DAVE AND HAZEL DO SCOTLAND, AGAIN (WITH PAULINE FOR SOME OF IT!)
OR THE HAMBIDGE HOLIDAY SNAPS THAT NO-ONE CAN ESCAPE FROM OR ANNOTATED IMAGES GALLOWAY AND KINTYRE OCTOBER 2010
This three week trip was our longest holiday yet to parts of West Scotland we have been to before but not at this time of year. We took a brand new car (I know, edgits) with only 200 miles done and drove about 1700 miles, also using 3 ferries for a total of 10 trips, staying at 2 different cottages, with friend Pauline joining us for 8 days at the second place.
Do please read on for zillions of photos of boring rubbish, NOT! An annotated selection of some of the best of Hazel's photos.
For the fist week we stayed at Auld Dairy Cottage, a converted old cattle milking dairy on a working farm some 1½ miles north of Drummore, which is the most southerly village in Scotland.
The view from the front door was quite nice (!ӣ$%^&*)
Most of this first week was spent reading and relaxing from the chaotic last 6 months we have been through. We stayed very close to here in May 2010, looking westward so opted for an east facing cottage this time. The weather was excellent for the whole week;
although this did not bother this fine bull who was resting up before the winter rutting rigours.
Having said the weather was good, the wind blew briskly for almost the whole week, which made this old bull seem to have triangular shaped legs?
He was actually considering the view across Killantrangan Bay, looking to the north. In the English west country this beach would be crowded out, we were on our own.
Some readers of this will know of my penchant for funny piccy's, so;
WTF is this? (Answer at end, or maybe before then, so control your excitement...)
For the second and third weeks, we stayed in Kintyre, 20 miles north of Campbletown. To spare us the long drive through Glasgow and around the shoreline of Loch Fyne, (done that a few times, bit tedious and goes through the horror of Inverary), we opted to use the “two ferry two step”. We drove 120 miles (2 ½ hours) to Greenock to stock up on victuals, then caught the adjacent Gourock to Dunoon CalMac ferry, then drove 25 miles (1 hour) along the single track forest road to Portavadie, then caught the CalMac ferry to Tarbert, then drove 22 miles (¾ hour) on more single track switchback to Cliff Cottage.
Having been there just 40 hours, we retraced our way to Dunoon to collect Pauline !ӣ$%^&*
This is the ferry from Gourock (without us of course)............which we shared with an ambulance! (PS Our car is the wicked red Citroen C4; thus the colour of this font)
A couple of views from the ferries,
LEFT
Approaching Dunoon
RIGHT Leaving Portavadie
Looking across The Kyles of Bute; Cowal peninsula on left, Isle of Bute on right (Kyle means narrow water.)
Looking across to Cowal
Cliff Cottage was so named as it is....on the edge of a small cliff, just visible mid-image in the bright sunlight above the ‌. in line above
Arran across Kilbrannan Sound from Cliff Cottage
Almost the same view as dawn breaks...
The local sheep (cottage behind)...
LEFT
RIGHT tree stump with fungi and ferns
View from the loo...
Waterfall out of kitchen window before (LEFT) and after (RIGHT) a heavy rain storm.
Lichens on beach rocks
So what did you guess with the silly piccy?
It is a romanesco cauliflower. Cooked up a treat! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesco_broccoli
As Pauline had never been to Kintyre before, (well Scotland ever) we enjoyed taking her around some of the sights, but still managed a couple of destinations that we new to us as well. Some 4 miles off the west coast of Kintyre is the Island of Gigha, (pronounced geeyah!) If you want to know more, herewith http://www.gigha.org.uk/ To reach the Gigha island ferry we had to travel about 5 miles across the peninsula; only problem being that there is no direct road so we had to drive 30 miles around the coast road. And the first 12 miles is single track road with some hairy S bends. We did that fairly easily and were well on time for the 1000hrs departure, when; we became trapped in a very slow moving, police escorted, heavy load trailer that was taking a 65 foot wind-turbine blade to the new site overlooking Campbeltown. Eventually we lost the convoy and Hazel raced for the jetty, boarding the ship 10 seconds before sailing. (Pauline spent most of this car-trip with here eyes closed!) Well worth the aggravation though; an active island of great beauty and charm.
We hired this fast-boat for a guided tour of the Gigha Coast, with the skippers family joining us and giving us a real insight into island life, especially the progress made since the “buyout� in 2002.
Hazel and I sat in the stern and had a grand sea-level view;
of this beach which is a favourite of Queen Elizabeth II and where she came for a private picnic lunch 4 years ago.
Later we drove the 7 mile long track that is the island road getting good views of Jura which we hope to visit in the future.
I could not resist the clear cold waters so had a paddle in the sea using the British approved method. That is shoes and sox OFF, trousers hitched UP multiple layers UP TOP smile at the camera, NOW!
Hazel then used a similar technique in a paddle at Southend beach, on the tip or Mull of Kintyre.
Try this version of the McCartney song;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kmz_g-L7wY
Pauline had far more sense and stayed dry looking out across the small harbour on Gigha where she spotted an otter swimming in from about 400 yards out.
From Southend we had a good panorama of Sanda Island (RIGHT) and Ailsa Craig (CENTRE), the pudding profiled island that is home to huge numbers of my favourite sea-bird, the Gannet.
The weather broke some 4 days before we came home,
and despite her expression, Pauline had a fair journey, albeit colder. Typical Atlantic gales whistled around the cottage but cleared enough for us to have two smooth ferry crossings on our return trip. This is the first time we have been on a holiday trip for 3 weeks; our health held up and we look forward to exploring Jura;
but not until we have done a 5 week trip to The Outer Hebrides next year! Thanks for sharing some memories of our holiday, TTFN