Oban and the West Coast

Wow, this is where Scotland becomes really amazing. Get out of the cities and it's such a lovely country, the people are wonderful and it's great.

But to tell the story chronologically, we picked up a rental car in Glasgow and left for the west coast. This was by far the worst weather day we had on the trip, rainy, cold and windy. I had bought a Sat Nav system to find our way around, and it worked fine about 99% of the time, which is as good as any of them. I'll do a separate entry on the car and driving.

We stopped on the way at this lovely church, St Conan's. To look at it, you think it's 1000 years old like so much of this part of the world. We picked up the book on it and it was actually started in the very late 1800s, and not finished until after WWI. A bit disappointing. Still beautiful and on an awesome piece of real estate. Location, location, location.

After leaving there we had another hour + to drive. We were actually staying about 20 miles south of Oban, in a place called Loch Melfort. We finally get there, Diana goes and checks us in, then opens the room. I'm opening the rear of the car to get the bags out, and she says "well, it's a bit dated", then I walk in and see the view

Suddenly it was OK. Also, this place was bed, breakfast and dinner. Dinner every night was a great 2 course meal, all you had to pay for was your drinks. The meals were awesome, and the creme brule' was irresistible for desert!

We spent a day in Oban, a port town where the ferries leave for the western islands. It was a very neat town, lots of woolen shops and items, gorgeous scenery. If we'd had the time, we would have taken one of the wildlife excursions out to see the Puffins and other rare species. There was also a ferry to Ilona, the island bed of Christianity in the British Isles and still a working monastery and religious shrine. Would have loved to see that, but just didn't have the time.

Anyway, we found a walk that went through a lot of farmers fields and livestock areas, but had some beautiful views along the way. I had eaten Steak-and-black sheep pie for lunch, and felt the livestock were after revenge the whole time. Especially at the end when we were headed for a hill and the cows seemed to have scouts on the ridgeline. Then a group of 4 moved in and cut us off, so we had to leave. I was thinking of all those westerns I'd watched growing up :)