1st September 2018, Oban, Scotland
We are finally the furthest north in Britain that we have ever travelled! Today we are on the edge of Oban in the midst of a Scottish mist overlooking a sea loch.
On Wednesday we drove from Exeter to Carlisle which we reached around 6 pm. Time to find somewhere for the night before it became dark. Our camping guide showed a site at Cumwhitton, a few short miles south of the city. On the map it was no more than a stroll from the home of friends Peter and Jill whom we plan to visit on our return journey. However, there were diversions along the narrow lanes that sent us off into the rural byways of the borderlands so that we became completely disorientated. Eventually we reached a charming and almost deserted site deep into the rural backroads. Here a welcoming lady provided an excellent place for the night - rustic but clean and pretty, with electricity. We were quickly settled and began to unwind. I felt nowhere near as weary as I would have expected. Motorway driving when there are no accidents or tailbacks can be quite relaxing. Certainly I have found driving since we left motorways far more exhausting.
Britain is so much longer than I realised. Carlisle, on the border with Scotland, is about the same distance from Exeter as is Hull despite being further north. It came as something of a surprise to realise that Scotland begins roughly half way between the south coast and the far north coast of Britain. We still had several hundred miles to drive before we could truly say we were in the Highlands!
Welcome to Scotland. Gretna. Scotland.
Our first stop over the border was inevitably Gretna Green. The custom of quick weddings is alive and well here. It is still possible for couples to marry here at short notice and there is hotel accommodation to cater for couples and their guests. Ceremonies are performed by the local blacksmith as tradition dictates and even couples our age can have a quick ceremony and a retaking of wedding vows for a mere £40 if they so wish. We decided we’d sooner spend the money on a few coffees during our voyage instead.
Milepost. Gretna. Scotland.
Weddings. Explanatory text. Gretna. Scotland.
Blacksmith's shop. Sculpture. Gretna. Scotland.
Weddings. Kitsch. Gretna. Scotland.
We continued north, skirting Glasgow on the ring road. This was the busiest part of our travels weaving in and out of lanes. For me it was an exhausting drive, filtering on and off the various lanes. Of course we eventually made it through and turned off down to the coast and Dumbarton. Here we parked in a side street of tenement buildings and walked down to the banks of the Clyde. Above the town, overlooking the river was our first Scottish castle. Dumbarton was once part of the kingdom of Strathclyde before it became part of the kingdom of Scotland in the ninth century. While not being a charming town Dumbarton was however rather interesting. It was our first sight of tenement buildings and compared to modern flats they were well built and attractive. Large and solid, built from local stone these flats shared a common entrance from where flats lead off at different levels from the central staircase. Behind the buildings were round towers which we assume, possibly wrongly, were originally for shared toilets and washing facilities used by the tenants on each floor. There were also small back gardens in which the round towers stood. Nowadays the tenements are probably divided differently but when constructed must have been an impressive new way of housing people, Certainly, with the wide roads and spacious town layout they looked rather impressive. The town seemed very clean and uncrowded. We had no trouble finding on-street parking!
After a walk along the bank of the Clyde, quite rural and pretty here, we continued ever northwards, resisting the temptation to turn off and explore every sign to somewhere we had heard of but never seen. We are determined to head north as fast as we can to make the most of the weather and daylight hours.
Erskine Bridge. From below castle. Dumbarton. Scotland.
Castle. Dumbarton. Scotland.
Our first night in Scotland was at a horrid campsite which was grossly overcrowded and under resourced. Campsites in Britain seem nothing like so well organised as abroad. I take back all my moans about the eccentricities of European camping. This trip looks like trying our endurance to the limit. Sites are also generally more expensive than we have found abroad.
Saturday, 1st September 2018, Oban, continued
(Loch Fyne, Inveraray, Lochgilphead, loch Crinan, Kilmartin, arrival in Oban)
Yesterday was delightful however. The day started very chilly but soon warmed up. We pottered through stunning scenery along winding, wooded roads overlooked by towering rugged rocks. Frequently our route took us along beside lochs, sometimes as fingers of fresh water gouged out during the ice age, sometimes as sea lochs, with offshore islands, green, brown and grey, again with rugged rocks and frequent fishing vessels bobbing on the water. From time to time we would stop to admire the sublime scenery or to gather blackberries from the hedgerows. The traffic was not heavy and although the roads were narrow and winding, we are familiar with that in Devon.
Hugging the shore of Loch Fyne we crossed a high, hump-backed bridge and saw the little fishing town of Inveraray stretched out along the banks. It is charming with its black and white cottages and an impressive gateway into the streets of the town behind.
Bridge and watchtower. Inveraray. Scotland.
Promenade. From east. Inveraray. Scotland.
Archway leading to church. Inveraray. Scotland.
Even here we found parking easy and wandered off with delight to explore the paved streets behind the waterfront.
Main Street West. Inveraray. Scotland.
There is of course the castle, set back in parkland, and the town jail! Were they particularly lawless in the past? It is a huge jail for a very small population. Down beside the loch is a row of pretty fishermen’s cottages with tiny gardens of flowers fronting on to the water. Here we found a plaque to the acclaimed Scottish writer Neil Munrow who was born in one of these inauspicious but charming cottages. Acclaimed north of the border maybe. We confess to knowing nothing about him or his writings.
Town Hall. George Hotel on left. Inveraray. Scotland.
Jail. Inveraray. Scotland.
Fisher Row. Inveraray. Scotland.
Stone cross. Inveraray. Scotland.
WW1 memorial. Inveraray. Scotland.
Continuing our route we next stopped at Lochgilphead where ample free parking was provided. Built in grey stone the main street had two churches at one end and the loch at the other. The shops were all individually owned and managed except for the chemist. There appeared to be but one café serving everything from a simple coffee to Cullen Skink, we will have to discover what that is! The street was broad, clean and above the shops the grey stone buildings were tenement flats.
Independent butcher's shop. Lochgilphead. Scotland.
When we'd crossed the border at Gretna we were horrified to hear the strangled drone of bagpipes. A kilted Highlander was playing something seriously unmusical as a couple made their vows. It could well have been audible back in England! It is the bane of coming to Scotland. Inveterate Charity Shop addict that I am, I enter in trepidation of discovering a set of pipes for sale! I would feel morally obliged to purchase them! Well, someone needs to take action to keep them off the streets!
We continued to Loch Crinan where the canal, which crosses the neck of the Mull of Kintyre, opens into the sea. Built between 1794 and 1817, it opened in 1801, but was beset with problems during the early years. Engineers included James Watt who originally surveyed the canal in 1771, though building didn’t begin until 1794, with the backing of the Duke of Argyle. The canal is nine miles long and saved boats the long journey right round the Mull of Kintyre - a journey of some 120 miles! It has 15 locks and seven bridges. The principle parallels, on a much smaller scale, the later decisions to construct the Suez and Panama canals. Thomas Telford was called in to advise and his recommendations were acted upon.
Canal. Embankment. Crinan. Scotland.
Canal. Basin. Crinan. Scotland.
Canal Basin. Crinan. Scotland.
From down at the lock that opens into the loch, (presumable known as the lochlock) we looked across the water to the offshore islands of Jura and Scarba. It is possible to take a boat trip from Crinan but our friends in the French Jura will need to be satisfied with the inadequate photo we took for them. Our travel plans this year have been to journey from Lands End to John O’Groats, and to see both the French Jura and the Scottish Jura. We are on target.
Isles of Jura and Scarba, seen from near the entrance to the canal basin, Loch Crinan.
Hotel. Jura in background. Crinan. Scotland.
Loch Crinan. Rowans, rose hips and cornflowers. Crinan. Scotland.
During the afternoon we stopped at Kilmartin. Here we discovered that Kil is a Gaelic word from the Latin, Cella, meaning cell or small room. In the grounds there is a reconstructed beehive hut or cell. It was built in recent times by an expert from the Languedoc where such cells are still constructed and commonly seen in isolated fields where they are used for shelter when working out on the hills. We have seen and written about them elsewhere.
Beehive hut. Kilmartin. Scotland.
Also in the grounds of the church we discovered a collection of wonderful mediaeval tombstones from the graves of knights and nobles buried in the churchyard. Many depicted weapons, swords and also decorative knotwork carvings. Inside the church there were a couple of ancient stone crosses found broken in the grounds and moved in to the church for protection.
Church. With graveyard. Kilmartin. Scotland.
Stone grave slabs. Kilmartin. Scotland.
Stone grave slabs. Kilmartin. Scotland.
Stone grave slabs. Kilmartin. Scotland.
Stone grave slabs. Kilmartin. Scotland.
Stone grave slabs. Kilmartin. Scotland.
Stone grave slabs. Kilmartin. Scotland.
Below the church, on a grassy plain edging the loch, lies a cairn of small stones. It probably dates from 3 or 4,000 years ago. There is a museum in Kilmartin House but we needed to reach Oban before dusk so did not visit.
Glebe Cairn. Kilmartin. Scotland.
Once here we had difficulty finding the campsite. It is a couple of miles outside of the town so we will need to drive back in. This morning there was a thick sea mist so we spent an hour writing up notes and recording photos. Now it is time to get going again.
