Day 6 Wednesday 7th September Stornoway
The weather forecast was for wet weather on and off all day. I did manage to catch the second tender off the ship as it was back filled with passengers not going on trips. After landing at Stornoway I chatted to some of the volunteers to ask where the nearest off licence was in the town. On our last visit we had been treated to a drop or two at one of the nearby hotels and I wanted to buy a bottle to take back home.
It was then I discovered that I had left my wallet in the cabin and so I had to catch an empty tender back to ship. I did manage to grab a picture as we passed the lighthouse and one of Oriana at anchor way outside the bay.
After a quick dash to the cabin, I rejoined the queue in the restaurant. Once back on land I went to the off licence and confirmed that the only place to buy the gin was at the distillery.
I walked up to Bayhead and outside the Centre there the sub-station walls were still decorated with murals. This time I was able to capture them without worrying too much about parked cars.
I tried the bar in the town centre but decided that beer from the Scottish mainland was not for me and I instead went to the culture centre (An Lanntair) to have a drink and to use the free wi-fi to send a postcard.
I walked to the Cromwell Street Quay to have a look at the boats docked along there.
I was able to quickly catch a tender back to Oriana and went for a lunch of Malay vegetable curry with bombay aloo and poppadoms.
Later in the afternoon in Taverners while not being able to answer the questions in the quiz(!) I enjoyed a couple of Yorkshire beers.
This is the short stretch of corridor before I could get out onto deck 9 at the stern – very handy.
Out on deck I watched the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry, Loch Seaforth, leaving Stornoway.
As we left Stornoway the weather was extremely misty.
It was another formal night and after the cocktail party in the Crows Nest, we had the gala dinner with beef wellington and all the P&O works – excellent!
Harris Gin
Our dinner companion indeed had been to the Harris distillery and had bought us a bottle of the gin there.
Harris Gin is infused with sugar kelp and has a unique taste for a gin – a must to try if like me you love gin.
After dinner we went to the main theatre to see Ukebox. These were five guys playing various ukuleles and covering ta whole spectrum of popular music. There were excellent and I picked up a copy of one of their CDs.
In Stornoway the last post left the ship at 14:30 and it was again £1 for a postcard.