Monday, July 1, 2002
Location: Hotel Alexandra, Oban
Weather: Rain for most of the day, now starting to clear.
Oban is a lovely little seaside town, built along a long stretch of windey coast up against steep hills. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon yesterday and had a quick rehearsal in St. Columba’s Cathedral, whose acoustics quickly seduced us. It seemed almost effortless to sing there, and the building rang with harmonics so tuning was easy as well.
After the rehearsal we checked into the hotel, next door to the cathedral, and had some down time. Katherine Hill graciously agreed to give up her single room and swap places with Jay, so she and I moved our bags into one of the hotel’s outside “apartments”, essentially motel rooms out the back, but large and well-equipped. After a brief unpack I put on my raincoat and headed into town through a light drizzle. Most everything was closed, but I picked up a bag of gummy bears and a small packet of turkish delight in a candy shop.
Back at the hotel we assembled at 6:30 for a group dinner, which was adequate, and then trooped back to the cathedral in our concert dress. The church was quite cold, and several in the choir were not suitably prepared, but I had a black sweater over my shirt and was fine. We had a decent and appreciative crowd, and we all enjoyed the concert a great deal. Several group photos were taken afterwards, but as I didn’t have my camera there I’ll have to get a copy from someone else.
After the concert, Katherin retired early but I stayed up for a while to drink scotch and play Scrabble in the lounge with Anne, Susan and Phyllis, Jill’s mother. Susan won again, despite her continued protestations about lack of skill. Once again I came last, which was disappointing but which I put down to lack of sleep.
Speaking of which, I had no trouble at all sleeping last night. Katherine didn’t make a noise, and other than some early light through the curtains at 5am, there wasn’t any form of distraction and with my face mask (Air Canada issue) I was able to sleep through until the alarm went off, a major relief.
Today was our free day. The original plan had been to climb Ben Nevis, but we aren’t especially close to it and with the inclement weather had some fears that it might actually be dangerous, so Stephanie and I made plans to go to the island of Ferrera, opposite Oban, with Susan, Craig, Anne and Katherine.
We hiked through the town, over the railroad tracks at a bridge, and along the coastal road south towards the Ferrera ferry, in a light rain. After some time and two miles we came to the ferry, announced on a placard. As it instructed, we flipped the sign over to the reverse side, painted black, which in due course brought the ferry (a speedboat) over from the island to pick us up.
On the island we had a lovely but wet walk south to a tea shop, another two miles from the ferry, where we rested and warmed up with soup, fresh bread, scones and tea. After a short detour past a little castle (sadly scaffolded for renovations — it would have been a fabulous photo op otherwise) and some highland cattle, we continued on the road past the tea shop, which looped around most of the island before cutting back across to the ferry. There was significantly more mud, though generally less rain. We passed some memorable sights: a particularly muddy section where Susan discovered her shoes had no treads (by slipping into the mud); a wonderful cottage above a little bay, beside a circle of trees around a little meadow; a hilly section that Craid and I stormed up, then were passed by Stephanie, running; and a farm with ponies standing across the trail who came up to say hello, rubbing their noses up against us and looking for food.
Back on the mainland, Steph and I headed up a path leading to a highland trail back to Oban, while the others opted to continue back along the road we’d come on in the morning. At first, their choice seemed the wiser as we had to cross a very swampy field, but then our path got drier and eventually became a lovely laneway that shortcutted our trip so that we arrived back in town at the same time as the others.
The first priority was hitting the pool and the steam room. That done, we’re now off for a nice seafood dinner.