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That's it!

In the morning it didn’t know whether to rain or not. We put on wellies and waterproof trousers and walked a little further along from the end of the road. There was water everywhere but the emerging view to Jura and Scarba and also up the coast was beautiful.

There are so many islands and inlets that a map is needed to work out what is where. We never did see the Paps of Jura due to cloud but we could see over to Luing and Seil, where we were due to visit someone later in the day.

The marshy land off the end of the car park was full of standing water. As it drained over the edge, down the rocks and into the sea, it formed a great temporary cascade.




Below us, at a holiday cottage I assume, a few small children were crabbing off a small pier. They’d obviously caught something big because it was the squeals of excitement that first attracted our attention and binoculars that explained what was happening.

Moving up the coast towards Oban we turned to go to Seil. There’s the most amazing bridge and a convenient place to park, opposite the inn which is closed due to CoVID19.






We visited a friend from the LR4x4 forum at his house on Seil. It’s a sign of these CoVID19 times that he normally drives 30-40K miles annually as he moves up and down the west coast for work and yet this year he’s hardly driven at all. He’s managing forestry operations from the dining room table!

Later we drove to the end of another road, on the south side of Loch Etive, not far inland. Yet again it was a prime quiet spot. No waves, just a slow rise and fall of the water with the tide. Dawn spotted otters swimming past, just before dusk. That is a first and so a holiday bonus 😀


The drip came back but this time I was ready with a temporary countermeasure. The proper solution of sealant will have to wait.


We decided to drive home the next morning. The scenery is stunning in Autumn and we stopped for a photo, drove over ‘Rest and be Thankful’ then had coffee at Loch Lomond.

There we came across two intrepid Mums with kids 😱




Also we spoke to a guy acting as support for his adult son and two others. They had just arrived on road bicycles and were wolfing down porridge. They are on the last leg of the three peaks but cycling in between the mountains. Wow. ‘Way to go’ as they say in the USA. 

So that’s it. A trip in the cool season which lasted ten nights and it worked!
We will come back and we won’t wait ten years next time. 



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Comments

Rachel said…
Fantastic trip Tim. I've loved reading about it - thanks for your amazing blog.
I'm up next week on Thursday but will be on public transport so Hope based....x
22 October 2020 at 16:45
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