Bikes on Iona

It makes me smile how many bikes are leaning around ready for use. Transportation to the island is by ferry or boat. Once you are on the island you get around on foot, unless of course you live here permanently, then you get to have a vehicle. There is one road going north south and one road going east west. They are both one car wide. Everyone walks down the middle of the road and you keep an ear and an eye out for a car so you can step aside. The cars are not stopping for you. To be fair, they are not going very fast either.

Most of the other vehicles on the island are farm related and machinery. We get twice weekly deliveries to the kitchen. The trucks come over on the ferry. In fact, the cable man, the post, construction machinery, etc., it all comes over on the ferry.

There is another way off the island but it’s not preferred; it’s by helicopter. If there is a medical emergency you will be taken off the island by air rescue. Once during the second week I was here there was a guest at the St Columba Hotel who was air lifted off at 2:30AM. It was of note in the kitchen the next morning, because many hadn’t slept after hearing the helicopter. The noise means danger and some lay away concerned. Being new I slept through the noise. Afterall it’s not a foreign sound for me. I hear it all too often at home.