2003 May - Scotland

I came back to Scotland in May 2003.

That was a  very short visit.

The idea about this trip occurred to me in Vienna - Austria in January 2003. I found there a good English guidebook.

Then I decided to have a funny hitchhiking trip to Scotland on a long Polish weekend in May 2003 - 9 days, because I had 2 or 3 days off at work.

I sent information to my friends, that if someone had time to join me, will be more than welcome. My English was very poor, so I suspect that maybe someone with good English will have time and would go with me.

I have had feedback only from my friend Karolina but she didn't speak English. That's life - we decided to go to Scotland.

FIRST DAY

Our trip was very good, we decided to travel by local train from Gdansk to a small town Wejherowo about 40km on the west of Gdansk, then we walked about 1 km to the suburbs and there, at the bus stop, we started hitchhiking.

The weather was good and we stayed, talking and hitchhiking, we stopped a man from Germany who was coming back from Wejherowo to Munich - for us it was excellent and when we crossed the Polish border he drove really fast. He was in business, travelling to Poland and now was going back home. He dropped us at the service station on Highway 10 around Berlin - Michendorf Nord near the crossover to highway 9. We stayed there about 10 min. and an old man from Wesel asked where we wanted to go. That was amazing - one day from Gdansk to the Holland border. Of course he gave us a lift to his town which is near the Holland border and we were there about 8 pm so he decided to accomondate us in his house and the next morning he dropped us in Holland.

SECOND DAY

When we woke up, we ate something with this nice old man and he dropped us at Venlo, where we started hitchhiking. But everybody who stopped, was going somewhere near like 10km, so we moved really slowly, we changed many cars so now I don't remember where were our stops, but in Holland everything was so slow, and everybody travelled to Eindhoven. There was no chance to get somewhere else than Eindhovem, so we decided to go there. We spent many hours and saw many small towns and in the evening we arrived to some services near Gent and went to sleep in a tent.

THIRD DAY

Like everyday we woke up ealier and started hitchhiking, that was another long day, from Gent we caught some car to Lille, then we stayed a long time and moved so slowly,  finally  we caught a truck to Calais and we went on Highway A 26. About 10pm we left the truck near Rue de Verdun street and walked to the Ferry Terminal.

When we were there the last ferry just arrived from Great Britain and we met few Polish tourists who were shifted by Immigration Officer.

In 2003 Polish people who travelled to England needed to fill special cards, and Immigration Officers could prohibit you entry to England. And he didn't need some real true reason eg. he decided that your clothes are too poor so you are there to go to work, so he could prohibit you entry to Great Britan. That was because many persons travel to England like tourists but stay there and work, and till 2004 we weren't in the EU so for us travelling was more complicated.

Karolina asked me what we were going to do if they prohibited our entrance to England, and I decided that we should go to Spain or somewhere else. We slept in the Ferry Terminal and the next day bought special 3 day return tickets.

FOURTH DAY

We took the first ferry to Dover it was about 4.30 am so we tried to sleep on the ferry of course. We filled the application, we arrived and stayed in the NO EU queue. I only remember that when the immigrant officer asked me how we get to Calais I was really perplexed (previously he asked about what does my family do, what I do in Poland, about how much cash I have) And I answered that "auto stop" in Polish means hitchhikig but I forgot the English word, he understood that I left my car in Calais. Then he asked me why  I left my car in Calais, so I told him - because I was afraid to drive on different side and we wanted to travel by bus or train. I had a credit card, so he let us go. We were so happy, there were about 6 people which they turned back from the border.

Here our trip was started in the United Kingdom, walking in Dover eating some sandwiches and outside the town we started hitchhiking. Quite soon we stopped some Truck from Bulgaria and he took us to London, when he left us,he gave us a present; a bottle of wine - that was really nice but Karolina drank the whole bottle because I am abstinent. That was the first time when we left the car in a motorway exit and walked along the motorway. Suddenly the police stopped us and told us to get out of the motorway, but they didn't drop us to a near motorway exit, it was horrible and not nice. When we got to a small town somewhere near London we tried hitchhiking again. There were some good men which firstly dropped us about 10km near the motorway entrance and about 20 min later he came back - told us that this is not a good place and he informed his company that he will be some minutes late and dropped us to some services.

We met many interesting and strange people but it was such a fast trip to the Scottish border and the same day about 2 p.m we walked around Edinburgh.  http://www.edinburgh.org/ 

We visited a castle, High street and a Child Museum, Market street. We didn't spend there long time because our mission was to climb on Ben Nevis. Our walk was finished near Hillhouse road A90 where we caught a car to Stirling. http://www.instirling.com/ This city looks like small Edinburgh, and was very nice. Very nice old streets and the castle built on the volcanic hill, near the city there is the Wallace Monument http://www.nationalwallacemonument.com/

On the hill, Wallace started his victory battle on the Stirling Bridge in 1297.

And again we walked somewhere out of the city and started our trip, on road A84, when we passed Callander in a small villege called Kilmahog we met 'Hamish' - Highland Cow. It was a very nice cow.

This time we still changed the cars and still moved. Near the Crianlarich A82, an old Scottish man stopped for us and with a strong Scottish accent told us a story about the village murder in Glen Cow. That was the massacre of the Macdonalds by the Campbells in 1692.

http://www.rampantscotland.com/features/glencoe.htm

http://hubpages.com/hub/Massacre-of-Glencoe

And he dropped us to our last stops Inchre where some tourists took us to Ben Nevis camping. http://www.glen-nevis.co.uk/

It was so late and we pitched the tent and went to  sleep.

FIFTH DAY

We woke up in the morning and found some information, that we needed to report to the office to pay for our stay. What I could say, that this was a very nice camping, if somebody was noisy in the night, the night watchman asked for quiet. This camping had showers, laundry, a small shop with goods and tourist things and big space for tents.We paid our tent and ate something, bought a good map and started climbing to Ben Nevis 1344 meters high.

For us it was about 4 hour return trip, the weather was lovely, and we crossed many small streams, and at about 600 m we had a small rest near lake Meall: it's a lovely place.

http://www.therucksack.net/downloads/bennevis.pdf

At 1000 meters under the sea level on our way there was snow and the wind began to blow. Clouds hid everything it wasn't nice weather here. Sometimes when the clouds were moving we could see a beautiful landscape.

On the top we were so lucky because we had about 6 minutes when the sky was clear and we could see all around us. On the top there was snow and for a while we tried to take refuge in the ruins of Shelter Observatory.

We went back the same way and the same day we decided to go back to catch the ferry.

LAST DAYS

Probably that is the end of our trip. The way back was normal, without any adventures. I remember that we were on time on the ferry, but it was close to missing it. Then we slept on the beach near Calais Ferry Terminal and woke up with a wonderful sunrise. Quite fast we caught our first car and it was a man from Ossnabruck so we had a long way.

Near the Polish border we asked a lorry truck driver to take us to Poland and one dropped us to Szczecin - we were there when the train to Gdansk had just left, so we slept near the motorway and on the last day we caugh a car to Wejherowo.

Where we started our trip - there we finished.