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.
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.
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NewsTranscript
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.