Gigha

After our 'reccy' around the ferry ports yesterday we parked the cars up in the car park at Tayinloan and waited in the small but perfectly formed cafe for the ferry to Gigha.

A short twenty minute walk-on ferry trip across the water and we were on the tiny 6 mile by 1.5 mile island. A pretty unique place is Gigha as it's owned by the residents themselves after a £4,000,000 buyout in 2002. The population is only around 150 but there's a number of commercial enterprises ongoing that give the place a real busy and active atmosphere. Even the wind turbines that have been set up by the community generate income as well as electricity as they sell on the extra power produced to the mainland.

We took a walk to see the a standing stone which is inscribed with an indecipherable ancient Irish alphabet called 'Ogham'. The markings have never been translated but the kids decided it must read something like "If you're reading this then you've just lost an hour of your life you'll never get back". We punished them more by walking them to the top of the hill to take in the view before treating them to a nice lunch at the community run hotel down below.

A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon finished off with some ice cream and a bit of beach combing before we headed back across to Kintyre on the 'Loch Ranza' ferry.