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Ayr
A ruined bridge over the river. Got up reasonably early, stuffed myself silly on the free Scottish breakfast complemented by the sweet Scottish lady: "D'ye fancy a cooked breakfas', dearie?" and then voyaged out into the rain (of course this is Tacoma-style rain, not Hawaii downpour).
Beautiful train ride, all sheep and green green hillsides, budding trees and awesome cloud formations. Still didn't catch the ferry till noon-ish, and then sacrificed my Hawaii-Mexico acclimated extremities to my desire to see the view. Arran did the total movie-ish rising out of the mist like the answer to a quest, and nobody was more exicted to get off that boat and into the hills than me.
I took a different bus than the one I wanted, and have never been so happy to be on the wrong bus. It looped around the northern coast, and the variety and drama of the scenery was amazing. It was rather like the drive from Kona to Hilo around the dry coast of the Big Island. No seals, only signs for seals, but some really cool castles and coastlines, and mountain valleys. While keeping a death-grip on the edge of my seat as we careened around cliff ledges, I was mainly
The Ancient One
A giant hand, thrust out of the moor... wishing I could get out and trek through the heather. The sun was doing that lovely dance through the clouds so that all the hills were lit up in patches of purple heather and gold scrub and grey stone. Anywhere I could have pointed a camera (if I wasn't stuck on a mad ride to death and destruction) would have been a stunning shot. I am definitly coming back, and the next time I'm not forgetting my stupid boots!
I got to the Machrie Moore stones, for which I'd been heading, and left the bus with some trepidation. There wasn't a soul in sight, except for my fellow brave (and slightly nauseated) travellers. Amid assurances that the bus would come back sometime before sunset, we headed up a farm road, spreading out as we went. I ducked down a slope in search of the source of water sounds, and found a blood-red rill and a couple of sheep. Onward to the stones!
...
Reached them, and am a little surprised. I half-expected them to be mysterious, brooding, give me chills down my back, and they were a bit, but I was more struck by how natural they
The Machrie Stones
One of several rings. were (If you can call a mammoth foreign rock sticking out of the moor natural) I guess something sits there for three thousand years, it can lay a claim to belonging there. I got the sense that they were just part of life for the people who made them, as familiar as the various skylines of our cities or shapes of our hills, and through the years between then and now, they might have lost their usefullness, but they are still just that: part of life. The resemblance to Andy Goldsworthy's work is obvious (he lives in Scotland, after all) and it was comforting that people can still perceive and act upon this relationship between widely-spaced isolated human beings and the landscape that engulfs them.
After the stones, I took my windswept frozen self back to the road and contemplated the age-old question: Which direction? Which really shouldn't be a hard question on an island that has all of three intersections. I met up with some new travelling companions, a Belgian and three Spaniards and the question was resolved somewhat, as their map showed more clearly where String Road intersected the North Road.
Two things I noted- On
the walk( I think I walked about ten k today): The incredible solitude was in no way relieved by the presence of other people. Perhaps it was the constant wind ripping the occasional human noise away, or the softly rugged surroundings, but even with people beside and behind me, my steps were dogged by this loneliness, as palpable as an extra person, an old friend, close enough for me to hear their breath. Of course, I couldn't really trust the strength of this feeling; if anything it let me know that I've been too long in the city. Oddly enough for me, its in the cities that I find the real loneliness, and eventual exhaustion from keeping various masks in place. Here (and in Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado), people are more rare, and the rapport between strangers stronger. I think to stay in any city, I'm going to have to give myself breaks like this, the legacy of growing up in a place very similar to this craggy island, I suppose. Time to think without devoting part of my brain to monitoring the expression on my face.
The second thing-on the train: More of a lesson about travelling in general.
Riding back from Ardrossan to Glasgow in the company of four women who made drunk Americans look tame and polite in comparison, it occured to me that travelling is seeing the ugly along with the beautiful, and that the ugly is as important in the lessons you learn. It seemed a silly thing to be learning at the ripe old age of twenty, and really at home the idea wouldn't seem at all novel, even when I was younger, but I think I had some kind of naive idea that the point of travelling was to find beauty and to ignore somewhat the mundane or ugly. But this is a place, not a postcard, and people inhabit it, people of all types. The idea that something could 'ruin' the experience is...narrow-minded, I guess. Yet that's the mentality of so many tourists upon whom I unabashedly eavesdrop. It's all in the definition of the state in which I exist, I guess. This is a 'vacation,' by definition short and somehow outside of reality. I could expect it to be filled with beautiful scenery, interesting people, and good food, not long train rides with people whose otherwise thrilling accent can't mask the idiocy of being completely, unapologetically drunk. On the one hand, its an affront of the mundane, on the other, its just part of the place and the people. We are the ones separating ourselves from reality, not the people who live here and couldn't care less about the bloody tourists.
Va bene, e grazie a voi. I could write more about uneventful trains and planes and roadside thoughts of sticking my frozen thumb out in desperation, but enough is enough. On to Roma!
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anonymous
non-member comment
You've hit upon it
The experience with the four women is so much a part of travel in Europe and the UK. I had many experiences like that and now count them as some of the most intimate of my travels. I'm glad that you are really letting yourself experience this trip. I can't wait to hear more from you when you get back. - Jane