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Cindy and her mom...
...walking up to Carnassarie Castle. Thursday morning dawned as another perfect day weather-wise. We have been very fortunate that, other than our first few days, the weather here has been delightful.
The excellent weather led us to decide to re-visit Kilmartin and finish viewing the ruins and a castle there that we missed last week due to the freezing rain. Well, I should amend that...three of us will return to Kilmartin and Cindy's dad will explore the mountain tops around the Gallanach Estate when Charlie stops by around noon and takes him up in his 4x4 ATV.
Cindy, her mom and I left the cottage around 9:20am for the 30 mile, hour long drive back to Kilmartin. I've joked that the roads are so winding and curved that it's probably only 8 miles in a straight line. I shouldn't "complain" though; people pay $60 a day at Disney World for rides like these.
Our first stop was Carnassarie Castle, a castle built just outside of Kilmartin in the 16th century. Carnassarie was home for a short time to John Carsewell, who was bishop of the Isles, before being captured and partially blown up in 1685 (though the historical markers don't indicate by whom).
The highest accessible part of the castle is 4 stories high and can only be reached by carefully ascending the narrow, spiral stone staircase built into the inside of the outer wall. The view from the top is spectacular and in one of the pictures I've indicated how far away we had to park and walk to get to Carnassarie, but it was worth it. We spent a little more than hour exploring the ruins and took many, many photos and lots of video footage.
By this time it was a little after noon so we decided to return to the cafe we ate at last time for lunch. I was hoping they would have the homemade celery and yellow pepper soup that I enjoyed so much last week, but alas they did not. We decided to sit in the glass-enclosed dining area that overlooks the field filled with sheep and the side of a mountain, since the weather was so beautiful.
Our next stop was a few miles down the road to see some historical rock carvings. The first set of carvings were at Kilmichael Glassary. This particular rock has 150 carvings and markings which were made
by people during the Bronze Age (1800 to 1000 B.C.) and the purpose of the carvings is, as yet, unknown. Cindy believes they are of great mystical importance. I'm of the opinion that some drunken Celts were playing games in the soft lava rock, never guessing that some 3,000 years later we'd be trying to decipher meaning where there was none.
From there we drove another mile or so to Achnabreck where we had to walk almost a mile up a steep incline. My mother-in-law always asks, "Was the journey worth the view?" I'd have to say "No" in this case. But Cindy seemed to enjoy seeing the carvings and I like seeing her happy, so it worked out.
Our last stop was the Dunchraigaig Cairn and Standing Stones, which was thankfully close to the road. We did not go to the Standing Stones because they were in a field that was marked as having sheep who were "lambing" until May 15th and we did not want to disturb them during this important time. Cindy and I both just took "zoomed in" shots of the stones from the cairn. Cindy also got a shot of me looking into
the cairn. It stunk and there were bones everywhere. Ok, not really. The bones that were visible have long since been removed, according to the historic marker nearby.
We drove back to Oban, arriving at the castle around 3:30pm. I picked up my laptop and Cindy and I drove back into Oban to the Internet cafe so I could upload Wednesday's post and pictures and check my e-mail. There has been a small worry about the amount of souvenirs we have purchased and whether we can fit them all in our baggage for the return trip home, so we walked one block over to the Post Office to inquire about the cost of mailing a box approximately 20 pounds in weight back to the U.S. I hope you're sitting down because I wasn't and Cindy had to steady me when the clerk said, "86 pounds ($170) for air which will take approximately 2 weeks and be automatically insured or 64 pounds ($130) for surface which will take 6 to 8 weeks and not be insured." After my eyes refocused I choked out, "Is there a UPS or DHL office in Oban?", but the clerk informed there were no offices
for either one and that in any event they would cost approximately 3 times as much as what he had quoted. When we staggered out following that drubbing we decided we would take our chances on being overlimit with our baggage. We then picked up this week's edition of The Oban Times, but our letter to the editor didn't make it in this issue, and walked around town a bit looking for a stuffed border collie doll for Cindy (which we found but the store was closed), before returning to the castle around 6pm for dinner.
While we were out at Kilmartin, Cindy's dad got to ride with Charlie up to the tops of some of the mountains surrounding Gallanach Estate. I've indicated on the accompanying photos where his pictures are being taken from in relation to the castle at ground level. He tells me that, according to his GPS (which he never leaves home without), they were at 680 feet above the castle. I think you'll agree that the view is stunning.
In the first shot from the mountain, the large land mass you see across the water is the Isle of Kerrera, which is very small.
The larger land mass beyond that is the larger Isle of Mull, which we took the ferry to visit last Wednesday. Also, if you look in the lower right hand corner of the photo, you can see the Fenced Gardens we visited the day before. The last picture is of our host and Laird of the MacDougall Clan, Charlie, who has been an excellent host and source of much lore and history for our inquisitive minds.
I'm going to miss Scotland. Despite Cindy's complaints to me that I'm not relaxing enough, I have felt very relaxed here (especially once I got used to driving on the opposite side of the car and road) and am reluctant to leave, even though I know I must. Two weeks seemed like a long time when we planned this, now it seems to not have been nearly enough time.
Note: It is Friday afternoon here in Oban as I post this entry for Thursday. It will be our last post from Oban as we leave tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 6am to drive to Glasgow and catch our flight to London. Most of today has been spent doing laundry, packing and cleaning up around the cottage. We came into town so I could post this and for "High Tea" (early dinner) at 4:30pm in one of the cafe's overlooking Oban Bay and I may post pictures of that in the next entry, but other than that there probably won't be much to write about for Friday. We arrive at Heathrow Airport at 12:25pm on Saturday and I'm sure I'll find plenty of places with Wi-fi or Internet access once we get settled in our B & B in London.
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ravenlynne
Gina Shores
Beautiful pictures!
Wow! Imagine what it must be like to be lord of all that. What a nice job!