Benmore Gardens

We slept well but woke to low cloud and rain. After a quick trip to Rothesay Co-op for milk and a Guardian we got the 5 minute ferry back to Colintraive. Then it was a short drive over the hills and round the top of Loch Striven to head for Benmore Gardens.

Mr C decided not to fork out the £6.70 “to walk in woods” so he stayed in the van while I went for a 4 mile walk. I started out at this avenue of firs, went by a pond and then I took a steep path up to a viewpoint from where I could see Sandbank. The cloud came down and it was mizzly as I descended through the Chilean area of monkey puzzle trees. (It’s quite a few years since we took a cattle boat through the fjords to Chiloe island and then the Che trail through the mountains to Argentine).

The autumn colours weren’t out yet and it not being the rhododendron season, we were left with assorted firs and ferns to look at. Anyway I’d wanted to go and now I have, and I got a good leg stretch wending my way up and down and through the various little pathways.

We drove south through Dunoon, where we’d never been, down to Toward where we are wild parked for the night at the sailing club. As we haven’t found a place to dump the black waste we’ll be getting a ferry to Gourock in the morning for our drive home.