Home of Joe's Ancestors
Trip Start
Aug 20, 2008
1
8
15
Trip End
Sep 15, 2008
Scrabster,
United Kingdom
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
From Oslo, we steamed south along the east coast of Norway and then out across the North Sea towards the northern tip of Scotland. The North Sea is famously treacherous, being known for seas and winds strong enough to have blown over the massive oil platforms erected thoughout. We passed dozens of these oilrigs towering high over the water and visible for miles. They seemed to dot the seascape wherever the sea floor is shallow enough to support them. After it got dark, we could see the flares of gas being burned off, spots of light in the nighttime sea. And fortunately for us, the sea crossing was quite smooth.
We docked in Scrabster, Scotland the next morning. Scrabster is a small enclave that consists of not much more than a ferry dock and a few houses. It is located about two miles from Thurston which is a thriving little town, the residents of which were pleased to have our cruise ship come calling. They provided a welcome pamphlet and a shuttle bus into town. Once in town, it seemed that anyone we encountered asked with interest if we were from the ship, where were we going, etc. And when the ship left at the end of day, the regional Junior Bagpipe Band and Scottish dancers came out to the pier to give us a farewell show. The young dancers were in plaid costumes and the boys in the band in kilts. The show was quite good and although the kids started out stone faced and serious, after several rounds of thunderous applause from the large audience ranged along the decks of the ship,
there began to be smiles! As we left, despite the fact that a cold wind was blowing and a misty rain had
started, they all walked out to the end of the dock to wave us off, the captain of the ship giving a series of earsplitting blasts of our horn in reply.
While in Scotland, Joe and I had been determined to have a walk along the moors so we got off the ship in our hiking boots and instead of boarding the shuttle bus into town, we followed a path leading away from the village and out towards a headland overlooking the entrance to the bay. The path led through fenced fields where there were sheep grazing. Where the path encountered a fence, there were stiles in place to cross over the fences.
(Stiles are small wooden structures, step-like, that allow you to step up and over a fence.) The fields we tramped across had some heather but were mainly covered with grasses and a profusion of wildflowers. I counted close to a dozen different varieties, some familiar (daisies, dandelions, buttercups) others not.
The faint path, once it reached the headland, turned to follow the coastline, winding along the edge of the cliffs. We could hear but not see waves crashing on the rocks below. (Until Joe set me straight, I mistakenly ascribed the booming to a cannon somewhere; it was so powerful a sound.) One dared not go close to the edge of the cliff to look over at the waves below because the matted grass actually grew out over the edge of the rock and where terra firma ended was not visible. The cliffs gained in height until we were several hundred feet above the sea. We could gaze far across the water towards the craggy coastline of other headlands.
We walked along single file for about an hour and a half and met no one. At one point when the path moved back from the cliffs and the sea was no longer audible there was suddenly the consciousness of a total silence - something we never experience in our "normal" life. After several miles, the bluffs began to lose height, descending towards an area of sea-level farms. Here we turned back. On the return hike, we encountered seagulls and other birds that were nesting below us on small ledges in the rocky cliffs. They had taken to the air and were swooping in long arcs riding the updrafts. Some swooped near us as if curious about our presence.
When we got back to the areas of the sheep pastures, the sheep had moved down towards the path and just as we got to them one came tumbling over the wall. The pastures had double fencing where the traditional stonewalls were in place and had been combined with a modern (and higher) wire fence. The curious sheep had used the crumbling stone to provide footing to get up and over the wire fence. Landing with a thud, he looked slightly confused but soon started chomping away on the grass outside the fence, presumably pleased with this new situation.
Meanwhile Joe, whose attention had been caught by some loud bleating, discovered that another sheep had wedged his head through a very small square opening in the wire fence in an attempt to get to that proverbial
grass on the other side of the fence. Having perhaps learned that the grass on the other side isn't any better, he now realized that he was stuck and was thrashing around trying to get his head back out of the opening, bleating
piteously. A bleating sheep can certainly pull on the heart strings, but there really was nothing we could do. So off we went to try to find the farmer.
We could see the farmhouse on a distant ridge but there was no way to cross the fences that separated us. So we proceeded back down the path to a nearby lighthouse. We knocked on the door but no one was home. Next we returned to the dock and approached the port security guard, a young lad who, it quickly became apparent, had no interest in saving the lost sheep and would not even give the local constable a call. Finally we found another port security guard who was not from the area but pointed out one of the dock hands who he said lived locally. He, it turned out, knew the farmer and went off immediately to give him a call. We felt much better. Poor little sheep!
