Away from Skye

Day 5 of the outing to the Inner Hebrides was to leave from Skye and come back to St.Andrews. We had flip flopped on the idea of staying an extra day. I love the peace and quiet of the Highlands which you do not get in St. Andrews.

Headed out of Dunvegan about 9ish and drove to Sconser where The Isle of Skye Golf Course is. We asked the pro shop if we could play as visitors, just 9 holes. It was a fun little course. The members play the go around twice with a couple of tee boxes placed a little differently on the In Holes.
cost to play was 14 bp each and 2 bp for the pull cart for Dick.

I carried

Me with a chip shot on #7 as the ferry was just coming into port

Leaving Skye, Dick again went ga ga with the Skye Bridge. (I know he secretly wanted to be a .bridge builder instead of a PhD in Aeronautics.)

lunch looking at the bridge. He also took two more pictures driving on the bridge, but I thought I would spare you.

Driving home again through the Great Glen with it's stunning beauty


Driving back after golf and such a long drive was getting to me. We stopped along the wayside for coffee to go along with candy bars.

Dick told me to take this short cut across on a wee road A889 to Dalwhinnie which would get us to A9 and on to Perth. About half way over on this pass, I took a corner a little fast and the left front wheel went off the pavement...which is normally okay. But there was a big hole (muddy ditch) and as the tire went into the hole, the pavement cut into the tire on the inside. Of course, we did not know this at the time. I found a parking place almost immediately (a blessing). and then we began the search for a spare tire. Dick got out the manual to read and it said there was no spare and to use the inflation devices. We searched again. Flagged down a motorist and asked them to advise some in Dalwhinnie. I told Dick if we didn't get help by 4:30pm I was driving on the tire rim and Hertz could just deal with the damage for not giving us a spare.

Thanks be to God, a policeman drove by. I flagged him down and he was a Saint!! He worked with us on the car for 1 hour. We finally located a can of gas & goop for the tire and the plug-in inflation generator which was under the flooring and a floor board in the middle section of the car. The Officer tried to inflate it using both devices. Then he had me pull forward a little and he was able to feel the gunk from the inside of the tire coming out. So he called for a tow truck for us. He also had his office try for 30 minutes to try to get hold of Hertz in Edinburgh for assistance. NEVER could we get through to them. McCormacks picked us up at the top of the pass and towed us back to Kingussie. On the back of a xeroxed envelope which contained the Hertz agreement was an emergency Hertz number but it was missing the last digit. (The idiots). Finally I suggested to Maggie, let's just try the phone number adding the last number 1, then 2, then 3, and then 4. BINGO we got through to Hertz Emergency. Maggie had her son drive us to town so we could get something for a light meal. Unfortunately every thing was closed or not serving until 8pm. So we had a lager and crisps (potato chips). Maggie called and Hertz had AA tow us instead of McCormacks (who would have hauled us all the way to St. Andrews). Instead we got this chap from Inverness who could only tow us to Pitlochery. Since it is holiday time, he knew we couldn't get a room in town, so he called to arrange for the next tow. This tow truck could only go as far as Blair Atholl. Then the next tow got us to Perth. The next tow took us from Perth to St. Andrews and at about 12:30 a.m. he unloaded the car and parked it on the sidewalk.

Quite an unsettling day, quite a long day...but safely home thanks to this kind officer for all his help and the tow trucks.
The trip to the Isles was wonderful and I will remember that and not so much this bad luck with the car.