InverNausea

I am sitting on a bench at Inveraray park overlooking the mudflats. It is 9:35am. The sun is shining. I watch a pot-bellied man in white T-shirt, blue jeans, and olive-green waders search for clams. He looks down at the seaweed-covered mud, carries a white plastic pail with no handle; the inside is yellowed, as if it's seen a lot of clams in its day. Every so often he pauses to kick a pitchfork into the sand, lever up a pile of mud, sift through it, do it again. Nothing. I watch him for half an hour.

Pigeons pick at the seaweed. Seagulls skim around, bob in the water, drop shells on the rocks to break them open. Two herons stand in the shallows. Sunshine beats down on me. I lay back on the bench and nap.

11:00--the church bells chime. I sit up. The tide has come in about 20 feet. Still lots of mud.

I slept poorly last night--too hot in our room. There are the same three other girls from the large group; one of whom seems to have spent much of yesterday in bed and seemed to have no intention of getting up this morning. The room is stuffy and it stinks of bad breath and sleep. Got up in the middle of the night to move the curtains aside for some hope of airflow. Propping the door open lets in too much light from the hall, right onto the face of my upper bunk mate. I'm hoping they leave today, but they don't seem to be. I plan to go back this afternoon to try to air out the room.

I've been wishing lately for a place that offers a comfortable lounge for spreading out in. I don't like being cooped up in a bottom bunk, and the travel paraphernalia of four women can't help but ooze over most of the floor space in the small room. The dining room is OK for projects like postcards and scrapbooking, but not for comfortable reading, and the tiny alcove with the Internet computer has an uncomfortably hard sofa--no squishy padding and pillows to settle into with a good book.

I'm feeling very tired today. As if lots of healing is going on and I need to rest. Not interested in shopping or eating or sightseeing or walking. Have my paints with me, and not interested in them, either. Just want to keep sleeping. The herons have left.

I nap on the bench for another 10 minutes, wake to watch clouds form. They go slowly. So slowly. I can see them roll and change, but I can hardly stand the stillness of it. I sit up. A heron stands in the water. The sky has filled with clouds.

Sitting quiet like this today brings an almost physical nausea. A billowing belly, discomfort of Being. I fight the urge to get up, to move around, to do. I stay on the bench, choosing to live through this discomfort, see where it goes.

The growing tide has lifted a pair of boats in the harbor. They float at anchor. The water isn't yet affecting the Vital Spark and Inveraray Maritime Museum, two ships that are moored at the quay.

A pair of adolescent jackdaws practice takeoffs and flights from the sea wall near me. They're about two-thirds the size of their parents. They yell for food, a screechy kind of caw. A black-headed tern coasts around.

Lots of motorcycles on the road today. Sunny day, winding road--perfect combo for riding. They roar in over the Aray bridge heading south through town. There's one main road in these parts--a scenic path that follows the coastline much of the way; it makes a loop at the top of the peninsula then becomes a miles-long dead-end road to Campbeltown. An accident my first night here turned fatal for a biker. They closed the road until midnight. People had to sit for hours in parked cars or go the long way around the loop to get to Inverarary.

Just got joined by two German women on the bench. I feel a moment of irritation at the intrusion, then think, Sunny day: the bench is worth sharing. I start a game of Sudoku. They talk for thirteen minutes without stopping. One talks more while the other gives nods and yahs and uh-huhs. They each indicate parts of their feet and shoes. Perhaps discussing travel aches and pains, or fashion footwear. The one nearest me looks at her watch. It is 12:23 by Perry. They stand up and go, still talking. I finish my game of Sudoku in a record, for me, 15:38 minutes. The tide is about one-third in now. Taking my mind off into a game has reduced the nausea. I can't do this Being for more than short stints at a time.

The tide comes in more slowly here than it did over the causeway at St. Michaels. It doesn't stink here like it did at St Michaels, either. There are mud flats, seaweed, etc., but no stench.

The more I look, the more I see. A fat gray and silver-backed fly lands on my trouser leg. Black-and-white oystercatchers, red beaks, red legs. Eight to nine of them cluster twenty feet from the water's creeping edge. One of them pokes among the smooth rocks that are just now getting wet. Swallows flit over the seaweed. It's 12:43. The brick red and rusted hull of the Vital Spark are reflected in smooth water. A gray heron tiptoes through the shallows, one foot, next foot, head tilting at the waters.

What's on the other side of this boredom? Of this vague nausea? What would happen if I tossed my cookies on the beach there? Or at Jura?

I feel afraid to go to Jura. It's a place unpopulated and rural, where there really is nothing to do and nowhere to go except right there, wherever I am. I can barely sit still for an hour here at this park bench. What will happen at Jura?

Inveraray Explorations

"Don't ask Why. Ask What." Hemingway was supposed to have said that. It may become my mantra for the rest of the trip. Or maybe my life.

The "What" I have for these two days has been "What's next? What's happening now?"

I spent some time Friday getting phone numbers and bus info for the Jura stay and found it easy to change plans--always a good sign. The Jura Hotel is booked, but they gave me the names of two B&Bs, and I've pieced together a full five-day stay by using them both. The WWOOFer family in Fort William, Great Glen Chalets, was also fine with my change in plans and can take me in the next week.

During lunch I sat on the seawall at the Inveraray park and fed pigeons, sparrows, a pushy gull, and several jackdaws from my bread roll, then poked around town a little. Decided to walk the mile south to Argyll Adventures, a family-run, family-fun place that advertises horseback riding, indoor laser tag, bungee trampolines, and--my objective--a 7-meter rock-climbing wall. Ever since seeing those girls climbing the wall at Okehampton, I've wanted to try that. And I want to see how different it would be from the tree climb on Wight.

My first adventure of the day happened before I got there. I needed a toilet, so I took a detour to a golf course on the way. Now this golf course isn't your typical American course, with a fancy-schmancy clubhouse and attendants, sports shop, and coffee shop. Access is obscure, the parking lot is gravel, and the clubhouse is a small bungalow of a building with a board on the outside announcing the next local tournaments, all of which occurred last month. Inside is a small paper-littered table, bulletin boards, oddball furnishings, and, hoorah, two bathrooms. No one was around to ask, so I just used the ladies' room.

When I went to leave, however, the bathroom door wouldn't budge. Not an inch. I pushed. It wasn't stuck, it was barricaded. Damn it all, who would block the door? I yelled out--"Hello! I need some help! Anybody there?"

Nuts. I had seen one man head out to the course with his clubs, and the parking lot had had very few cars. Hollering wasn't likely to rouse a response. But who would block the door anyway, and why? Had someone seen me go in and deliberately stopped my departure? I suddenly felt very aware that I was a woman traveling alone, and I didn't like it.

I wanted out. I wanted out now. I shoved on the door and got it a few inches open. A bench. Someone had placed a six-foot long bench against the wall, wedging it between the door and a table at the end of the room. What kind of perverse universal timing would make someone happen to block a door within the two minutes I was in the restroom unless they knew I was there?

I shoved and pushed more, and thanked god that the wooden table wasn't particularly sturdy. The bench pushing against its legs buckled them slightly and yielded the extra inches I needed to get the door open enough to reach out and tip the bench over and aside. I left it angled in the room with the bathroom door open, steadied the table legs to keep it from falling, and decided not to announce the situation to the thick, middle-aged man I saw coming up from the parking lot. He'd figure out what happened, whether the incident had been innocent or not.

All the way to the adventure park, I tried to recall whether the bench had been there in the room when I arrived or if someone perhaps had brought it in to furnish the room while I was there. Another bench had also been on the opposite wall when I left, but not blocking the men's room door because of more space on that side. The whole situation was probably void of nefarious intent, but it unnerved me just the same. And I was proud of myself for getting out.

The rock-climbing was different from tree climbing, involving my whole body and balance to stay on the wall. The first of four faces was easy--lots of fat holding spots, a flat surface. The young girl who spotted and instructed me was supportive and encouraging. She had climbed it many times, and knows the best handholds and how tricky the harder walls can be.

I was supposed to use my legs to push up instead of my arms to pull up, and I didn't always get it right or remember to do it. I sometimes felt scared to balance over my feet and then let one of my feet go to find the next foothold. I was harnessed to a hydraulic system that would let me down easily in case of a slip, but that didn't make it any less scary when it came time to let go of the wall once I'd reached the top.

The trick there is to let go and grip a plastic sleeve on the cable and walk the wall back to the ground as the hydraulics let me down. I kept swinging away like some flailing, panicked spider, or tipping my body flat so I was sliding bum first, or staying too upright and zooming down too fast. By the fourth time I'd done it, my body was trusting the system enough that I could walk the wall with enough balance to earn praise from my guide.

I managed the two beginner's faces, then got stuck halfway up the third face. It doesn't look hard at all, but once I got onto it, I found miserly protrusions and lots of recesses to clamber around, which makes for more awkward hand and foot holds than I would have thought. My muscles were fatigued from the previous ascents and practice, so I stopped on that wall, went up the beginner's wall another time, and then slid down, hot, sweating, sore in the arms, and proud of myself. I'd like to do this again when I get home, although right now I've got no desire to do it "for real" out in some national park or Olympic mountain. The body awareness is all I'm looking for.

I came back to a packed hostel. Peter, a middle-aged, bulky, rather loud man in a T-shirt, kilt, knee-high socks, and tennis shoes, kept trying to talk with me in the kitchen and dining room, but my barriers were still up from the golf course escapade and I wasn't in a talkative mood. He acted drunk, or it may be that he's got physical issues that keep his eyes off center, his words a bit slurred, his hips canted, and his walk hard on the ground. He stomps down the hallway like the hungry giant in search of Jack.

He's part of a group of about ten people (it seems like eighteen, they keep coming and going so much), three leaders and the rest in their late teens. All three other beds in my room are full tonight. After such an uncrowded time at the hostel, I closed up around this group of people--too many at once for me to process right away. The leaders seem kind, as do their somewhat shy charges, who each seem to have mild learning disabilities.


I ate breakfast early on Saturday and stuck my attention in a magazine to keep Peter out of my face. I was in no mood to talk or interact--it took too much energy to do it. I hopped a two-hour bus to Campbeltown, down the length of Argyll peninsula, which also took me past Kennecraig port, where I'll pick up the ferry to Islay and Jura on Monday. I was glad for the dry-run of that trip. Lovely coastal views most of the way, and startling to see sheep next to a loch, cattle next to the beach. Waves show up where there is no land mass between the coast and the Atlantic.


I walked around Campbeltown to check it out (interesting parking warnings and bumpers), then spent an hour in a lush green park by a school. Barn swallows swished over the grass and jackdaws hopped about and cawed. A woman walked by with a German shepherd who paused to snuff the air in my direction. The salami and cheese next to me were clearly on his preferred list.

Here it was quiet enough for me to make calls to arrange ferry, bus, and train travel for the next two weeks, including to St Bees, where I start the coast to coast walk on July 17. The plan is Jura five nights, Oban two nights as transition, Fort William seven nights, then on to the C2C walk.

Stopped for tea and chocolate cake with thick milk-chocolate frosting at a local café called Foncie's. The frosting's good, the cake was dry. I have yet to find a moist cake in Britain; maybe it's not a quality they look for in cake. Dined to a pop radio station, which was playing Spirit in the Sky: "Gonna go up to the spirit in the sky. That's where I'm gonna go when I die. When I die and they lay me to rest, I'm gonna go to the place that's the best."

I walked out from the restaurant, got to the pier, and then walked back to the restaurant--I'd forgotten to pay my bill again! I'm still confused about the variable dining-out protocol here...at pubs I order at the counter and they usually want me to pay ahead, although some will keep a running tab; at some coffee shops like this one, I order at the counter, but they want me to pay when I leave (and they don't bring the bill); at other restaurants, I'm to order from a waitress at the table and then need to ask for the bill, sometimes paying the server, sometimes paying up front. I shouldn't be surprised that I occasionally mess up on this, but I felt embarrassed and exasperated at my oversight. The café owner told me she had seen me leave but didn't want to chase after me and create a scene. She appreciated my honesty in returning, and a white-haired patron at the counter empathized--she had done it a few times, too. We had a good laugh, and I headed back to the pier.

One new bird caught my attention on the pavement--the body-size of a sparrow with striking black-and-white chevron markings, and a long tail that flicks up and down like a Hollywood clapboard. I described it to the proprietor of a nature-based craft store, and he said it was a pied wagtail. Appropriately named.

I sat on a rock wall by the harbor and watched seagulls fly and tree trunks get loaded onto a cargo ship. Once again I began to question my choice of Inveraray as my base on Argyll. Why not Lochgilphead, a sweet-looking little fishing village we passed today heading south? Or even Campeltown, which at least has more port activity and all the trappings of a large town and the chance of a movie theatre?

On the return bus trip to Inverarary, I spotted a wild swan swimming in the loch's waters, fish jumping the surface in three floating round pens, a white crane fishing in the tall grass of a marsh, two people tying off a sailboat as it bobbed in some kind of lock, and a family camping near the shore--their campfire on the sand, their tent on the grass, their brown skin shiny with sweat from the heat or maybe midge spray.

It's all a thread. An invisible skein of spider's silk that we unwind behind us, day to day to day. We connect with others, tie off a knot, launch into a new direction. We leave behind a trace of our energy, a shadow of our having been there, a wisp of us that no one else can recreate.

I chose Inverarary to meet Geoff and Jean and Heather and Ani and Peter. To get stuck and unstuck in a public bathroom. To see all these lovely sights today. To set my face toward Jura for equally mysterious reasons, for equally yet-unknown meetings. To be who I am every moment.

Up to the Watchtower

The usual morning changeover of clientele has occurred at the hostel. Jean and Heather have packed their car and left, and I've moved back into the four-bunk room I originally reserved. Geoff has also gone, which I feel a little sad about; I enjoyed his company and was looking forward to talking with him more over meals at the hostel.

I took off from the hostel myself at 10am to overcast skies and the threat of rain--the first I've had in weeks. My aim is the Watchtower, that little square blob on the hill in the photo.

It's accessible through a forest trail that starts at the castle parking lot (blue route) and passes by several long-ago-imported, but very familiar to me from Whimsor's backyard, towering Western Red Cedars. Next to the largest, there's a signpost on which someone has scribbled "BIG!! TREE..." Well, yeah.

The walk travels past an old lime kiln and processing house (no roof, overgrown inside), the foundation remains of military activity (this land was a munitions base in the war), and a derelict "beehive" house (a round stone building with broken timbers, debris-strewn interior, and a collapsing conical roof that in better days would be reminiscent of Hagrid's home).

Rain pattered through the trees, so I stopped long enough to pull on rain pants and jacket. Good thing, as the water started coming down in earnest afterward.

The trail is mapped on a brochure (which I quickly found out was not waterproof) and pretty well numbered with signposts. But I couldn't find post #16. I continued to follow a trail of bootprints past #15, but after slopping through a quarter mile of slick mud, slapping wet tree branches, waist-high sopping fern, and rivulets of water running down the hillside, I figured I was on the wrong track: I was staying level and spiraling around the hill instead of going up. I was also beginning to lament my decision to leave my trekking poles at the hostel and began sampling a large array of muddy fallen branches to use instead.

I doubled back and was soon huffing and puffing my way up the steepest part of the ascent--a stony track alongside a brook. The rain had lightened up, and I pulled into a clearing to a stupendous view of Loch Fyne and Inveraray...and I wasn't even at the top of the hill yet.



I reached it at 12:15, and what a reward for the effort: a 360 view of Loch Fyne to the east, Inveraray Castle and town to the south, and hills on the Argyll peninsula at the west and north. The rain had almost stopped, and mists were coming in over the land and water.

The 1740s tower itself is far less interesting than the broken down beehive house--blockish with a few simple tiers of stone at the top, like a square wedding cake. I took shelter from the wind inside with a lunch of salami, cheese, tea, apple, shortbread, and Hula Hoops chips. Hula Hoops have become my favorite crisps for travel--they taste like Pringles, are shaped like finger rings, and don't crush into bitty bits while riding in a daypack.

I hung around the top of the hill for an hour, then took the quick trail down, over the gravel vehicle road at the back of the hill. The trip up would have been so much faster had I taken that road, but far less interesting. The bridge over the river Aray had some interesting old graffiti, some of it looking like it had been carved by someone who knew how to do it. Had tea and hot soup at the Inveraray Castle tea room.

I came back from the hike to meet a new guest at the hostel tonight: Ani, a Tibetan Buddhist nun who told me a lot about Jura, one of the islands that Geoff had talked up. She was on her way to Glasgow to pick up her granddaughter, who has just graduated from University outside London and is joining Ani for a visit on Jura.

I liked Ani immediately, and by the time we spent an hour together, I was convinced that I needed to change my plans and spend several days on Jura. It's a remote place in the Scottish Hebrides. Ani describes it as an island with only 200 residents, where the red deer outnumber the people thirty to one, and the phone directory is one A4 page printed on both sides.

I broke out my local maps and brochures, we spread them out, and she described how I'm to get there--an hour bus from Inveraray, a two-hour ferry to Islay (EYE la), and a five-minute ferry to Jura, where a bus can meet the boat to take me to Craighouse, the only village on the island. ("Gwen The Bus Driver will tell you all the island stories on the way to Craighouse.")

I went to bed that night excited over my decision. This side trip to Jura is another one of those "I'm not sure why I'm doing this but I'm supposed to" excursions. The trick will be to reschedule the week I'm to spend WWOOFing in Torlundy for one week later, to arrange all the appropriate bus and ferry tickets to and from, and to find affordable lodging on the island for five nights in a row.

And here I'd had discarded a visit to an island because I thought it would be too much trouble to arrange.

The Road to Inveraray

On the noon bus from Glasgow to Inveraray, I had lots of time to think, scribble, play solitaire, nap. I reached my destination way before the hostel office opened, so I left my bag in an alcove off the dining room and toured the TIC for information about the area.

The way I look at it, Inveraray qualifies as either a small town or a large village. It comprises two main streets off the busy, Argyll Scenic Coastal Drive, a country road that hugs the town in a curve on its way down the east coast of Argyll. It's at the mouth (inver) of the river Aray, which feeds down from the hills at the west. I spot several restaurants and crafts and souvenir shops, two large hotels and numerous B&Bs. Residences are behind the town, and there are also a waterfront park, a golf course, a woolen-mill outlet store that draws in tour coaches every few hours for shopping.

Oh, and there's the castle, of course, home of the famous Campbells, the primary clan of Argyll and the forebears of a Thompson line. (Thompsons can apparently spring from Scottish, English, or even Irish ancestry; I've been told my lineage is Scottish or English. I had expected some sort of instant "at home" feeling here in Argyll, but it's not here, not like what I was sensing closer to Dumfries, which I don't think was Campbell territory. Perhaps the heritage is stronger from the English side, after all.)

The Inveraray hostel is lightly booked tonight; I'm here for five nights in a room with four bunks, but only two roommates, who have yet to show up. I usually select a bottom bunk nearest a window. Preparing a stir-fry dinner at the onsite kitchen, I met Geoff from Belfast, who now lives in Edinburgh, and who has just finished cooking an eggs, sausage, and bacon dinner. He's a big man, tall, dark-haired, thick-bodied, with a big booming laugh that reminds me of Tom back in Oly. He is a freelance bird counter, naturalist, and just got another PhD that he's going to Glasgow to collect in a week.

He tells me he's near the end of a three-month bird counting job in which he goes to saltwater lochs to count black-throated divers and red-throated divers (loons). His client is checking the changes in population since the last census, about ten years ago.

He talked a lot about the Hebrides islands nearby and especially recommended going to Jura or Arran. I'm doubtful of this idea, though, because of the distance and the need for buses and ferries and coordinating their schedules. I've already booked a WWOOFing week in Torlundy immediately after my stay here, and doubling back geographically afterward would take more time than I'd like before going south for the beginning of the coast to coast walk. An island visit will have to wait until another trip.

At his invitation, we had a drink at pub--him a beer, me a fruity J2O, sharing a small bench and table. The physical nearness of another person felt good, especially since it wasn't impaired by a lot of flirtation or nervous attraction or forced, polite conversation. We just talked about our lives and plans and enjoyed each other's company.

We walked back to the hostel and had a late night talk with Jean and Heather, two middle-aged nurses who've left their husbands at home so they can travel other parts of Britain. They remind me of Janet and Trisha from Bridestowe--rambunctious and funny and down-to-earth.

The Jean, Heather, and I were slated to stay in the same room, but the single room across the hall ended up being empty for the night. We all joked about snoring and middle-of-the-night pee breaks (with them using a carton in the room--they're nurses, after all) and we laughingly decided it would be best if I could move into the empty room for the night. Fortunately, the hosteler agreed, "but only for one night because I've got more coming in tomorrow."

So I tossed all my stuff into the pack and shuffled it across the hall. The hall here is dank. A faint odor of mildew comes from the showers and bathroom, which have poor ventilation or small windows with no chance of a cross breeze. Everything is cleaned daily, so nothing to give me the willies from a germ standpoint, but the moistness is an unpleasant reminder of dorm living every time I enter the hall.

The toilet seat in one of the stalls can also be a surprise if I forget about it. Improperly held on by two clips that face the same direction (instead of opposing each other), it skids over the porcelain when I sit down and once nearly dumped me to the ground with my pants down. I try to avoid that stall now.

Last summer I went to the Scottish Highland Games in Enumclaw, an hour or two from where I live in Olympia. This annual festival brings together people of Scottish persuasion and Scottish interest. Bagpipe-band competitions (blood-enthralling things to me, blood-curdling to others), market and food stalls, Scottish dancing and fiddling, and "heavy" athletic competitions like tossing the caber (think sending a telephone pole end over end while wearing a kilt), throwing the open stone (think shot put while wearing a kilt), and flinging weights overhead (think granny shot with a basketball, only you send a 56-pound weight over a bar above you and hope it doesn't land on your head--and, yes, while wearing a kilt). Curvy women everywhere in tartan, burly men everywhere in tartan. And of course clan booths galore.

I had stopped at the Campbell booth to look up the Thompson line and met a trueblood Campbell who lives in Arlington, WA. He showed me the map of Argyll and a small guidebook from Inveraray Castle. He lamented that the guidebook was over ten years old, and I promised to send him a current one if I ever got to the castle. I decided then and there to go as part of this holiday.

That task, purchasing an updated version of the guide, was what I did today in the Inveraray Castle gift shop. The half-size guidebook of the past, with its faded photos and outdated kitchy copy, has become a grown-up glossy booklet with up-to-date family tree and photos of its many rooms and regalia. I looked it over while taking tea and cake at the onsite tea room, and decided that I didn't need to visit the house itself. The photos were enough to show me that it would be a similar experience to the tour through Drumlanrig, which is still fresh in my memory. I can quickly get "museumed-out" while traveling, and seeing more than one estate every fortnight is pushing my definition of travel entertainment.

Instead I plan to take in one of the castle's outdoor offerings: a walk up to the Watchtower, a fake-ruin folly at the top of the hill near the castle.

The Watchtower is one of the few "things to do" in Inveraray aside from the shopping, golfing, and a local adventure park that offers horseback riding. A long-term tourist destination spot this place is not. Which is precisely why I selected it.

Even the hostel receptionist asked when I made the reservation for five nights, "Why Inveraray? There's nothing to do there."

"That's the point," I said. "I'm looking for place to Be, to do nothing. To sit and see what it feels like."

As I scoped out the town and the castle grounds and sat on the grass looking down the mouth of the River Aray to a pretty little bridge and Loch Fyne beyond, I realized, "Huh. This is it," and wondered at the wisdom of this decision.