We headed to Oban and wandered the shops trying to dodge the icy showers. We were keen on finding a place to go walking so we headed to the information centre in the ferry terminal building. After devouring our packed lunches we walked up to McCaig’s tower, a large arched circular structure that overlooks Oban. We sheltered in the arches as another storm swept in from across the bay. Back down to the car we travelled a bit further up the road to the Kerrera Ferry crossing. A simple and straight forward crossing, Kim slid the board from White to Black indicating to the skipper we wanted to cross. It was only a 5 minute crossing. The skipper of the ferry advised us to walk the Island Anti-clockwise (7 mile walk), this did not sit very well with Kim’s Mojo/OCD. It was a really nice walk, although we had 4 or 5 heavy showers with hail. And I did provide some amusement to Kim by unexpectedly falling onto my backside and stepping into a mud puddle, up to my ankles. We missed the 4 pm ferry back to the mainland, so we waited in a barn sitting on Hay bales in the dark for 45 minutes ;-).
Back on the mainland we headed straight back to the Grove for a much needed hot bath. After warming up and changing we headed back into Oban for some fish and chips! I wanted to go to a local pub so I dragged Kim along to Oban’s finest (Markie Dans) for a pint of Guinness (I had the Guinness Kim ate chocolate cake, just to clarify). Then we headed back to Conel for the night.
Sunday morning we awoke to hail. It had covered almost everything outside by about ½ a centimetre. The breakfast was a sit down affair at the one table with the other guests, the food was good but the conversation was a bit awkward. Kim did really well to try and liven things up. I then locked ourselves out of the room and Brian had to help us out. After checking out we went to Dunstaffanage Castle, which was more like a ruin. We were the only ones there and we took lots of goofy pictures clambering around the ruin. Back into Oban, we did some shopping, had a hot chocolate and then hit the road. We decided on an alternative scenic route home, back up the A828 and through Glencoe. Snow started falling heavily and the place soon turned into a winter wonderland. We went through Killin, round the back of Loch Tay, through Kenmore, and then stopped in Aberfeldy at my favourite bookstore in Scotland. It was an hour from Aberfeldy back home to Dundee. A great weekend away.
