Kerrera highlights 02 June 2024

 


Our dinner at the Waypoint last night was one of the island’s highlights - excellent scallops and venison in a friendly, down to earth small restaurant.  Our way of sampling what else the island of Kerrera has to offer has been to take a hike from the marina at the top of the island right down to the other end. A round trip of over 13 kilometres. The path is actually the main road down the east coast - all of it single track and much of it gravelly and unsurfaced.

The weather has been windy with very low cloud, so low on occasions it has been an all engulfing mist.  Oban, only half a mile away has frequently not been visible.  On the up side, it hasn’t actually rained, so we feel we’ve done quite well.

There is not a lot at the south end of the island but from the outset what there is, is well promoted. We were very keen to get to the tea garden! And there were frequent signs to keep your enthusiasm up - they are needed over a 6 kilometre walk.

The tea garden is beside the only house this far south, and is in a converted shed, with coffee and cake coming out of the house.


Basic but very welcome after the walk, and quite busy.  We suspect that every single soul that walks on Kerrera ends up in this cafe.  It looked a good business.

Just down the road, actually across a field, was Gylen Castle. Now a ruin, the castle was a Clan MacDougall stronghold built at about 1582-87.  Whilst the castle was designed primarily for defensive purposes, it also had many artistic features including crowstep gables, corbelled cornices, Romanesque carvings, sculptures of faces and figures, and chequer-board carving around the oriel windows.  It all didn’t last long. In 1647 a detachment of Fanatic Covenanters captured and burnt the castle and slaughtered most of the residents and defendants. It was never rebuilt. 

Gylen Castle

Just for your education, this is what a dry composting toilet looks like.
Better outside than in, I can assure you.

There were cattle grids all along the road down the east side of the island, and they all had
built-in Hedgehog escape ramps.  Brilliant.

Our afternoon was spent going in the wee marina ferry to Oban to do some food shopping and catching the last ferry back at 18.15.  We’re having a quiet and early evening - we have an early start tomorrow to enable us to catch the tide.

I did a Kerrera bird list - 32 species.  Nothing unusual but it was good to see Redpoll and Common Sandpiper.

No map today - we didn’t move.












































































































































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