The island life

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The third day of our trip started with what was, by now, becoming a bit of a mini-tradition: a full cooked breakfast.  After a while Mark and I both began to worry about just how much weight we were going to have put on by the end of the tour.  

Still, duly fortified, the pair of us waddled off from Port Ellen towards the Oa.  We were both weighed down with our longest telephoto lenses in the hope of seeing some of the rare animal life in that part of the world.  There is famously a golden eagle on the Oa - perhaps we might get lucky.  

Unfortunately we didn't see the eagle, but we did see plenty of other bird life including a family of swans, complete with signets, and I've included them as an extra.  We also saw some of the famous feral goats that live on the Oa - we could smell the goat from about half a mile away - phew! 

At this point, whilst swapping lenses I managed to inadvertently flick the glasses case out of my camera bag, without noticing.  It was only when we had walked back to Port Ellen that I realised what had happened, so we walked back retracing our steps and Incredibish managed to spot them buried in the sand of the beach near the Port Ellen Maltings.  I was so grateful!

The weather was wonderful as you can see from the main shot.  It was actually hot (not what we had been expecting at all) and that afternoon, we walked to Lagavulin for a tour and tasting at the distillery.  My main shot was taken from the pier at Lagavulin and one of the extras features the 3 varieties that we enjoyed.  

As we walked back towards Port Ellen the very nice chap that had given us the tour of the distillery stopped and asked us if we needed a lift back to town.  We were quite tired by then and gratefully accepted, by my reckoning we had managed to walk about 24km in the course of the day, carrying relatively heavy camera bags.

Our day ended once again at the local pub, where we started to work our way through the list of whiskies they had available (going for the affordable end of the list it has to be said), and working out those we liked and of those which we thought were special.  

The whisky industry is a major employer on Islay, and everywhere you go there are references to it.  Even the signposts remind you as my last extra demonstrates.

Throughout the course of the day, we couldn't stop commenting to each other on what a tremendous time we were having - the grinning seems to have become a fixture.

Mark's day three is here