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Published: April 6th 2018
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Awoke to the beautiful picture of a loch, snow and mountains out of my window. Because I had left my bag in the car, I spread all my stuff out everywhere. The room looked like a bomb. I needed to get underway quite early this morning as I had a big day planned. Beautiful hot breakfast, tea and toast and I was on my way south towards a place called Kilmartin. Originally I had planned to go via the coast road as I hadn’t been there before but when I came to the turnoff, I changed my mind and went left instead of right. The left road took me over the mountains and it began to snow almost immediately. This road passes by the Glencoe ski fields and there was plenty of snow around! The snow ploughs had been in overnight and the road was relatively clear of ice and snow. About 20 minutes into the journey, the snow started to come down like a blizzard. Looking out of my side window the snow was horizontal. I kept to the tracks on the road made by previous cars and drove carefully. By the time I arrived at the top of the
mountain there was snow everywhere. I filled up with fuel at a random station and when I climbed out of the car, the biggest snowflakes were falling around me everywhere. I’m so lucky that I have my goose down jacket. The guy in the shop said that it’s not Spring but Christmas! What do you know: my first white Christmas in April!
I eventually joined back up with the coast road that I had originally planned at a place called Oban. I then followed the coast down to Kilmartin. This is an ancient pre-historic landscape filled with cairns, standing stones and cup circles. I went into the little museum (7 pounds entry) and looked at the amazing display of pottery that was found in the burial cairns, some were even intact after 5000 years. There was a guided walk at 1:30 and I signed up for it. I went into the little restaurant because I had some time before the walk started and ordered this beautiful haloumi cheese with gingered carrot and quinoa. There was also some home-cooked beetroot on the side. It was yummy.
I went back to the car and changed my runners for my boots
Spring?
Spring is trying to find it's way through the snow. because things looked really boggy., joined the rest of the group of 6 and followed our intrepid guides through puddles and mud down to the row of cairns. They are called a linear cemetery. Huge piles of stones, some only had one body in them. A bit like the pharaoh’s tombs. We wandered around cairns, standing stones and ceremonial circles for a couple of hours. There were some of those weird black sheep in the paddocks. The guide told me they were Hebridean sheep. An ancient breed of sheep that some farmers were just keeping so they would not become extinct. They are too small to be commercial viable. The blizzard from the morning had turned into a beautiful, warm afternoon. Plenty of sunshine and blue skies! Perfect!
I then hurried back to the car and loaded up the gps for Glasgow as I wanted to be in my room before dark. I took the shortest route… big mistake! The shortest route included two ferries. After getting off the first one I fussed around for a bit trying to find a different route. The gps told me there was no other alternative. Thank goodness I took my big UK
Pots to You
These pots were found in the cairns at Kilmartin. map book. I found an alternate route and eventually arrived back out on the original road. I arrived in Glasgow and then couldn’t get into the accommodation. I went to the local shop and he gave me a pin number. I lugged all my ‘stuff’ up two flights of stairs and chose a room with a key in the door. It was a beautiful room, big bed and really comfortable. Set the alarm for 5:30 and finally fell asleep about 9. Big day! Off to Michele’s tomorrow.
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