Good Morning campers! I’ve rather lost track of what day it is but I do know that I missed out posting yesterday so apologies that you had to eat your porridge with nothing to read! The reason is that we were on the move again yesterday and had to be out of Sleepy Bear by 10 so no time for blogging.
Anyway, more of where we are now, later. By the way, talking of things I said I’d get back to you on, I can report that there is a fishing fleet in Oban. When we’ve been back near the piers at different times of day, there have been about 6- 10 trawlers moored up. Still not very big is it, shame.
So, back to a couple of days ago. We woke up to a gorgeous, sunny, slightly cold Autumnal day. Beautiful. After a leisurely breakfast we were on the road for the various points of interest today. Our first stop was The Falls of Lora at Connel Bridge. The bridge itself is pretty impressive and we stopped to start with at the viewpoint. The falls are a natural phenomenon caused by the tidal differences between Loch Etive where the water is trying to flow into the sea at the Firth of Lorn through a very shallow narrows at this point. It causes there to be the appearance of a waterfall of 1.2m. What it actually looks like is a sudden white area of rapids with waves and frothy bits. Right next to me there was a big whirlpool effect which would suddenly start gurgling as if someone had switched it on. There were people canoeing in it and someone even gave a paddle board a go but he didn’t last long. We then drove to the other side of the bridge and had a look at the views from the bridge itself. Well worth doing , if a little scary. We spotted an island with many more seals on it than we’d seen on our wildlife tour!
Next we drove we onto Port Appin, where we were meeting Dave and Jayne for lunch. We arrived at about midday just at low tide and it was absolutely quiet, calm and so peaceful. The views got better and better as the sun got stronger. We took a little wander along the lane back to the arts and gift shop. Jane was very tempted by the cuddly bunny for a friends baby…but we’d forgotten our purses.
Now it was time for lunch and as we walked back Dave and Jayne passed us in their car. We were having lunch at The Pierhouse Restaurant. It’s a fabulous place with terrific views across the loch to Lismore Island and beyond. It was lovely inside too but today the menu seemed a bit more limited than we’d seen online and very much seafood based. We asked for the vegetarian menu to look at further options but the very nice waiter explained that they currently had no electricity to their kitchen and so were having to BBQ everything! Having looked at those options I then settled on a burger! Jane and Dave went all out seafood, especially Dave who was very happy with his seafood platter.
We enjoyed a noisy lunch in this popular spot catching up with Dave and Jayne and all their news of housebuilding down at Campbeltown. For those of you that don’t know, they recently left Lincolnshire for this part of the world and are having their own ’Grandish Design’ built right on the seashore. It’s coming along really well now but they still doubt that they’ll be in for Christmas. They both look really well and tanned and clearly retired life up here is treating them well.
After lunch we exchanged gifts. Dave and Jayne gave us our Christmas presents for the family and I gave them a little painting I’d done of a boat on the loch, from a photo Jayne had taken. We then all went for a short walk across Jubilee Bridge which is a walkaway across the salt marsh here. It has views of Castle Stalker which looked mighty fine today. There were at least 3 professional photographers waiting to take its picture from the beach. Enid gave us her potted history of the castle (it was Castle Aaaaargh in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Meanwhile, Dave tried out his new drone from the walkway. He did a few fly pasts over towards the castle and as it was so still he seemed to have a very good control of it. I look forward to seeing the video and hope I don’t look too gormless standing there with my mouth open staring at it! Hm, ideas for Xmas presents #2
Trying to keep the group together as we walked along this cycleway was like herding cats as they all stopped to take in different views. Dave and Jayne missed the final views of the castle as they sat in the little slate shelter covered in poetry by the local school kids. We headed back and by now the tide had come in.
We said our farewells to D&J and then headed back and Joyce and I made the most of the hot tub in the pouring rain. How lucky were we that it held off all day?
Where shall we go to next? 