate the single-track road up to now, as he does it so well), pack all our luggage, organise keeping the car for another day, clear up the house, deal with excess luggage on flights, drag two suitcases and a rucksack around with me for three-and-a-half weeks, …. Need I explain why this option doesn’t appeal to me?

We’re just finishing our meal when the fire alarm goes. During the meal, we’ve been noticing signs of the gale blowing outside – a hanging plant swinging furiously, one or two brave people fighting an invisible force. Now we have to leave our warm and comfortable enclave to stand in driving rain and wind without coats. It’s the last straw.

Fortunately, the alarm stops after two minutes and we all troop back inside.

The three-hour ferry ride from Ullapool to Stornaway is uneventful. We have a look around Stornaway while waiting for the bus to Eoropie. Eventually, the bus leaves the “big” metropolis and weaves its way to the northern tip of the island. As we go, I look out of the window hoping to see B&B signs. I see none. And only one hotel, which isn’t very near to the place where we want to start our walk tomorrow. D doesn’t seem at all worried. I don’t know why not.

On arrival, we visit an ancient church built some time between the late 12^th century and the early 16^th century. To get to the church we walk along a path, past a man and his dog cutting a hedge. Actually, I think the man was doing most of the work. On our way back, we see the man loading his cutting machine and dog into a van. I go up to him and ask if there’s anywhere to stay in the area. Was that brave of me? I’m better with strangers. The man recommends a place nearby. We chat to the man about the walk we’re planning for tomorrow, the weather and so on. Then we walk to the lighthouse and on past the cemetery, back to the road and on to the B&B.

True enough, there’s a house with a B&B sign, exactly as the man described. How wonderful! Or not. We approach the house full of hope. D says, “Do you really do bed and breakfast?”

“Oh no,” says the lady. We don’t do that any more. We wonder why the sign is still there. She phones the only other B&B in the area, two miles away. “Can you walk that?” she asks. “Oh yes,” we say happily in unison, but that place turns out to be full. I have visions of sleeping outside in a field. (Remember this is northern Scotland and it’s none too warm.) Then the nice lady, for such she has become, says she and her husband are willing to put us up anyway. Now this really is wonderful. We wait while they prepare the room, and then go in to find a luxurious and spotlessly clean room with an en suite bathroom. We slide in between the sheets covering a soft mattress, lay our heads on soft, welcoming pillows and sleep soundly. Our dreams possibly touch on the long and isolated walk we plan to do tomorrow, but certainly don’t reflect the calamity that is about to befall us.