Travel Journal March 26, 1999
Scotland's a beautiful country - when you can see it.

Tarbert

I got up at 6:00 this morning, skipped showering, and blearily made my way to the ferry. The sunrise was particularly beautiful:

I should note that the ferry can take cars from both the front and back - otherwise, cars would have to disembark in reverse. In order to accomplish this, the front of the boat opens up like a military heavy transport aircraft - or like something out of a James Bond film.

More pictures of Harris, taken from the ferry.

The Storr, Skye

The area known as "The Storr" is a particularly picaresque region of Skye. There is a natural standing stone called "The Old Man of Storr", which you can see in the second picture. Unfortunately, this is not the most spectacular way to view the rock, but it would have required several hours of hiking in order to get a really decent photo of it.)

The West Highlands

Back across the Skye toll bridge, and on towards Fort William. Here's some pictures of Glen Shiel

 

And Glen Coe:

  

Here's the village of Glen Coe, one of the nicer looking villagers I've seen.

 

I finally stopped in the town of Oban. Oban is a nice place for a traveller to hang out - it's a compact little town, yet has many modern amenities (like it's own movie theatre), and a ferry terminal. It's also located within striking range of many interesting west-coast sites.

 

I took advantage of the movie theatre and saw "Shakespeare in Love" which in my opinion was good, but not really Oscar material. Shows what I know.

Some notes on Scottish Weather:

When a Scottish person says "My, it's been a lovely afternoon, hasn't it?" that means that it only rained five times.

In this country, the phrase "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes - it will change" is not an exaggeration.