This week I’ve been staying in East Kilbride, guinea pig sitting, so I treated myself to a zonecard to make the rigmarole of travelling between Glasgow and EK less annoying. But the annoyingess of travel is very much in the eye of the traveller.
For example, yesterday I went three stops on a train, changed platforms, and then travelled straight back the way I had come, for no reason except that I had been invited to go on a train outing with a happy six-year-old and his mother. Trains are very exciting if you have never been on one before (or at least, not since you were a baby and you can’t remember it).
And I can hardly moan too much about train travel when I love Interrailing and happily travel the length of Europe on trains. In fact, after flying Ryanair to Albania a few weeks ago (my first flight since 2019 – I’d forgotten how bad they can be) I could not help myself from grumbling “I wish I was on Eurostar instead!”
My sister Lynne also likes trains (steam ones mainly) but she is obsessed with ferries, which is one of the reasons we headed over en famille to the Isle of Cumbrae during her recent visit.
Some ferries. Lynne could tell you which ones.
But whether you like ferries or not (while not a major enthusiast, I am in favour), Cumbrae and its one centre of habitation, Millport, is fun to visit anyway. We used to holiday here as children, so now we take the next generation to do exactly the things we did – climb on the Crocodile Rock, buy sweets from the sweetie shop, swing dangerously high on the swingboats, play crazy golf badly.
I used to think that Millport never changed, but while the pace of change is slower over there, they do now have vegan options at cafes, and a gin shop! (I was bodily dragged away by my nephlets – spoilsports!)
We had to queue for over an hour to get the ferry back, but somehow that was less annoying than my journey back from Glasgow today. (One had boiled sweets and games, the other had a woman who had terrible taste and, she apparently thought, a broadcasting licence.)
I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of Millport activities, and perhaps they will tempt you to make the not especially long and not at all arduous journey to the Firth of Clyde sometime.
K C Murdarasi 
Well as you asked, Loch Shira in the background with one ramp working, Loch Riddon in the foreground. I’m sure I reiteration to you several times on the day.