SPRING COLLECTION
On a late April holiday to the Isle of Coll, Johnny Tipler’s 987 Boxster S topped 90,000 miles. The Dark Olive Metallic drop-top feels like it’s only covered a fraction of that distance...
There’s nothing to beat open-top motoring, especially when the sun is out. This is why I love Boxsters. Not only do they have the bestbalanced chassis of all Porsches — ditto Cayman — but you can get the roof down and revel in the sunshine, aromas and a oneness with the environment. This isn’t easily attainable in a coupé.
Our Spring holiday took us to the Inner Hebridean Isle of Coll, a three-hour ferry trip from Oban on Scotland’s west coast. Fortuitously, the trip coincided with a blissful week of blue skies and warm sun. Not hot — there was always a stiff breeze, but that’s what you’d expect out in the Atlantic Ocean.
Ahead of the drive, I got local Bimmer specialist, Jaymic, to carry out an oil change, in the course of which it was noted the car’s MOT had expired!
Needless to say, it sailed through, shod with its nearly new Falken boots. Then, with an ominous backdrop of fuel shortages and panic buying — in Norfolk at any rate — and mindful of last year’s drive to the Isle of Man in a Lotus Evora press car under similarly constrained circumstances, Mrs T and I pressed the Relax button and, with Ferdinand the miniature Dachshund on board, we trundled north.
Boxsters swallow copious amounts of luggage, which was just as well because we’d been asked to take bed linen to our Air B’N’B, as well as grub. As for the journey, exiting Norfolk by the most direct northerly route requires spending two hours on the A17 going via Sleaford and Newark. Make that two-and-a-half; they’re mending the Victorian Cross Keys swingbridge at Sutton Bridge and the three-way traffic lights are out of synch.
A decent run up the A1 with a comfort stop at Leeming Bar saw us make a left at Scotch Corner and cross the heroic A66, pausing to munch sarnies beside the babbling Eden at Appleby, sometime scene of the gypsy horse fair. The brilliant Boxster came into its own over the Scottish border on the largely empty A74 motorway and, in heedless fashion, strode up Beattock Summit (1,016ft above sea level) in excess of the ton.
Destination for the night was our friend, Glenys, at Biggar, Lanarkshire (London’s big, but Biggar’s bigger), straddling the attractive A702 in the Southern Uplands. Our other holiday companion, Frankie, had already arrived
THE BOXSTER WAS ALLOTTED POLE POSITION ON THE FERRY, FACING THE STERN OFF-RAMP
by train from London, and next day we struck out in two cars for picturesque Oban, where we’d catch a ferry. We travelled via Stirling for old time’s sake — I’d been a student there, coincidentally while Mrs T was at St Andrews, though we never knew each other at the time.
ON THE WATERFRONT
Oban has a lively harbourside and seafront, with some great cafés and restaurants, but it would be an early night. The following day’s 7:00am crossing required we doss in a backpacker’s hostel, fortunately with our own rooms. The last such establishment I overnighted in was a mixed dormitory in Mexico City where bedhopping was rife.
Caledonian Macbrayne has a virtual monopoly on ferry sailings to-and-fro across the Hebridean waters, and the firm’s staff are unfailingly polite and cheerful. The Boxster was allotted pole position on the ferry, facing the stern off-ramp. From the decks, as we set sail out of Oban, we were treated to stunning views of the inner isles. You see a lot of Mull and the Ardnamurchan peninsular, then it’s open water for an hour or so, until the ferry moors, stern-first, on-quay at the village of Arinagour.
The Isle of Coll isn’t large, with no distinctive mountains and very little in the way of hostelries. There’s the friendly café, the amenable Coll Hotel, the obliging Post Office (where a lady sells jumpers knitted from the local black sheep wool), the general stores, an adjacent (gin) distillery and, well, that’s about it. All at Arinagour.
What the island does have are miles and miles of deserted sandy beaches, coves and rock pools, and it was no imposition to walk a fresh one every day. Clear blue seas, tantalizing views out to other Inner Hebridean islands of Tiree, Rum and Eigg, with Skye in the distance to the north and the Paps of Jura vaguely visible through the haze to the south.
With random potholes and grass growing out of the middle, surfaces of the island’s winding single-track roads aren’t great. I took it very easy in the Boxster. It probably never saw more than 35mph. At that pace, the 987’s 3.4-litre flat-six is sufficiently torquey to haul from 1,000rpm without straining. Glenys was a little more uninhibited in her Golf. The four of us mostly piled into the Volkswagen to the far ends of the island.
One day, the boys from the local fire brigade were out familiarising themselves with their new M-B fireappliance, testing its pump and hoses at a roadside stream, making the jet of water arc thirty feet into the air. Guess who was driving past at that moment in his open-top sportscar?! Still, it did provide an excuse to wash muddy deposits off the Porsche’s bodywork.
Geology? Loads of granite outcrops, including glacially-deposited “perched erratics”. Enormous sand dunes, and rough pasture grazed by sheep and cattle. The lapwings entertained with their mating antics, too. Abandoned crofts speak of a population diminished from 1,500 to 500 during the last fifty years. Locals use the hotel bar and restaurant, as did we, and we bought crabs and langoustines fresh off the boat from the island’s single fisherman. The sun shone all the time and the Boxster never looked greener!
A relaxing week? Apart from being bossed around by three women and made to walk vast distances every day — three of us nursing COVID, as it turned out — it was great, though the 987 didn’t see as much action as I’d anticipated.
The weather turned on our return voyage to Oban. Next stop was Fort William, forty-five miles north on the A82, mostly driving alongside Loch Linnhe via Ballachulish Bridge to visit our son, Alfie, who these days wields chainsaws on behalf of the Scottish electricity board. We were billeted at Gairlochy in an amazingly well-appointed containersized pod (including hot tub, if you will!), looking down at the locks on the Caledonian Canal and across the valley to the Ben Nevis range. The undulating backroad to Fort William was a singletrack hoot, bereft of most traffic except deer, and the Boxster fairly scudded along when the line of sight was clear through the bends. More next month. ●