Sunday morning here and the weekend crowd is dwindling to
the last remnant hostellers, hesitant to leave in case they miss something yet
at the same time keen to get on a hill on their way home. For those from Aberdeen meeting up with a
distant friend from the south the Friday evening squeals and hugs were repeated
today as each prepared to return to their own.
It's that coming together aspect of hostel living whether from a busy
working home where family members feel sometimes that they are ships passing in
the night or from geographically far flung friends coming together for a
treasured re union that is so typical.
The hostel therefore bears the responsibility of facilitating, as best
it can, these happenings.
I suppose the only times we struggle is where he or she who
booked has not thought to share a hostel's essential information, usually to be
found on their website, with other members of the party. Whether it's the smoking issue or ensuring
consideration for guests in nearby accommodations or indeed anything else in
each hostel's arrangements designed to promote harmony and a good time to be
had by all, he or she who booked, and therefore takes responsibility for the
sharing of essential information, can so easily drop the hostel in it with the
rest of the group.
Thank goodness this unenviable position is a rarity for
hostel keepers and their staff to deal with.
At least it is for us and I hope for others too. As summer is moving to early autumn we can look
back on so many different gatherings and happenings from honeymooners to
veterans' gatherings, small groups stealing out in the dawn with long lensed
cameras to capture the deer and her fawn, feverishly flying swallows racing
against time to rear their young or the pair of crossbills who have taken a
liking to surveying the scene below from one of our nearby pines. Then there have been the hardy ones, Duke of
Edinburgh Gold Award kayakers en route
for the point where our substantial river meets the sea, mountain bikers, Silver
Boot long distance horse riders, zip wire flyers, tubing enthusiasts and
more. The convivial gatherings round the
sitooterie open fire is oh such a good way to bring their day to its close.
I have said before that hostel keepers are quite likely to
have a second occupation. Many are
providing activity courses or experiences.
Others have a second and vital income from a variety of unimaginable
sources. How, for instance, do you fit
running a four en-suite room hostel on a small Orkney island with providing
'patient and friendly learner driver tuition'
Well that's what it says on Richard Seeber's business card and the day
after we met I found him skilfully scooting his bike on to the Kirkwall ferry
for a short teaching spell there before heading
back to Stronsay. The other card he gives me is for the
Stronsay Fish Mart Hostel and Café which he and his wife Evelyn have been running
since April this year.
There are helpful
younger family members also resident on Stronsay, two hours by the ferry out of
Orkney's capital city, Kirkwall. Well it is if you happen to call in at the
pier on Eday on the way. Together this
family team pulls together to make hostel and forty two seat café, a real hub
for the island, population three hundred plus. Evelyn's cakes are legendary and last
Sunday's traditional roast lunch had an eager queue right out of the door. Their all day breakfast also has its devotees.
Richard left Zimbabwe in 1986 and via South Africa arrived
in Scotland, married Evelyn, herself from Stronsay and the rest is
history.
The twice refurbished, Fish
Mart is pristine and in a central position next to the ferry point and opposite
the pub. Good luck to both of them as
they put their mark on this most enviably located of small hostels.
At last I managed a visit to Roy at
The Poor House on the eastern fringes of Tongue in Sutherland. Here Roy and Isobel Slaughter have in the
last five years successfully brought to life a unique building circa 1897
provided by the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, not the same generation as they
who promoted the Clearances, as a refuge
for the destitute of that part of their Sutherland Estates. Records say that four men and four women were
accommodated.
So, Roy and Isabel are
down on numbers. Seriously, they offer a
single six bed room with sturdy wooden bunks, each garnished with a hot water
bottle hanging on a hook. The pine clad
'snug' and pristine bathroom and kitchen make for a cosy stay. I bet the water bottles are used although
currently the hostel closes from 10th October, reopening on 1st April. What else does Roy do? For years he was a professional photographer
specialising in portraits. Now, with a
second wind his landscape photography leaves me green with envy. Why can't I have that judgement, eye and outright
skill? Even if I had his camera, I could
do no better than I do currently. I
reckon to have taken only five decent photographs in my life, already quite
long, so it's a bit late for me to catch up.
Roy's work is everywhere in the hostel adding an informative as well as
an aesthetic touch.
It was Roy who enlightened me about the road route recently
christened as
The North Coast 500. Shame on me for never having heard of this
designated term for it. And yet each of
the sections I know well and have travelled several times. Snaking north west from Inverness the route
covers miles and miles of first gentle then raw landscape particularly in the rocky
far north west. In Caithness,
approaching Thurso and then John O' Groats you are on the edge of the haunting
Flow Country before edging south
hugging the East coast of which author Neil Gunn wrote so passionately
highlighting the rugged lifestyle forced on those who lived there by the
infamous Highland Clearances.
“At the same time, areas of the interior that had not
already been cleared to make way for sheep were now being "improved".
The most notorious clearances took place on the 1.5 million acre estates of the
Countess
of Sutherland and her husband, the Marquess of Stafford (later to become
the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland), from which 15,000 people were cleared
between 1811 and 1821. On one occasion a witness reported seeing 250 crofts on
fire from a single vantage point, and in 1816 the Countess's
factor, Patrick
Sellar, was tried but acquitted on charges of arson and culpable homicide
of the elderly Margaret
MacKay.”
Undiscovered Scotland
The descent to Dingwall and finally the trek across the
Black Isle and on to Inverness completes the circuit.
In all I reckon there to be about eighteen highly
individualistic independent hostels, all members of SIH, along this route which
together with the five SYHA hostels gives great choice. At a time when travellers in these parts are
sometimes having to sleep in their cars as hotels and B&B's are either full
or not there at all, hostellers seem pretty well provided for.
As I wrote in March last year, the folk in Portsoy, renowned
for its Scottish Traditional Boat Festival are well on target for the
completion of the conversion of the old rope works into a quite remarkable
hostel. Warden Ian Tillett, he of downright practical experience, now manages
both the caravan park and the bunkhouse.
Ian is likely to be looking for able help particularly with the
bunkhouse and the package could be good for someone. Good luck Portsoy Community Enterprise
chairman Roger, Paul of the North East Scotland Preservation Trust and your
dedicated community team for the launch this autumn. Such a programme of sea centred courses and
cultural experiences mingled with a welcome to individual travellers and groups
will be a boon for the Banffshire coast.
It's all go in Portsoy for the new Back Green Bunkhouse
Now after a many times interrupted day of writing I can hear
Volunteer Helper Caroline from New Zealand enthusiastically guiding this
evening's arrivals at our own hostel. The
guests are neatly shown everything, ending up in the hostel itself. As is often the case they are from all over
and revisiting old haunts. Welcoming
them myself later I find myself in deep conversation with Luke from Australia
and now in Toronto, Canada. Luke managed
a hostel in Skye for two years and has worked in several others. In a short half hour I detect in him those
special qualities of patience, in depth perspectives and innate understanding
of how to best provide for hostellers and have them leave happy. I have met a good man and you know
what? Luke has made my day.
Hostelkeeper
