Day 7-Oban and Castle Estate

We awoke to an absolutely beautiful day. The sun was shining (sunrise is at 4:45am here, thank goodness for thick curtains on the windows), the sky was clear and the temperature was a balmy 51 degrees. Looking out to the bay, the water reflected the blue of the clear sky and was still and tranquil. The sheep were grazing out in the back field and as we ate breakfast we looked out the dining room window saw a deer running across the top of the hill to our west/southwest. Birds were singing and the sheep were "baa" ing.

We had several errands around town that we needed to run and Cindy was still sick with her cold, so we decided to stay close to "home" to allow her to rest some and to take care of our various little stops in Oban.

Cindy and I left the cottage at 11:00am and made the 15 minute drive into town so we could be at the Internet Cafe at 11:20 and be ready to use my webcam to see Ann & Mikey at 11:30am our time, 6:30am their time, before Mikey had to leave for school. We got to see and talk to them for about 10 minutes and then had to say "goodbye". It was a lot of fun and meant so much to us to get to see and talk to them for those few minutes. Then I posted the latest entry for the blog I had while Cindy checked her email and we left the Cafe after about an hour.

We walked down through the town, stopping at shops along the way. We checked in at the Oban Distillery because we were all going to return later in the day for a tour, but the manager informed us that Friday was their end of week clean-up day and we wouldn't see much on the tour, so he suggested we return on Monday and gave us all the particulars of cost, length of tour, etc. We also stopped in at the Tourist Information Center for some help with B & B's in Edinburgh if we decide to stay overnight when we go.

Cindy was looking for some candle-making shops or materials, but there was almost nothing to be found of that in Oban. Now she wants to move here and open a candle shop. Oy Vey! She did find some Celtic symbol stencils that she bought to use as decorations on her candles and we bought a few more souvenirs. Then it was off to the grocery store to restock our larder, mail my postcards and after that home for lunch. We all also had laundry to do, some of which we hung out to dry on a clothesline with clothespins. I haven't done that since I was a kid.

Later, after everyone else napped while I wrote, we put on our boots to go tour some parts of the castle estate that we had not yet walked through, especially down on the side facing the bay and on the "beach". The land on this estate is wide-ranging and far-reaching, from mountainous heights to rolling fields to lava rocks on the edge of the water and lots of waterfalls flowing down the mountains around us to the bay.

Here's several pictures of our explorations that afternoon.

After dinner, we drove into Oban to walk up to McCraig's Tower and view the sunset across the bay at 9pm. McCraig's Tower was built in 1897 on a hill overlooking the city and the bay by a local banker who was trying to ease the unemployment of local stonemasons. It was supposed to be built as a replica of the Roman Coliseum, but the banker died with only the outer walls completed. Though he left instructions in his will for its completion (including placing statues of his family members in the window openings), the project was never finished beyond the outer wall circle. Today, it serves mostly as rendezvous point for area teenagers at night and for tourists like ourselves who want an overview of the city and the bay or the beautiful sunsets.

---

---