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From….Darkness….to the Harbour Lights….Colin’s Audi
Colin, Hutch and I were awaiting the arrival of Stefan, our German Rannoch herren and well known ‘Muscles from Brussels’. It would be our first meeting since Stef’s good news of his recent unification into marriage and his soon-to-be invasion of Fatherland. I bet he’ll be laying out plenty of towels for that one when it comes! …>thinks…< dammit - there I go one-finger stereotyping again.
Our plan had been to pick up Stef from the airport at 21.30h and drive up to the Raeburn Hut by Dalwhinnie before going up North for some climbing then the Dinner. As luck would have it Stef’s flight was delayed [must’ve been all those German football hooligans] and didn’t arrive ‘til midnight. So we changed plan and had a 06.00h start on Saturday morning…..not that easy when you’ve been up ‘til 2am boozinghoffen und chattingblitzen….
bleep bleep bleep - jeezoman 05.00h alarm…….ROUS! ROUS!
You have to ask……what did we do before mobile phones?….because they were totally indispensible during the last minute kerfuffle and subsequent re-booking of the Dinner Meet to the Harbour Lights Hotel in Ullapool. Much credit goes to JD for sterling work in this respect…..good to have a top legal man in the team at times like this…..must ask JD if he knows one.
We went directly up to the Loch Tollaidh area, lots of easy access crags to choose from, and not too far from Ullapool. Sitting for a while in the car opposite the crag, in driving rain and horizontal wind reminded us once again of why we go to Spain. Thankfully though, the weather cleared and we returned to Jetty Crag overlooking Gruiniard Island. We had to duck-and-dive a bit between showers but got some climbing done here. Colin had his rat to feed, and he and Hutch had a frantic few hours on Batty [HVS 5a], Route 5.5 [HVS 5b] and Right Charlie [E1 5b***]. More details on Rock Talk.
Stefan and I climbed Cannyrememberitsname [Scottish VS]. No details in Rock Talk. We then decided to listen to the Scotland-Germany fitba’ match on the radio accompanied with a beer or two. I can happily report that the threat of German hooliganism proved unfounded, and after a rampant Scotland thrashed the lacklustre Germans 1-1, we both joined in on a chorus of “#Veer on ze march vith Berti’s Armaaaaaaay – Veer on oor vay to Portugaaaaaaaal#.” Hans across der wasser an’ aw’ that by the way.
We drove up to Ullapool and had a quick look round the campsite, but no Rannoch Team to be seen, so we then went to the Harbour Lights Hotel where everyone was starting to arrive. My first thoughts were that this place was great - cheerful, roomy, magic views, with fast and friendly service. There was a young ‘barsteward type person’ who thrust a pint into my hand before I had apparently even asked for one – I like that.
Lots of old faces in the bar……in no particular order - Colin S, Colin G, Jenks, Mort, Hutch……the very seed from which the Rannoch grew…>thinks<… whoever was responsible for that seed has a lot to answer for. There were some new faces too….the two Jons guests of Tim & Brian……and finally a chance to meet the Rannoch messageboard postmistress-in-chief – Sharon aka Shaz/Hydra/Terrible-Terrific Bird/S/NorahS/NS call her what you will, it was good to put a face to the banterette.
Rooms were still available at very reasonable rates so we got sorted. A quick wash-and-brush-up and it was adjourn to the bar and swallydom. As you can imagine the main talking point was the fiasco, shambles, discombobulation, brouhaha that led us here, but what the hell, we were here now and I for one was going to enjoy it. An evening of much lageration ensued. Stef and I had somehow got ourselves into a ‘Bar Tab’ situation, i.e. every drink or round we bought, the ‘barsteward type person’ would say “Room 2 Tab Sir?” and we would say - “Aye OK mateman”……Dangerous. Very dangerous.
The Dinner itself was excellent, particularly the tart at the end. Such good staff are hard to find, I can’t remember better at any previous Dinner. The bar stayed open ‘til late, very late, I can’t remember a better late bar at any previous Dinner. The ‘Barsteward type person’, was doing great business on ‘Room 2 Bar Tab’, he was obviously on commission, I can’t remember a bigger Bar Tab – EVER! Come to think of it I can’t remember much at all.
How the hell I dragged myself up for a fool Scottish breakfast I’ll never know, I was still seriously parasmungousmendous. After a while everybody gathered in the car park to compare hangovers, take some pics and exchange cheerios. JD was still scratching around for a few one-liners and as usual coming up with real bummers. [see
Shaz’Gallery]. ... (image below
courtesy of Shaz)
Colin, JD, Stef, Big Al (author), John, &
Morton
After as long a delay as humanly possible Colin dragged us up to Ardmair for a couple of routes. Once again a bit of shower-ducking, but a pleasant day, albeit with a ‘big thumper’ [ooer missus] of a hangover.
Ach well…..that’s it for another year I guess. Volunteers to organise the next one on the back of a postage stamp to…………
Big Al
June 2003
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