Kerrera Island and Oban

 June 30 - July 2, 2022 Kerrera Island and Oban

Pounce had planned a side trip to a seaport town called Oban. We caught a train in Tyndrum, which was very full but a nice couple from England let us sit with them. We deboarded in Oban and then managed to get a cab to the Kerrera Ferry, a quaint little ferry that can carry a few cars and walk on passengers. Only about 65 people live on Kerrera Island today and most of the land is owned by the MacDougall Clan. The island is about four miles long by 1.5 miles wide. 

Here comes the ferry

With only 65 residents, everyone knows Sue, who really wanted a bus shelter to wait in when it was rainy. She made it happen!

The sound of Kerrera

The original school house which the community is trying to restore

It was sunny and warm and I had no water for the 2.5 mile hike to where we planned to camp at Gylen Castle so we hiked up the hill to the Blue Barn Honesty Store. Honesty stores are little stores where a cash box is kept. They are not manned and people tally up their own tabs and leave the money in an honesty box. This was a cute little store with homemade crafts and ice cream made from Scottish cows. Pounce and I got ice cream cones. They were creamy and delicious on such a warm day. I also bought a chocolate bar and we filled our water bottles at the tap on the side of the building.

 

Honesty Store

Horseshoe Bay

The first submarine transatlantic telephone cable was installed here in 1956

Kerrera Island was stunningly beautiful. The water glittered in the distance and the sheep kept us company as we hiked to the south end of the island where Gylen Castle is located.

Gylen Castle ahead

The ruins of Gylen Castle

Gylen Castle was built by the MacDougalls in 1582. It was only occupied until 1647 when it was besieged by the Covenanters. The occupants ran out of water and surrendered to the Covenanters who then massacred them and burnt the castle. Parts of it were repaired and preserved in 2006 but it is still a ruin.

We set up our tents and cooked dinner. We were the only people there and it was glorious. After dinner we hiked up to the castle to explore.

our tents

heating water to make our dinners

The restored staircase up to the first floor

stone stairway

You can see the remnants of the stairs to the floors that used to be above

toilet on the left, sink on the right

lots of sheep

the keyhole

Pounce

heading back down to camp

When I came back down I filtered water for the morning and then laid in my tent and read. I had caught Pounce's cold and was very congested and had to sleep with my mouth open.

Friday, July 1, 2022

I woke up at 6:45am to sun! I opened up my tent fly and there was enough of a breeze that there were no midges. I laid in bed and gazed at the unobstructed view of Gylen Castle and the water and marveled that I was experiencing this.

View from my tent

I heated up some water for coffee and oatmeal using Pounce's stove and determined to get my own stove as soon as possible. Afterwards I went out to pee and felt something hit me in the back. A bird had flown into me!

Drive by birding

After I returned to my tent it clouded up and began to rain briefly and I took another little catnap. Finally around noon we packed up our campsite just as a few people started to hike up to the castle. 

We hiked over to the Kerrera Tea House. There was an outside area to order and then you were allowed to come through the yellow gate to pay. You waited outside and they brought the food to you in a paper bag and then you could go up the hill to a tent and picnic table eating area. There was also a tiny little public toilet you could use. I ordered lentil soup with rhubarb custard (actually a piece of cake) and a piece of crusty bread with a fizzy rhubarb drink. Quite delicious!

Kerrera Tea House

Our lunch view

After lunch Pounce and I parted ways for awhile. She wanted to take the four mile western loop route and I wanted a day of rest and to just take the most direct route back. I returned by the original 2.5 mile route, taking my time. I passed Horseshoe Bay again where King Alexander II of Scotland assembled a fleet in 1249 to invade the Hebrides Islands. He had been warned in a dream not to attempt the invasion but ignored the warning and died somewhere in that field on the right of a fever.

Dail Righ - The King's Field

I sat by an old red telephone booth that had been converted to an honesty box and read while I waited for Cathe and talked to a man named John for awhile. When Cathe arrived we walked down to the ferry. We took the ferry across and needed a way to get to Oban which was 2 miles away so we took a chance and asked an older gentleman who had been on the ferry with us if he would mind giving us a ride to Oban and he agreed. His name was Patrick and he used to live on Kerrera. His son still lives there and he had been visiting him. He dropped us in downtown Oban and we thanked him profusely.

We went to Costa Coffee and used their wifi to book a room at the Columba Hotel. Later we found out that Columba was the saint from Ireland who founded the monastery on the island of Iona. The Columba is an older building with a funky old elevator that you had to double close the doors to use. I took it once just to have the experience but it was pretty claustrophobic.

We went across the parking lot to the EE-Usk restaurant which had great seafood. Oban is a port city so the seafood was extremely fresh. We ate outside and I had the seafood platter and had to ask the waitress how to eat the langiosta, which are like large crawdads. She walked me through twisting the head part from the tail part and then peeling and eating the tail meat. I gave Pounce my oysters but I ate the mussels, salmon and crab. I was still struggling with my cold.

EE-Usk Restaurant with the red roof

Saturday, July 2, 2022

I woke up at 5:30am. I listened to music on my phone on Spotify and researched how to care for blisters. I have a blister on my left toe that I had been bandaging but when I took the bandaid off to care for it the adhesive had actually ripped a piece of my skin off which was just as bad if not worse than the blister itself. I cut myself a donut shape piece of moleskin to cover the drained blister and decided to look for some compeed. 

We walked to Roxy's for breakfast and I had the vegetarian Scottish breakfast which included an egg. We hiked up to McCaig's Tower, also called McCaig's Folly. Construction on it began in 1895 to provide employment to struggling local stonemasons. Work ended in 1902 when McCaig died and it was never finished. 

McCaig's Folly

The view of Oban was amazing

Tall red roofed building is the Columba Hotel

Cool tile work on the walk down to Oban

close up of the cat mosaic

Tartan colors of MacIntyre Clan

Ferry to Iona and Hebrides. The whole end swings up to load the cars

We cruised the shops and I found an MSR pocket rocket stove that I bought for 45 pounds. We decided to stop by the bus station to see if they would store our luggage since our hotel would only let us keep our luggage there until 1:00pm and it was very fortuitous that we did. The train was not running because of a strike and so we prebooked our bus tickets. If we would have waited to try to buy a ticket at 4:00 when the bus left it would have been sold out.

We bought some food at a grocery store and ate caesar salad before we got on the bus back to Tyndrum where we got back on the West Highland Trail.