The Big Country

This is taken from the road out of our hotel. The OS map showed a 'cup marked stone' at the side of the road, so we stopped to find it. That's it just left of centre in the foreground. The mountain in the background is Ben Cruachan which, slightly alarmingly, was dusted with fresh snow.

It was forecast to be pretty rainy today, but we had blue skies for almost the whole day. This made for a beautiful drive down the western side of Loch Awe, and on to Kilmartin which has a fantastic collection of neolithic sights. We also stopped off at a nature reserve all about peat bogs. Now, where I grew up the fells are all peat bogs so it was quite a surprise to see this area being protected with boardwalks and big warning signs telling you how dangerous the bog can be. Anyway, a nice reminder of home in the Highlands.

The main event of the day was a Long Walk. We'd had a little walk before lunch - 3 miles from Loch Awe up to Loch Avich along River Avich which wasn't too strenuous. After lunch we drove down to Crinan Harbour and walked up to Castle Dounie. This is a 5 mile walk and involved some very very steep hills - so we were impressed that the kids made it without too much whining. The main problem was being too hot - I spent most of the walk with half of everyone's clothes attached to my camera bag. The views from the top were outstanding though, particularly given the unusually wonderful weather. You could see right over to Jura, and even as far as Ben Cruachan that we'd left behind that morning. And we saw a lizard; the first time any of us had seen one in Scotland.

When I get around to putting together the panorama shots, I'll put them up on flickr. But I can't recommend that walk highly enough (on a sunny day!)

After the long walk we followed the Crinan Canal along to Lochgilphead in search of enough mobile reception to get a weather forecast on the i-phone (anyone we asked locally just shrugged). It seemed to be pretty definitely going to rain on Monday, so we thought we'd just head home. Via a pub in Inverary (George Hotel - another recommendation for you), and a sweetie shop to reward the kids for walking so far.

A really wonderful day. Scotland's a pretty fine place (especially on a sunny day.)