Scotland day 2: let's hit the road ....

As usual, the early start is not what it could be, and Paprika and I are beetling it to Glasgow at around 12pm.

We're picking up Mowgli and The Cadet outside the Barrowlands:







So Paprika gets to see the Barrowlands on a Saturday, a Glasgow experience that should not be missed.

When Mowgli comes out of his flat, he's already in his kilt. It's going to be a good weekend. We're heading off on the well trodden path towards Loch Lomond. We can't get our tape adapter to work with the laptop so we're tuneless for once. Instead we just have to take in the scenery:











The weather remains undecided when we get out at Inveruglas for more irn Bru and a few photos. I love taking people to Scotland for their first trip. You head up to Loch Lomond and they are awe struck, and I start to get really excited, cos I get to imagine their faces when they see Glencoe.

After a quick stop at Tyndrum, and the serenity and solitude of Rannoch moor, we see the familiar sight(well familiar to 3 of us) of Buchaille Etive Mor on our left. From the flatness of Rannoch moor it looks like a gateway....







We have some fun at Glencoe, flashing random cars in our kilts as we take photos at a view point... everything is so green compared to the snow covered peaks that Mowgli and I saw(climbed) in April.







This time we drive on past the Red Squirrel campsite that we were at last time. We've decided to head on round to Oban and see what we can find to do round there. Thats not before we stop at my grandmother's house in Appin. She's not in(She's down in Glasgow for my brother's graduations... remember), but we get to take some picturesque scenes of Castle Stalker and Loch Lhinnie in her absence.








It looks as amazing as always, and it's even more impressive to those who haven't seen it 1000 times before on family visits...

From here, we trundle on through the early evening light to Oban. we're going to go camping.....

We drive round and round Oban trying to find a campsite that will let us have a camp fire on the beach, we give up and make do with the campsite that has a view over the Loch:








Once we've set up camp, we head back to Oban in the car to get some supplies from Tesco. Following this, we treat Paprika to a traditional scottish dinner of Omega-3 oils wrapped in complex saturated fat molecules.... otherwise known as the "Fish Supper"



When we are sitting looking out to Mull and the islands from Oban High Street we realise just how large a fish supper this is. Several onlookers comment on the size of the fish compared to the size of Paprika....

After the fish supper we feed the rest to some extremely aggressive seagulls, who wolf it down as their regular evening meal.

We get back to camp and head down to a jettu on the Loch side for the second course. We bought cheese and wine in Tesco and we sit and let the sun go down as we slowly get chessily drunk:











we drift off with full bellies ready for more adventures in the morning.......

Sunday in Appin, Oban and the Odean

We wake up in my grandmother's house and decide what to do for the day, we're going to have to head down the road reasonably early to avoid my sister driving round Loch Lomond at night. We're going to have a leisurely day exploring and spending time with my grandmother....

We float around the local area performing various tasks and eventually head off along the road to Oban. My grandmother stays between Fort William and Oban. Both are about 20 miles away from her. This brings home how desolate this area is, the population between these two cities will barely be triple figures. I used to hate it when I was a kid, but not that distnac4es seem so short, the serenity and peacefulness surrounded by the scenery is amazing:





We're heading off to Oban. I'm quite glad, cos I was in Fort william over Christmas and haven't been in Oban for a few years:



It's a nice Scotish Seaside town which has the smell of freshly caught fish, old buildings giftshops and a boat which heads off to the Island of Mull:



There's a munro on Mull and it may be a future roadtrip destination.


I would imagine the Lonely Planet tick points for oban are the Distillery and McCaig's folly, a tower that can be seen on the landscape all along the high street:



We stop off at Tesco and get some shopping and then we have a wander around the very nice streets. It's not changed much except that they now have street signs in Gaellic as well as English.... Its starting to feel more like brussels.

We have avery nice lunch in the Caledonian Hotel:




and then it's back to Appin before heading off down the road....

We head back to Tyndrum via Dalmally for a change, and then stop off for a pee and a scone at Tyndrum, before continuing down the road to the strains of Stone Temple Pilots:



The scenary isn;t great cos the wetaher isn't too hot, and by the time we are dropping CD's of at The Cadet's house, its dark. She's closer to her usual spacey cheery self.

On the way down the road, I give Luke SKyetrekker a call, he;s going toc ome over for a visit and then we are going to head out to the cinema. It's a quick hello and emptying of the car before we get a quick bite to eat and head out with Luke and my sister to see "Walk the line":



I like all music films, and this one's no different. It's a little slower than I would have liked, and it's always annoying when a film stoops in the middle of someone's life, but it has really fireed my interest in Johnny Cash, so shock horror, I might be caught listening to some country music.

That wad quite a long day........