Inverness (Scotland to Iceland 3)

This entry consists mainly of excerpts from my daily journal.

Monument at Culloden

Thursday June 8, 2023

That was a pretty good day and we met some interesting people. Before we left I found an ‘Edinburgh’ sticker for my ukulele case and I also got a pin for my collection. This one has a Scottish flag and a Canadian flag on it.

Just as we entered the Royal Mile we stopped to chat with one of the locals. I don’t remember how the conversation started, maybe as a result of the Canadian flag on my hat. Anyway, she said she had seen the fires in Canada on the news. We chatted about our trip and as we parted she told us we had lovely accents. I stopped myself from saying, “So do you.”

There were a couple of women sitting across from us on the train and R talked to them quite a bit. One was going north to attend a conference of some sort and the other was a municipal councillor. The guy either directly in front of us or in the next seat up had a terrible cold, or something. There was much coughing and throat-clearing, and once that penetrated my consciousness I put on my mask. I sure hope he didn’t give it to either one of us. That would not be a great way to start a holiday!

After a few texts back and forth we found out where our accommodations were. It was a lovely walk beside the river Ness. We are in quite the swish guest house with a huge bedroom/ living area, a galley kitchen and a bathroom complete with a washer and dryer. We passed a couple of restaurants on the way and decided to walk back to one where we had fish and chips for supper. Now we are deciding what to do while we’re here. We had a lot of fun on the cycling tour in Edinburgh so we might look around and see if we can find another one while we’re here.

Friday June 9, 2023

R and I both had the grumpies today, I in the morning and he when he was trying to cook supper. He hates trying to cook when he doesn’t have good stuff to work with and I don’t blame him. These places come with just the basics meaning there are no spices and we don’t want to buy jars of spice which we will then have to carry or toss. The knives are dull and the pots and pans don’t match the lids. We’ve decided we’ll have one meal out and the other one we can make do with veggies cheese and hummus. We stopped in at Tesco on our way home and also bought some instant oatmeal that isn’t loaded with sugar: it’s just oatmeal. We got yogurt and milk for our tea and coffee. Today we had lunch in town and it was less than stellar. I had a chicken salad which was heavy on the chicken and light on anything green. I would have preferred it the other way around.

After lunch we took public transit out to Culloden and had a guided tour. The tour guide was a very good storyteller. It’s pretty rough country to be fighting in. One thing I hadn’t known was that it wasn’t a clear cut case of the Scots against the English. There were mercenaries in the mix and Scots were fighting on both sides. They’ve done a really good job of marking out where the two lines met each other and the signage is also good. Although I'm not much of a history buff but it was an interesting visit. It was stinkin’ hot though. So much for cold, rainy Scotland - at least so far.

I booked a two hour bike tour of the waterways for 10:00 tomorrow.

Saturday June 10, 2023

That was a pretty good day. Nice easy bike ride on cruisers that did have gears. There weren’t any hills to speak of and we were definitely on the experienced side of the people who were on the tour. One woman said she hadn’t been on a bike for 40 years. Yikes! Allison, our guide warned us that the brakes on the bikes were the opposite of what we were used to across the pond (the other folks were Americans.) On our bikes the rear brake is controlled by the right lever and the front brake is controlled by the left lever. Always put the rear brake on first so you don’t go sailing over the handlebars. Allison’s rule was both hands on both brakes. I found that if I kept my left hand on the brake lever and wrapped my right hand around the handle bar itself I had a suitable reminder of what to do with which hand.

The pre-tour chat

There were a couple of incidents with the folks who weren’t used to riding. I was ahead so I didn’t see what happened but I think one of the women fell when she tried to go through a narrow spot on the pathway in the bird sanctuary. We also stopped at a botanical garden and I got a picture of one particularly fuzzy looking cactus.

On our way back home we met a guy from Holland who is doing long distance hikes all over Europe. He told us that his kit weighs 9 kg and that includes his tent and everything. He said he is 76 and is still working so he does these hikes every summer when he has holidays. I think he said the hike he is on is called ‘The Great Glen Way.’ He said the midges are terrible and he had bites all over his arms. Not my idea of a good time!

It was 26C here today and I think we have a good chance of getting rained on either here or in Glasgow or both tomorrow. Our train leaves at 12:07 and we get in around 4. All our paperwork for Adventure Canada is up to date and Glasgow is where we board the ship for the second part of this adventure.

One slightly annoying thing: I brought a small wooden phone stand with me and I can’t find it. I’ve looked behind all the furniture and under the bed. I know I had it here because I used it to watch videos on my phone. It seems to have disappeared into thin air. I’ll have another look in the morning but I don’t have much hope of finding it now. I wonder if it somehow got thrown out.

A fall bike ride

If I look back in the blog I find another post about cycling in the fall. I wrote that one 16 years ago when I was newly retired. The bike is different but I think the route is similar to the one I took last Friday. I debated about whether to go for a ride or not and then I checked the forecast for the next day. Rain. That settled it. Much better to get out when the temperature was just about right and the sun was shining. I think it was 13C when I left. I had on a light fleece, a wind vest and gloves.

The bike is the e-bike R gave me for Christmas last year, although we didn’t get around to actually buying it until May. Last Wednesday, we stuffed both e-bikes in the van and headed to Canmore where we parked and rode the Legacy Trail to Banff. On that ride my saddle slipped down about an inch even though I tightened up the clamp as hard as I could.

When I set out Friday I had no particular plan except to drop in to the bike shop to see if they could rectify the problem. The guy took the bike right away and, while I waited, he cleaned off the seatpost and regreased it. That was entirely counter intuitive to me. If the thing was slipping, why would you want to grease it? But it seemed to work. I thought of just riding around the neighbourhood and then decided to ride down the Edworthy Park hill.

The road down to the river has improved a lot over the years. When I first rode there it was mostly gravel and now it is mostly paved. That makes the riding nicer both up and down the hill. At the bottom of the hill is a parking lot and a playground as well as a few picnic spots and one picnic shelter. At the north end of the parking lot is a concrete barrier with an opening in it that leads across the train tracks. I decided to carry on across the tracks and the bridge to the north side of the river. As I approached the tracks I saw a young woman with a camera and a tripod taking photos. If you look either way along the tracks it’s easy to forget you are in the middle of a city of 1.3 million people. You might be looking along any treed section of track in the foothills.

I crossed the bridge and turned to the east along the divided pathway, one path for cyclists and a separate one for pedestrians. From there I could make a shorter loop on the pedestrian bridge under Crowchild Trail and come up the hill by a golf course, or I could carry on, turn around at some farther point and go back up the hill the way I came. Thinking of the photographer I opted to carry on and get some photos with my phone on the way back through the park.

When I decided I had gone far enough I turned around and retraced my route, stopping this time for a few photos along the way.There were a number of people out on bikes and walking along the river pathway. As I toodled along a few guys on road bikes and mountain bikes passed me. I’m happy to have fit individuals on light bikes blow by me. The point of having an e-bike is not to go as fast as I can but to enjoy cycling again with a little less effort.

Don’t get me wrong, the kind of e-bike I have is still work. If I don’t pedal it doesn’t help. You can get e-bikes with throttles but mine doesn’t have one and the info from my fitbit tells me that I’m working hard enough on these rides. Today I was in my vigorous heart rate zone for 50% of the time, the moderate zone for 40% of the time and the peak zone for 9% of the time. I don’t know where the other 1% got to. Perhaps it was for the photo stops.

I set out to ride for 40 minutes and by the time I got back home I had ridden for an hour and 59 minutes. It was a very satisfying and enjoyable ride. I certainly used the highest level of assist to make it back up the Edworthy Park hill and that probably accounts for the 9% of time at the peak. It’s the difference between struggling with each pedal stroke in the lowest gear on a normal bike and feeling that going up the hill is hard sustainable work.

I hope to go on as many rides as I can before it snows and the paths get icy. Next summer I’ll test how far I can go on a battery charge. So far I haven’t even drained the battery half way.

Goodbye to a piece of personal history

My next post was to have been another in the series of Scotland to Iceland adventures but today was important and deserves comment. So here we go.

I wouldn’t say we’re trying to downsize as such but we are taking a close look at what we have and asking ourselves if we are likely to use certain items again. Among those things is the canoe that we built ourselves and all the river gear we accumulated during our years of wilderness canoeing. Over time our interests changed and at some point we stopped canoeing and started cycling instead. I can’t remember the last time we had the canoe in the water and if we canoe from now on it will be in a rented canoe on a nice tame river or lake. We have offered the blue canoe to several people. One person said two years ago that he would like it but we have reminded him of it 3 or 4 times since to no avail.

The blue canoe

Today someone came who wanted the canoe and was prepared to take it immediately. I rounded up all the gear except our old life jackets, which nobody would want anyway, and we packed it all into his truck. When it came to moving the canoe it was so much heavier than we remembered. I swear it has gained weight just as we have over the years! I can’t believe that we blithely put it up on our shoulders and portaged it for over a mile in some places.

I told the new owner that there was a high price to pay: he had to look at the photo album of our trip down the Nahanni in which the canoe features prominently. He was very gracious about it as we sat in the shade and swapped river stories. Before taking his present job he was a river guide for different rafting companies and he has rafted down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. I enjoyed talking with him about our trip and he enjoyed seeing photos of a river he has never been on. We both marvelled at how far river gear has come.

As he drove away with the canoe strapped to his truck I felt lighter knowing that he would refurbish it and it would again find its way onto rivers. That, after all, is where canoes belong, not sitting in a backyard next to a fence for years on end. I hope this is the start of parting with a number of things that are relics of wonderful adventures that we have no desire to repeat. We don’t need repeats: there are enough new adventures waiting just around the next bend in the river.

Paddles, barrels, and bags

Odds and ends from Edinburgh (Scotland to Iceland 2)

I wrote the previous blog post while I was in Scotland. I realized as I looked through some of my photos that there were other interesting tidbits that I didn’t cover so here are a few photos and some things I found interesting.

Riding up to Arthur's Seat

Nearing the top

Portobello Beach

On our bike tour we rode up Arthur’s seat. I was very glad to have an e-bike. We had walked up to the top the day before and it would have been a real slog with a regular bike. I used to say I’d never met a hill I couldn’t walk and that’s probably still true but if I can get a bit of an assist from an electric motor I’m quite happy not to have to walk. We also rode down to Portobello Beach. It was a bit chilly and, because it was a weekday, there weren’t many people there.

Tempting Tatties

I’m also including a photo of a little shop called ‘Tempting Tatties.’ It was on the way to our hotel and we walked by it a number of times before stopping in for a very late lunch the day of the cycle tour. I’m happy to eat potatoes any time and the ones we had that day were tasty and filling.

I think when I travel next I’m going to take more photos of interesting signs. I didn’t get a shot of one outside a pub that said, “Mary Queen of Scots probably drank here.” I got a few other interesting ones though.

Edinburgh Scotland to Iceland 1 (June 7, 2023)

 

We took an overnight direct flight from Calgary to Edinburgh. The first day was mostly to get over jet lag which we have almost managed today. Yesterday we went to the train station and bought tickets to get us from Edinburgh to Inverness and then from Inverness to Glasgow. The agent was very helpful and saved us money by suggesting that we buy return tickets from Edinburgh to Inverness and then a single ticket from Edinburgh to Glasgow. We don’t need to change trains the day we go to Glasgow and we have an open ticket so we can leave pretty well any time we want to.

The accommodation here is fairly nice. It’s a bit noisy as we have construction right across the road from us and we found out the hard way on the first day that the smoke detector is pretty sensitive. R was cooking when the smoke detector went off and that set off the sirens in the whole building. It brought the lady from the front desk running. We assured her that nothing was going to burn down and I think she was able to stop the fire engines from responding. Since then we have been very careful to have both windows open when we’re cooking.

We have a bedroom / sitting room area with a TV which we don’t use. There is a small, decently equipped, kitchen complete with a small dishwasher and a clothes washer under the counter. We took advantage of the dishwasher last night and did a small load of laundry today when we got back from our bike tour.

The bike tour was fun. We both opted for e-bikes which we didn’t need for most of the ride but there was one significant climb where they certainly paid for themselves. We saw quite a lot of the city and the guide was knowledgeable and a good sport. There were six of us: two from Australia, two from Newark New Jersey USA, and the two of us. We were mostly on bike paths and when we were in traffic it certainly didn’t bother me. What I did find difficult was getting on and off the bike. It had no crossbar but I still had to lean the bike over quite a bit in order to get my leg over. After a while I started with my left foot on the pedal, gave the bike a push and then swung my right leg over the way I used to do when I rode my touring bike. I didn’t do as good a job stopping though and definitely felt uncoordinated as I struggled to get my leg back through the frame.

The other thing I found very awkward was not having my clipless pedals. I’m used to clipping my right foot in, pulling the pedal up to the top of the stroke and then pushing down while I get settled on the saddle. I found myself fluffing around trying to decide whether to push down on a partially raised pedal or to give a mighty push and then try to get the other foot onto its pedal while trying to steer. Fortunately, although I did a fair bit of wobbling, I didn’t end up in the canal as one of the people on our Holland trip did. Our guide for the day told us that we were going to dismount at the first bridge because he had had one person from the US and one person from New Zealand actually miss the corner and end up in the canal. It was a rather tight turn. I had enough trouble negotiating the bedsteads which clearly shows me that I haven’t done enough riding of late. Clumsy as I was getting on and off the bike, once I got riding I was fine. We covered about 45 km and saw a lot of the city.
On this trip we chose not to do the regular tourist things. We didn’t go to see the castle or any museums. We have walked part of the Royal Mile because it is on our route from the Old Town to our apartment hotel.

I have my new carbon fiber ukulele with me and I decided that I should get a sticker for the case. Apparently they don’t do stickers here, or at least, not in any of the souvenir shops I’ve been into. There are a ton of fridge magnets but no stickers and no pins that I’ve seen. I don’t think I’m going to be able to find one because we leave for Inverness tomorrow and I’ve tried about half a dozen shops in our immediate area.

When we arrived at the airport we bought a three-day tram pass and that has turned out not to be a good idea. We have been able to get anywhere we wanted to go by walking or on the bike today. Oh well, we’ll chalk it up to our contribution to the infrastructure of Edinburgh.

Yesterday we climbed up to Arthur’s seat and had lovely views in all directions. Today we cycled up the road to below Arthur’s seat and our guide pointed out that Edinburgh is founded on 7 hills. When we were up there yesterday we noticed a coiled sculpture that looked a little like the Dairy Queen swirl on the top of an ice cream cone. Today we asked about it. He said it was a shopping centre and that the locals call it the ‘jobbie’ i.e. the piece of poop. That was the other thing it reminded us of but we were trying our best to be polite.

The first night we had wraps in a little Turkish place. They were quite tasty. There is a Tesco Express half a block from us and we have made two trips there for provisions. Yesterday we ate all our meals in the hotel. Today we were just a wee bit hungry by 2:30 when we finally got to sit down for the first meal of the day. We’ve been past a little place that sells baked potatoes several times so we decided to stop there for brunch on our way home. I had a potato with chili and jalapenos and R had one with tikka masala. We very much enjoyed them. Tonight we need to eat up the salad and veggies we have left so we can be ready to leave in the morning.

I think it might be just about time to take stock of the food we have and take care of it. I’m not sure when my next entry will be but I’ll try to summarize what we do in Inverness and Glasgow before we join the Ocean Endeavour to sail from Glasgow to Aberdeen and visit the Scottish Isles.

Excuses or Explanation?

I just checked when I last put up a blog post, June 2. It is now August18. Yikes! I know many of you are waiting for stories of the trip to Scotland, the Faroes, and Iceland. I did draft some posts while I was away. Since I’ve been home I’ve been avoiding the blog, or more properly all the photos I took while on the trip. I took a small, pocket camera and my cell phone and thought that would mean many fewer photos to go through at this end. There may well be fewer photos but trying to corral them all is a bit of a challenge.

I’ve yet to find a way of handling photos that works well for me. Part of that may be that I work on a Mac computer and an android phone. Not going to get into the whys and wherefores of all that now. The computers we have are 9 years old and when queried about how much we could get trading our computers in, our friendly Mac website told us, “Your computer is ready for recycling.” Uh, thanks.

We got new computers and there are still a few things I’m not sure about. I like Google photos because it works seamlessly with the blogging software I use. Google photos is telling me I’m almost out of space so I’ve tried, with R’s help, to cut down the amount of space I’m using. Factor in a bunch of dithering on my part about what to keep and what to toss and that adds up to time. I’m now ignoring the whole thing until my storage is actually full; then I’ll decide what to do. One issue solved temporarily.

Phones. The day before we were to leave for Scotland R dropped his phone on one of the two tile floors in the house. The back shattered but it still worked. Luckily I had an extra case which did an admirable job of holding the phone together until we got back to Canada. It did get a bit dicey when we had to change sim cards because each time we did, little sparkles of glass floated to the floor.

Once we got home we decided it was time to replace the phones as well. I thought I had downloaded all the photos onto my computer but I can’t find them there. A week or so after we got the new phones and I had passed my unbroken phone onto someone else, I was riding my bike up a hill and my new phone leapt out of my pocket and landed on the street. I pulled over, put my bike down, and rushed back to get the phone just as a car ran over it. It sort of worked but only half the screen would show at a time. R dug out his cracked phone and set me up with it until I could get mine fixed. All of that adds up to, you guessed it, more time.

Anyway, the phone is now fixed. I can find the photos I took on the phone in Google photos and the ones I took on the camera are on my computer’s hard drive so it’s now time to get the lead out. I’m also searching in Google drive for the posts I drafted while on the trip. I didn’t give them titles and I don’t remember how many I wrote. As I used to say to my students, “If I ever get organized I’ll be deadly!” They just laughed. I have found one post about Edinburgh, the first place in Scotland that we stayed so I should be able to get that one up in short order. I’m not sure whether to warn you about an upcoming deluge of posts or whether that’s just being optimistic. Stay tuned.

In the meantime I’ll leave you with a photo of the back of my phone case sporting a one-of-a-kind tire track on it.

Another crazy scheme

Ok I may have truly lost the plot on this one. We are at the point where we need to make some decisions about our camper van. This is our third one and when we bought it 9 years ago we thought it would be ideal for us. We have enjoyed it. It’s great to have a furnace that you can turn on from the bed, and an inside potty. Richard has used the shower once and we pretty much came to the conclusion that it was more work than it was worth. The body of the van needs painting and there are a few other things that could use some attention. So the question is do we invest money in this vehicle or do we look for another solution?
To be honest, the van sits in the driveway most of the year. Last year we came back from a holiday to find the door open and a bunch of stuff gone. We might not have checked to see it was locked before we left. We just don’t know. Since then our garage door has been open twice when we didn’t know it and we have had items stolen. Clearly we need to be more conscious about security.

The plan for the neighbourhood would see a three storey multi unit apartment go in behind us.The back lane is already crowded and we can see that we might have difficulty manoeuvring the van out of its spot when we do want to go camping. Also it’s a dead giveaway that we’re not home when the van is gone. What if we had a camper that we could put in the garage? Of course that won’t matter if we don’t remember to close the garage door, but it would save wear and tear on the vehicle.

Recently we took a trip out to Vernon in the Okanagan with our 30 year old Toyota Previa. We love that thing. It’s quirky and it too needs some TLC. We’ve looked at alternatives and have come to the understanding that we don’t really want an alternative: we want this van with a few more bells and whistles. So this brings me to the latest crazy scheme. What if we were to sell the current camper and make the mini-van into a camper customized just for us?

On the one hand we’re giving our heads a shake. The van is 30 years old for crying out loud! But Toyotas can go for 400,000 km on the motors before they give out and we have under 300,000 in 30 years of travel. It could fall apart at any moment. It could but so could any other second hand vehicle and we know exactly how this one has been maintained. It needs body work because it’s starting to rust. Well, yes but so does the RoadTrek.

I’ve always wanted to do a van conversion. I know, if we do it, it will be a headache at times and we will wish we had never thought of it. At the moment I’m excited by the possibilities. The Previa gets great gas mileage compared to the RoadTrek. It’s way easier to drive and we are very fond of it. In our lives the latter counts for a lot.

I’ve been down the YouTube rabbit hole on camperized Previas and have found a channel by an Oregon couple who have converted their 1992 Previa into a camper and live in it full time. Their blog posts are very instructive and we can learn from their experience. Also we don’t have to go whole hog if we don’t want to. We can start slowly with a minimum amount of fuss and then decide how much time and effort we want to invest.

We have already started to investigate. The other day we pulled out one of the rear seats. It was much easier than we thought it would be, a matter of two bolts. There is actually quite a lot of space inside. There’s no potty which means that there’s no black tank to worry about. The water system could be very simple so we wouldn’t need to worry about either putting antifreeze in the lines or blowing them out at the end of the season. As well, there are solutions to not having a potty. As we have found, any camper is a compromise, even the one you think is the absolutely perfect model.

We like the idea of some of the new camper vans but they are just too ‘perfect.’ They are beautiful but not cozy and they don’t have all the wonderful little nooks and crannies for storage that Kermie the lime green Volkswagen had. Kermie was our favourite camper. It was severely underpowered; the engine leaked oil, and the steering would freeze up in the winter because the engine was in the back. Nevertheless, we liked the coziness and practicality of the build. There wasn’t an inch of wasted space; it was easy to park and good on gas. I guess what we really want is the feel of Kermie without that particular set of problems.

I know myself well enough to understand that I love the seductive sparkle of a new idea. Some of my ideas are great and some are total duds. The nice thing is, we don’t need to do anything about our vans right now. For the moment I’m enjoying the many possibilities. One thing I do know: the old red Toyota van will continue to have a place in our garage for the near future. I’ll be sure to let you know if this idea ends up having legs or if it falls flat. Stay tuned.