IKWIG 60th Anniversary
28 - 31 October 2005
By: Steve Crook
Mon 31st October 2005
And so our last day finally dawned. Flo & Mike had intended to leave on the Sunday but Mike forgot his laptop and they had to come back for it which meant they missed the Sunday ferry. So they stayed another night and left early on Monday. The rest of us (down to about 10 of us by now) got our stuff together, paid our bills and began to say our good-byes.
We'd arranged for Jimmy and his mini-bus to take us to the ferry at Craignure and he arrived at 10 o'clock. We mounted up and bade a fond farewell to the Western Isles. Many thanks to all there for helping to make it a great weekend.
On board the ferry and off we set, another windy and slightly choppy crossing. Arriving at Oban there was time for a quick look around and then we caught the shuttle train back to Glasgow Queen Street. There, with many hugs and a few tears in the eye, we said our final good-byes and went out separate ways.
I was heading back to London, as were Catriona and Colin from Tasmania. But first we wanted to find an internet cafe so that I could download the photos from my camera and email a few of the best ones to Nicolas who was writing an article on our weekend for the Oban Times. That took a while but we managed it OK.
When we got to Glasgow Central we saw there was a train listed heading for London, King's Cross. It was going via Edinburgh but I've found that's often the easiest or fastest way to get back from Glasgow for some reason.
But then it was suddenly cancelled with no announcements or alternatives offered. Asking at the desk they said that if we went back to Queen Street, we could get the shuttle to Edinburgh and pick up the LOndon train from there. So we scurried back to Queen Street. We caught the shuttle but that was running a bit slow and we thought we might miss the London connection. But some good news from the railways for once - they were holding the London train until the shuttle got in.
Sure enough, at Edinburgh they were still holding the London train and they rushed us onto it. It was quite crowded and we had to stand (or sit on our luggage) until about York. But we were getting there.
Colin and Catriona had been calling various friends as we headed south, but they couldn't find any of them in so I said I'd put them up at my place for the night. But to get there we still needed to get that tune across London - and sure enough we pulled into King's Cross just a minute or two after the last tube train left!
But there's always a plan 'B'. So we hailed a cab. Luckily this nice cab driver didn't mind going all the way to Morden. I've had to do it with two cab rides before now. Understandable really, they don't want to get too far outside their main working area when they aren't sure of a fare for the return trip. But this nice cabbie took us all the way home where we had a nice cup of tea and then collapsed into bed. It had been a long day.
On the Tuesday morning we were up bright and early (well, fairly early and fairly bright) and after a light breakfast I took them back to the tube station. The end of an amazing long weekend.
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