Cromarty-Nigg Ferry

The Scotsman

Cromarty-Nigg ferry  Scotland's only east coast ferry has space for just two cars and is one of the few which drivers have to reverse off. The summer-only service is a popular tourist link between the Black Isle and the Easter Ross peninsula.

Transcript

00:00Welcome to Cromerty and Scotland's only east coast ferry. I'm Alistair Dalton, the Scotsman's

00:24Transport Correspondent. Take a trip with me from Cromerty on the far tip of the Black

00:30Isle across to Nig. I'm Dougie Robertson and I operate Highland Ferries, a couple of small

00:41passenger ferries and a car ferry for half of the Highland Council. We operate the Cromerty

00:47to Nig ferry, a summer ferry on the Black Isle and another small ferry in Fort William that

00:55operates all year round. We're really popular in the summer months with a lot of tourists and

01:01locals travelling to work, to and from work. Everything from the yard across at Nig there,

01:08to holidaymakers doing the North Coast 500 or just travelling Scotland and the Highlands. A

01:15lot of people are using it as a commute on the way to travel further up to Shetland and things

01:22like that as well. We get quite a lot of them heading to connect to other ferries. And if you're

01:27driving a vehicle, the ferry I think is a little bit different from some other ferries? It can be

01:32a wee bit yeah, well the fact that you're driving on and then you have to reverse off and you just

01:38get directed on by the staff on the deck will kind of keep you right. Does everyone manage to

01:46reverse off okay? Well we haven't had any accidents. I mean a lot of people panic but I mean they're

01:51not. You listen to instructions, it's no different from just reversing up your driveway. So have you

01:58had some unusual cargo and vehicles? Oh yeah, we get all sorts, everything from motorbikes to

02:05converted military vehicles and there's an older lady that comes up every year and travels the

02:13Highlands. We've had her coming across with her horse and she's got her dogs, they keep, they're

02:20in the panniers on the horse as well. So yeah we get all sorts really, a good mix of folk. For most

02:30people it's more of a novelty I think coming across the water. You're cutting off, if you were

02:34travelling from Cromerty round to Nigg, you're a good 45 minute travel, you know, while you're only

02:40seven or eight minutes across on the boat. So you're definitely a time-saving, time-saving there.

02:48And for a lot of folk, especially on the north side, the Nigg contain, they quite like just to

02:53come down, park up and come across as a foot passenger, just have a day out, you know, just

02:59have lunch and drinks or whatever, you know, in Cromerty. So for a wee place that's got a lot going

03:05for it in the summertime, it can be a busy place, you know. Can you operate the route year-round?

03:10We're very weather dependent, especially even come the end of September, the weather can turn and you

03:21do get quite a large easterly swell coming in that can affect us. The slipways, we don't have

03:27much protection, you know, for the, we're open to the elements as well. So it would definitely be

03:34difficult in this craft, you know, but that's not to say a bigger boat wouldn't be able to do it a bit

03:41longer. So we'll see what happens there. Just having space for two vehicles, can that be a problem?

03:49Well, we used to run a timetable every half hour and then just shuttle when we were busy, but we found we were getting quite busy,

03:58especially July and August. So it was easier just to shuttle. So we used to do like 42 crossings in the timetable,

04:08but now we do kind of over 50 as we shuttle over and back. So it's every 20 minutes now really, rather than every 30.

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