Posts Tagged With: Scotland

Today we were supposed to be on our wildlife tour on the Isle of Mull but having looked at the weather forecast yesterday, we made arrangements to swap this until tomorrow. Rain was due all day today but tomorrow sunshine is actually forecast. Luckily, Andrew was up for the swap, it means we will now need to share the minibus with some mystery strangers and of course, there’s a huge chance, that it will still rain despite the forecast!

Anyway back to today. At least it wasn’t raining when we woke up and our plan today was to visit Seil and Easdale. It all brings back very happy memories of our family trip up here in 1976. That was the year of a famous drought down south but we decided to holiday in Scotland where …it rained a lot of the time of course. I was only 13 at the time but I very clearly remember visiting these places as they are really quite unique.

First of all we went to have a sneaky look up the road from our cottage at Loch Nell. Before we came, I’d been looking at the blog of a lady who had been walking the coastline of GB. It’s very good and she’d posted some lovely pics from this loch. The little road ran right alongside the peaceful loch and it was quite a special place but not particularly paintworthy.

After this detour we were back in track and drove alongside Loch Feochan. We stopped at a layby to have a closer look and it was very beautiful. On we drove past Barnacarry, where in 1976 we used to go to the beach. We loved it here despite the fact that it meant swimming with hundreds of jellyfish.

Our next stop was the Clachan Bridge or Bridge over the Atlantic. It really is an impressive structure and a scenic spot. Luckily we seemed to catch the light just right.

We drove onto Seil along a small lane with lots of passing places and it was very pretty along the way. After not too long we arrived in Ellenbeich which is where we parked up ready to go across the Easdale Island. We had a look around here watching the play of light across the sea. It was very atmospheric and constantly changing. We decided to catch the 12-45 ferry across to Easdale, they come every 30 minutes but have a lunch break so this seemed the best idea. We queued up but the weather started to look very ominous. On went the waterproof trousers just in time for a downpour as the tiny ferry sped across the water in 2 minutes flat. We got off and were absolutely soaked and hid under cover of the community hall (closed). Unfortunately, there was no internet access here so Enid was a little short on historic facts. After a while of staring at the stairrods we decided we should brave it and headed for the museum. We really only wanted to keep dry but the nice lady wanted £4 each for us to have a look around. We decided to give it a miss which was a bit embarrassing but never mind. I’m sure I’d have been able to give you an excellent, detailed history of the island had we visited. All I can tell you now is that it’s famous for two things 1)It was the centre of Scotland’s slate industry and 2) it’s home to the annual world championship of stone skimming. I think it’s the latter that really appealed to me back in 1976.

As we walked around the island the sun came out and we perked up again. It takes just about an hour to walk around the whole island and the various waterfilled quarries. Strangely, there was no opportunity to skim a stone or spot any wildlife but the views are very good due to the constantly changing light.

We joined the queue for the ferry back at 2-15 and once landed were pleased to see that The Oyster Bar was open. Hurrah. Lashings of ginger beer followed. No, not really cups of tea, stormy cider and Lismore Red Ale. As we sat giving away secrets to last nights 007 film the rain once again started to really lash it down. We were very happy to be inside.

When we got back tonight it was still drizzling but before I made us dinner we experimented with the hot tub. It was a real treat especially as it started once again to tip it down!

Roll on tomorrow’s wildlife tour.

It feels good to be back on our travels and I’ve been so excited about this Scotland trip that I’ve produced a Powerpoint presentation with our outline itinerary on it.

We are on the road again with Joyce and Enid planning to spend 5 nights in Oban and 5 nights in Dornie up near Skye. There’s loads to do and it feels like another geography field trip! My favourite holidays obviously.

However, first we had to get here and it’s not been straight-forward. Jane and I set off on Friday afternoon, aiming to be at our stop-over accommodation in Carlise by 6-30 for a lovely meal and rest.

We were driving happily along the M6Toll road when there was a huge clunk under my car. It felt like I’d run a small pig over but I’d not seen anything in the road and Jane couldn’t see anything now behind me. The car felt ok and we carried on. However, when we joined the queue for the toll booths suddenly there was a very load grating noise and clearly it was coming from my car. I pulled my way over to a small grass verge with Jane’s help waving through the window. I got out to inspect the damage and found that the front of the car had fallen down.

I then spotted that the safest place for us was down the HGV lane of the toll plaza and up a sort of slip road with a barrier on it. We were out of the way of the main traffic whilst we waited for the AA but boy those HGVs still hurtle down there. The AA kindly prioritised our call but the message came back saying they’d be an hour and a half! Eventually Steve (barely any teeth and a slight cough) from E and S Rescue came with his trailer. He said he’d get us onto the back of his truck, take us somewhere safer and look at the damage. He asked us to get out of the car and proceeded to start to try and reverse my car so he could get it up the trailer.

At this point the lovely Karen from Highways entered the scene. Dressed all in hi-viz yellow she was having none of Steve’s shenanigans, pointing out the speed of the HGVs. She said that instead they’d (Highways) have to cone off the lane and then he could move us. OMG ….She disappeared off to arrange this but eventually came back with a different plan. We’d open the barrier on the slip road and do it that way. Whilst Steve drove his van to the next junction and back, we had a lovely chat with Karen. Apparently, we’d been in a blind spot on their cameras so she was quite surprised when we said we’d been there for an hour. It was like being in a new reality TV programme ’M6 Tolls, road to hell’.

Finally, we got in the back of Steve’s cab and he drove us to a layby where he basically ripped the panel off the car and said we should just carry on. It’d be fine. Of course, these were just the words we wanted to hear so after a little more reassurance thats what we did.

By now it was getting dark, it was starting to rain and the rest of the journey was pretty rubbish including a closure between junctions 22 and 23. Our planned lovely dinner turned out to be a quick dirty MacDonalds at the service station.

I was very stressed and thinking I’d never want to drive anywhere again. However, all of that dropped away when we arrived at 10pm at lovely Willowbeck Lodge near Carlisle. The marvellous Jo had been keeping in touch with our progress and stayed late to let us in. As we arrived she gave us a virtual hug with a large glass of red and a beer for Jane.

After a lovely nights sleep and a big breakfast we were on our way again. We met Joyce and Enid up at Balloch Lake Shores after a nasty long drive up through Glasgow in torrential rain.

Here we explored the retail emporiums and all bought extra waterproofs and layers of warmth. The sun briefly came out and we had a more promising view down the lake before we drove onto our lunch booking at Luss, the Village Rest Cafe. Now this was more like it, a lovely traditional Scottish cafe who served us tea and cake or soup and a bap. We had a quick look around Luss which was very cute, the Loch here was a bit wild looking today but the banks were indeed very bonnie.

Next we had another 2 hour drive through thunderous rain over to Oban. I wasn’t impressed by Loch Lomond, the road was v narrow and there seemed to be nowhere to walk or stop to admire the view. Not that there was one today. On we travelled. Eventually we had awesome views towards the coast where there was some blue sky and bright shining sun. It was quite glorious and Loch Awe and Loch Etive looked beautiful as did the stretch of coast from Connel down to Oban. The rain stayed away as we unpacked into Sleepy Bear Cottage and stocked up on supplies at the big Tescos.

So, here we are….let the adventures begin. But its absolutely tipping it down with rain this morning and I’ve never seen a sky that’s a sort of indigo and brown colour. None of this is in my Powerpoint plan.