All Things Scottish, Day 4

The original plan for today was to take the ferry across the Firth of Clyde and spend the day on the Isle of Arran. But since that plan involved some hiking, and the weather wasn't looking good, I decided to skip that and take the long drive to the Kintyre Peninsula (on the other side of Arran) up and arround the Firth.

As is my do, I tended to make driving days into random excursions, choosing roads "roughly" in the right direction, but favouring those flagged as "scenic" or indicating appealing areas through which to merrily motor -- such as remote 1-lane roads along barren coastlines and mountain passes.

So this lead to two realizations:

First, the scale of Scotland, compared to say, Ontario or anywhere on a North American map, is greatly reduced (or, is that enlarged... hmmm.) So looking at a map, you'd expect based on North American habit distances of 50+ km, when in fact it's more like 15. So when driving on main roads, driving from Kilmarnock to, say Cambeltown, it isn't really that far: a couple of hunded KM on roads that you can drive at 80-100kph.

Second, some of the small "interesting" roads are... slow... but interesting! So what was basically a 250km drive was, given my choice of side diversions and points of interest, a full day drive. But I enjoyed it -- Which is of course why I only tenuously extend the offer to others to join me on these types of vacation -- since I'm not sure everyone, particular vehicular passengers, would necessarily get the same fulfillment out of a full day of such wandering.

Driving around all these back road (through places like Otter's Ferry, and the interestingly-named Grogport) really showed the extent of the storm that had swept through the entire country on Monday and Tuesday. Everywhere, Forrestry Service crews were out removing downed branches and performing other cleanup duty. In particular, some of the sites I was trying to visit (Celtic carvings, crosses, etc. -- my routes are not COMPLETELY aimless) were outright inaccessible. I'm talking 1-lane roads blocked by mature trees with 2-3' trunks toppled over by the wind.

So in the end the day ended up being a lot of driving, with two interesting site visits. First was Skipness Castle and its associated chapel and graveyard, which I much enjoyed. Second was the drive down to the Mull of Kintyre, through high windswept areas. Unfortunately, I doubt the pictures will do it justice -- but the lighting off the coast was very interesting, with dark clouds pierced by spotlights of sunshine doing a lightshow over the Irish Sea (I could see Ireland in the distance, too.)

The day ended with even more delays, as my country inn reservation in West Loch Tarbert was mixed up (they had it down for the following night.) Luckily, the inn I had reserved for Friday and Saturday confirmed that a room was available -- but it was another 35KM north. Oi. So I finally got in at 10PM -- still daylight by the way -- and retired for a night, in preparation of tackling Arran again on Day 5.