Day trip to Skye

It must have been about 30 years ago I was the proud owner of a little Mini 850. My pride and joy and great car for going anywhere - just as long as you weren't in a hurry, didn't have many passengers and certainly didn't have any luggage bigger than a pound of mince. Otherwise it was great. Except for the pinking. To the non mechanical amongst you, that's an ignition timing issue and necessitated a new cylinder head within about 6 weeks of life. Definitely a Friday evening car or a Monday morning car.

Despite its problems, it did me proud and many a mile was enjoyed traipsing all over the country, working hard.

One of those trips was a day trip to Skye. No - not to complain about the lack of satellite signal, but to the Island of Skye. If you think council telly existed in those days you are dafter than me. Go back to the beginning of this tale and see how long ago this was. 

Now a drive from Dundee to Skye in those days was considered a long one. Perhaps about 5 hours there and much the same back funnily enough. Allow some time to do whatever the job entailed and you will see it was going to be a long day. Probably most of you wouldn't consider a day trip as a sensible thing to do. Was I sensible? No. I was a very keen and naive young man saving the company the expense of an overnight stay and happy to be cocooned in a wee brown Mini, accompanied by my assortment of audio tapes. (Well in those days you lost radio signal north of Pitlochry on at A9).

Off I set, very early one summer morning, the road almost to myself (oh, how times have changed) and, thankfully, an absence of speed cameras. A bit less dual carriageway was available then, so the initial stage from Dundee to Inverness was at time a bit slow, but a beautiful drive nonetheless. It still is!  Inverness to Drumnadrochit (for those of you reading who are from anywhere other than Scotland, honestly that is a true place) was a fabulous twisting drive down the side of Loch Ness, always with one eye on the lookout for the monster. Maybe that's how I developed a squint? Anyway, I digress.

Turning right at Drumnadrochit, I quickly encountered for the first time an old fashioned road leading all the way to Kyle of Lochalsh. A single track with the occasional passing place. It was a bit of two steps forward and one step back. Being a bit of a physical dyslexic, I do for dancing what Hitler did for humanity, but in a car I had it down to a fine art. Boldly but not aggressively in places and concede the road to the bigger vans, tractors and lorries. I reckon I spent about as much time in lay-bys as Hugh Grant and Divine Brown.

In those days there was no bridge from the mainland to Skye, so it was wait at Kyle of Lochalsh for the ferry - that's a laugh.... not.  Then after about 10 minutes on the ferry it was off again at Kyleakin. Job done. After a pleasant drive up to my various point of call, it was back to the mainland a quick dash for home....or so I thought.

A few miles from the ferry, and for no apparent reason, the windscreen shattered. Not cracked as modern laminated ones do. No, I mean shattered. Into millions of little pieces. It was like trying to see through glasses smeared with Vaseline. Instinct, and a recollection of a few gangster movies, told me to knock a hole in the now shattered window. Easily enough accomplished, but I was now like a tank commander with a small aperture to see through and work out where I was going. That quickly changed as the edges of the hole disintegrated whilst I drove causing handfuls of glass fragments to spray into the car. Well at least I could now see out a bit better. In those days mobile phones didn't exist so it wasnt just a case of stop and phone for help. I reckoned the nearest working phone box was likely to be about 30 miles away in Fort William. Remember, at this point I am on the single track road with passing places for about the next 20 miles or so.  

As I continued, my luck was about to change. For the worse. Despite travelling at what I thought was a snail's pace, I caught up with a tractor. Nothing unlucky about that I hear you read. Well you're right; apart from the fact it was towing a bogey full of fresh dung. Unfortunately, the length of the tractor/bogey combination was too long for any of the passing places so I couldn't pass and was stuck behind the worse smell imaginable. It burnt my nose and stung my eyes as I followed it for as short a distance as possible, and I swear it even scorched the grass at the side of the road.  Failing to catch a breath, I accepted defeat and stopped in the next available passing place thinking I'll wait here and let the tractor get well ahead. After what seemed like an eternity, by which time it had started to rain, I set off again, stoic in my resolve to reach Fort William, replace the windscreen and continue home to Dundee.

After about 5 minutes, what happened? Well I only caught up again with the same bloody tractor again, by which time the now rain soaked manure was spraying off the back of the bogey, (like that hippopotamus with diarrhoea recently featured on YouTube) leaving a smelly mess on the road. Although I stopped again and waited even longer, the residue of sprayed dung left on the road meant the remaining miles to the Drumnardochit turnoff was as pleasurable as pouring iodine onto a paper cut on your gentleman's vegetables. (I don't speak from experience)

By the time I reached Fort William and phoned the garage, it was a pleasure to sit on broken glass, soaked to the skin and wait for the two hours it took for a company to come out and replace the windscreen. The cold, wet fresh air was a joy after the last hour and a half. Thereafter, I couldn't get back home quickly enough.

Drive to Skye and back in one day again?.......... I'd rather not say.