Adventures around Argyll and Bute, and maybe a bit of The Highlands.

Sounds like a good start Ruth, look forward to more. Makes a change to be reading rather than writing!! If the Taynuolt Hotel is the only drinking establishment for miles they can just about charge what thet want, captive audience and all that. £10 get me 3 pints in the Rule, but there are another 6 pubs to keep prices reasonbly steady. Look forward to the next installment

And here it is Dave 

 Sunday morning, another dry day, but not quite so sunny as yesterday, it's still very warm though, this area has a very mild climate due to the Gulf Stream.

We hadn't planned anything for today so we decided to drive over the Glen Lonan road to Oban instead of taking the main road. It's much more picturesque, and the local constabulary don't have speed checks set up every couple of miles. Although the route is shorter it does take considerably longer due to the livestock commandeering the single track road. On arrival in Oban the weather was much clearer, we made a quick visit to the supermarket to pick up the things we forgot yesterday i.e a lighter, the citronella candles to repel insects are no good if they are not lit !!

We found a 24 hour free car park (there's the Yorkshire blood again, we like the word free) and wandered off into town to find the Tourist Information Centre. We were interested in booking a trip to Mull later in the week and wanted a CalMac Ferry brochure. Armed with all the info we needed we wandered into the Oban Distillery to book a tour. 

The next tour was at 1330hrs, we had an hour to spare so we decided to take a hike up the hill to visit McCaig's Tower, which looks like a miniature Colosseum like structure sat on the hill overlooking the town.  It's quite an impressive structure and dominates the Oban skyline, I won't bore you with it's history as a quick Google will fill you in with all the details, but it's well worth the climb for the views and the lovely gardens inside the tower.

Back down the hill we still had time to spare so we sat at a cafe on the harbour front enjoying the views and watching the world go by.

There were only eight of us on the distillery tour which lasted around and hour, we got a glass of the only Whisky made at the small distillery which is called Oban 14, we also got to keep the lovely engraved glass. More information on the distillery can be found on the internet should you be interested. Now some of you already know about the £84 50cl bottle of single malt that we ended up buying here 4 years ago, the one that sits in a cabinet at home and we just look at it. Although on this occasion the drink was lovely we walked away before spending £78.99 on a bottle of the special stuff, or £48.99 for the standard. This doesn't mean we won't go back though, our discount ticket lasts for a week. 

Leaving the distillery behind we headed for the CalMac booking office, where we were told not to bother booking, just turn up any day we liked and there would be room. That's great it means we can pick our day according the the weather instead of being tied to a time.

Not much left to do in Oban now so we drove back to Taynuilt on the main road, watching our speed of course. The weather has cleared a lot since we left this morning, so I'm now sat outside typing all this rubbish before I start making sandwiches for tomorrow. We have hired a boat for a full day on Loch Etive, David is fishing I'm going to be captain, though I don't think my RSY skippers and navigation certificate from 1980 are still valid !! Must make sure the camera stays out of the water.

If you don't hear from me tomorrow evening, fear the worst.

Loch Etive is a sea loch Dave, but we can't get out into open water because of the Falls of Lora at Connel so we should be OK, David hired one last time we were here with a friend of ours, but I didn't go. Our friend Arthur is huge and there wasn't room for me.

The trip to Mull is an all inclusive tour including the castle, who's name I forget, but it covers the bus at the other end to take us round. It's £66 to take the car and £15 each for the tour, so it works out cheaper, there I go again wittering on about saving money