Stornoway

The camp site had facilities which were fine and proved to be friendly enough. In fact Stornoway turned out to be OK. But on that first evening both seemed tawdry. There had been an international street market that week – it had just finished. Market traders, in the camp site’s bunkhouse, were celebrating the end of their stay by drinking copiously and getting fractious. I got the impression they had not thought much of the place and were delighted to have finished that stint. One ‘international’ trader described in very colourful language how much he loathed Stornoway and how keen he was to get home to Stoke on Trent.

For us, with tent up and tea drunk, we had a look at the town, still littered with post-market detritus and also with a noisy fair going on. It did not appeal!

I could certainly enjoy some of the modern sculptures, depicting scenes from local life. They were great. Sadly, we were fenced away from the actual fishing boats. No wandering amongst the ropes and lobster pots was permitted here.

The ferry port was in on the statuary as well – carved in wood.

There was the fair. The rides were going. The noise blared out, but hardly anyone was there.

Across the water was Stornoway Castle. We didn’t ever visit it or walk in the parkland.

A bit of the town, with a stub end of market still going on. Yes it does look quite OK. I think we were a bit dispirited at the time.

But Dobbin cheered us up. He was towards the campsite which was out of town. Dobbin and friends were lovely.

And so to the tent for a noisy night of argumentative market traders. But the next day they were gone and life became much, much better.