Glen Coe

“No Vacancies” signs were on all of the roadside B&Bs. It was Friday lunchtime and we were aiming to stay for two nights in the Glen Coe area, about an hour north of Oban. As we drove along the situation did not look promising and of course it was raining. Perhaps it was unwise not to make a booking but we’d been keen on leaving things flexible. Now we were paying the price. In retrospect we should have made allowance for the weekend and its probable high demand, but we didn’t, having always in the past managed to find accommodation somewhere.

But we stuck to our plan, putting priority on finding accommodation before setting off sight-seeing. This soon paid off and we grabbed the last room in the Lyn Leven Guest House, Ballachulish, right next to Glen Coe and booked it for two nights.

Loch Leven is formed in the valley between large hills. Glencoe and Ballachulish perch on its southern shore, close to each other. As soon as we’d settled in we ate our sandwiches, bought earlier on the ferry, for lunch and then found our way down to Glen Coe old village. Here we found the memorial, raised in the nineteenth century, to the eighteenth century massacre of the MacDonald clan. And also, housed in an old thatched house in the main street, the Folk Museum.

More about Glencoe here.

Now it was time to decide on somewhere to eat our evening meal. After checking all available eateries within a mile or so of the Lyn Leven Guest House we settled on the closest, the Laroch Bar pub confirming its suitability by having an evening drink there before returning for dinner later.

The rain continued and at bedtime, about 7:30pm for us these days, we wondered whether we should give up and head south instead of following our plan for a highland drive on the morrow.

But hope springs eternal... and although we’d had heavy rain during the night the faint tinge of blue in the western sky at breakfast convinced us to drive around the loop we’d finally chosen the previous evening.

This 100 miles or so promised to take several hours, given the low average speed likely and the need to stop and take in the scenery, take pics, eat hot soup, etc.

I know, it looks pretty grim. But we could see occasional patches of blue sky to the west so turned south as we exited the ferry on the western side of Loch Linnhe. And the weather did gradually improve, providing some unique scenery.

The otherwise unremarkable village of Strontian from which was derived the name of the element Strontium is along this section of the route. While driving along Loch Sunart we came across a hide set up for the observation of wildlife. Without much hope of spotting wildlife we ambled down to join three or four other people patiently waiting and observing. To our surprise we could immediately spot some seals basking and also swimming and we think we saw some otters but can’t be sure.

One last thing. This town has a Shinty field and club and the lady who runs our guesthouse mentioned this afternoon that both her sons play Shinty and that she’d been watching it on TV today. Apparently Shinty is a very popular game, something like hockey, among the Scottish and it may go back a couple of hundred years in Scottish history. Just thought you’d be interested to hear that there’s more to the Scots than soccer and whisky!

Off to NE England tomorrow, to my birthplace, near Newcastle-on-Tyne. Weather very fine tonight and we’ve just had another pleasant meal at the Laroch Bar and Bistro.