This time we drove south, to Aberfeldy, but stopped first at Blair Castle. We joined Scotland’s National Trust which gives us free access to castles and gardens and places. Lentran House, where we live, is a member of Historic Houses and that membership also gives us free access to castles and gardens and places. Blair Castle is a Historic House place. Blair Castle is some 750 years old and it has been the home of the same family through all these years. 30 rooms of the castle are open for public. Quite impressive, I must say. Fancy. In the walled garden everything was still asleep which was a pity. It’s still early in the growing season. The drive to Aberfeldy was pretty. Everything was so bright green, spring is definitely further here than in Inverness. The campsite is right next to the town. It’s nice to be able to walk into town and even have a beer. The campsite is large with lots of caravans. Most looked like they were there for a long stay, with large awnings pitched next to the caravans. The shower blocks are heated!! The night was going to be cold so a warm shower block in the morning will be much appreciated. 28 April. A lovely sleep on our new mattress. Before our trip Bill found an interesting destination in Aberfeldy, The Watermill. There have been mills on this site since at least the 1600s. This building dates back to 1825, it was renovated in the 1980s and closed in 2000. A few years later it was bought and another refurbishment turned it into what it is today, a bookstore-gallery-café. Very nice. Lovely paintings in the gallery, but way above our budget. The bookstore is nice but didn’t tempt us, which is very rare. We tried to find a walk by the river but couldn’t find one. Maybe there isn’t one. 29 April. A very nice, sunny day, a lazy one, filled with birdsong. Had breakfast al fresco, lunch al fresco, walked into town for a beer later. 30 April. Heading for Oban, we have an early start. The showers were busy. The washing up place doesn’t open until nine, why? so Bill did the washing up by Bertie at 8:15. In his next life Bill is coming back as a housewife, he says. We had plans to visit Inveraray Castle but there was a diversion for some reason and there was more traffic and it started to rain which is not ideal for viewing gardens. Driving along this diversion we passed Karelia House, the local heaven for all things handwork. It’s on our tick list but they were still closed. We’ll come back another time. We stopped for a sandwich and coffee at a place called Real Food Café. Their toilet is twinned with a latrine in Bechani, Malawi. By donating £60 you enable families to build basic toilets. You get a certificate to hang in you loo, showing a photo of your twinned toilet. The Oban campsite in Barcaldine is inside a walled garden. None of the garden left but the walls provide a nice shelter. The walls are six metres high. The garden belonged to Barcaldine House and used to have huge heated glass houses with vines, peaches, pineapples, nectarines and other exotic fruits. It was built in the early 19th century. Couldn’t find out when the garden started going down but by the 1950’s the house itself was derelict. Now it is a hotel. We wanted to see the Bonawe ironworks’ 18th century furnace and took a really narrow single track road through some spectacular scenery. Luckily only had to evade some sheep and their lambs. We didn’t find the furnace. We knew it is closed for conservation, but all signs were taken down and there was no place to park Bertie so we turned around and headed to the Ardchattan gardens which I had read about the night before. We were looking forward to seeing them. The garden was closed. Open on Wednesdays which was mentioned on the website had I read it properly. Today was Saturday. We did see the Ardchattan Priory ruins. The priory was founded in 1231 for a Catholic church order of monks, the Valliscaulians, dedicated to prayer and contemplation. Their first monastery was in Burgundy, in Val-de-Choux, valley of the cabbages. Latin for cabbage is vallis calium. We had lunch next to the ruins on a pier at Loch Etive. I am still getting used to the fact that our kitchen travels with us. No need to wait until we get “home” to eat. The shower blocks? They are heated. 1 May. Two shorter walks today. One to the beach, the other in the woods behind us. To us a beach is golden or white sand. It will take these stones a few million years to turn into sand. The smallest abode on this site is a cyclist’s one-man tent. The largest ones are six, seven metre caravans for two adults and maybe four collies. The must-have accessory appears to be an awning that runs the length of the caravan, maybe two metres wide. We see couples laying out the bits and pieces next to their caravan, reading the instructions, quarrelling, trying to make sense of it all. It may take hours as we saw in Aberfeldy. 3 May. We’re on the Isle of Mull now, on the Crannich Farm campsite. Eight pitches. One toilet. One shower, heated. The other vans seem larger and hopefully use their own facilities. The washing up place is closed because of Covid restrictions. Why? The restrictions were scrapped weeks ago. You’d think there’s a far bigger risk of catching anything in the toilet or the shower. On our way we stopped in the centre of Oban waiting for the ferry crossing. On our way back to the ferry harbour a man from a seafood place came over and offered us a little cup of mussels for free. How nice is that! 4 May. We headed for the isle of Iona off the coast of Mull. Google maps says 50 miles, one hour 15 minutes. It took us two hours. The road is mostly a single track road which means either you or oncoming traffic stop at passing places to let the other one pass. That makes it a lot slower. And more tiring to drive. We caught a ferry at Fionnphort, leaving Bertie behind. It’s a ten minute crossing and during those ten minutes the climate seemed to change. It was much warmer, at least on that side of the island. On the way to the abbey there are the ruins of a nunnery. It was founded after the establishment of a Benedictine monastery in 1203. Remnants of an earlier chapel have been found dating back to the 700’s and bodies dating back to the 600’s, all of the skeletons being women. Looks like they came over shortly after Columba who came over in 563 from Ireland and founded a monastery. It helped spread Christianity to Scotland. We didn’t go into the monastery because we should have bought tickets online. Not knowing when the weather would be favourable for a visit, we did not book them. We felt we could do with some coffee and maybe cakes. The cakes were sold and the coffee machine was broken. We could have had instant coffee for £2.50, no thanks. We had tattie soup and managed to get the last pieces of bread. 5 May. People talk about Calgary beach so that’s where we were heading. The weather got better as we got closer and we managed to have a nice, short walk on the shore. Coming back to Bertie we were desperate for coffee and decided to have our beach walk after coffee. Then the rain came. The church in Dervaig has an interesting steeple, like a sharpened pencil. We were on our way to Tobermory so didn’t stop to see if we could go inside. Besides, there really wasn’t anywhere to park. We did some food shopping in Tobermory, took a few pictures, filled up and drove back to the campsite. 6 May. The Isle of Ulva off the coast of Mull. When you want to cross over to the island, you slide a wooden panel on a wall to reveal a red square. The ferryman knows you need a ride and comes over and takes you across the narrow strait. When you see the ferryman coming across, you slide the panel back. There are nice walks on the island, we had read. There is also construction work going on, renovating old buildings somewhere, so some of the roads were very muddy after the heavy rain the previous night. We weren’t doing any particular walk so found ourselves doing a part of the farm circuit and a part of the woodland walk. A nice two hours. The name Ulva comes from the Viking name Ulfur, wolf island. Before the Vikings, there are standing stones from around 1500BC. Even older, there are artefacts found in a cave including flints, arctic fox bones and human infant bones dating from around 5650BC. In 1835 there were 604 people living on the island in sixteen villages. What followed were the clearances where people were replaced by sheep and the people were evicted, some without warning. Their homes were simply put on fire. By 1889 the population was 53. There’s even a place called Starvation Point on the island. This is where old and feeble people evicted from their homes were placed to live the best they could on shellfish and seaweed until they died. The island is now community owned. We had lunch in the Boathouse. The cold smoked trout was delicious and they make their own bread. Coffee and Victoria sponge for dessert. 7 May. Castle Duart, the ancestral seat of the Maclean clan for over 400 years. We saw this castle from the ferry coming into Mull. This is a real castle with 3 metre thick walls and it is still the family home of sir Lachlan Maclean, the 28th chief of the clan. It was built in the 13th century. Through turmoils of history it was attacked and invaded and surrendered and demolished and abandoned by 1751. In 1911 the ruin was bought by 26th chief of the Maclean clan and restored. A hundred years later, more restoration was needed and is still continuing. 8 May. We made an early start from Crannich, less one camping chair. When we’re not using them we place them under Bertie. One morning we didn’t remember this and drove over one chair. Bent beyond repair. We caught the morning ferry from Tobermory to Kilchoan in Ardnamurchan. In Tobermory we got a closer look at the tall ship Thalassa we’d seen earlier. A beautiful ship! It was supposed to be a dull day but it was brilliant! The forecast is not very good, though. The view from the campsite is beautiful. The shower blocks could do with an update but at least there are two loos and two showers. The water was not hot. Not cold, but not hot either. 9 May. A rainy day. A very rainy day. The rain is horizontal. Apart from short trips to toilets/showers/washing up we stayed in all day. There’s something about sitting inside in a warm place on a rainy day, reading, listening to Bruce Springsteen. Bertie has an amazing sound system. The showers were now nice and hot. The forecast is a bit better so we are staying on. 10 May. Ardnamurchan Point is the most western point on the British mainland. The lighthouse was built in 1844. It took three years to build it. The stones were brought over from Mull by boat and pulled uphill from the shore by horses. In other words, using the latest technology of the day. It designed by Alan Stevenson, the uncle of Robert Louis Stevenson whose family designed most of Scotland’s lighthouses over 150 years. The lighthouse keepers kept a cow and sheep and grew tatties and carrots. There is a good coffee house out there that serves very good coffee. On our way to the lighthouse we stopped at the West Ardnammurchan Community Garden Shop and paid £1.50 into an honesty box for the freshest lettuce ever. Change of plan. We were meant to stay for two more nights, but forecast for driving across the peninsula on single track roads in horizontal rain was not tempting. We tried to get a ferry on Thursday but none were available. There were ferries available on Wednesday, so we decided to leave a day early via Tobermory and Craignure to Oban. Got some cold smoked trout from the Tobermory Fish Company. I mention single track roads often. This is the single track road to the lighthouse, barely wide enough for a vehicle.
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AuthorI'm Piisa and I will be sharing with you my thoughts on this and that, maybe even on whatever. Archives
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