Part 3   Ulverstone to Glasgow

Friday 28 May. Lynette was first down to breakfast and a chance remark brought the older guy out to talk about Egypt which is her interest and his passion.  He is keen on archaeology and older civilisations and anything less than 200 years old is too recent to be of interest.

We headed up roads on the western border of the Lake District National Park.  We wanted to avoid the Lake District itself because of the crowds.  The scenery was of hills on the right and flatness on the left.  Some of the hills ended abruptly in "ends" or what we would call "breakaways". We stopped at Gosforth, a village just off the road to see a 10^th Century Viking Cross in St Mary's churchyard.  There were monuments in the graveyard and inside the church which included an ancient carved stone known as the Fishing Stone.  There were ladies in the church preparing for a funeral so we didn't stay long.

Next stop was Sellafield which is the name now used for a series of  nuclear power installations which include Calder Hall, one of Britain's first nuclear power stations. Sellafield is run by British Nuclear Fuels and the visitors centre attempts to explain and justify the role of nuclear power.  It has cost a fortune to set up, is free to enter, is state-of-the-art high-tech and does very well what it sets out to do.  It is full of informative and interesting exhibits and I, for one, learned a lot.  There are little "theatres" where brilliant technology is used to present shows which get the message across.  One larger theatre invites you to enter and sit down in aircraft-type seats.  The doors close and the show begins - a recorded presentation with lights, sounds, music and commentary.  The flashing lights upset some people and may induce headaches and there are signs warning about this possibility.

We skirted Carlisle and entered Scotland at Gretna Green (saw the smithy as we flashed past - it is now a tourist attraction) and headed west to Dumfries.  The guidebooks are not kind to this town but we found it more interesting than we were led to believe. The central area is pedestrianised and has some interesting buildings.  We decided the Scots accent must start at the border.

From there we went to Kirkudbright (kirk-coo-bree) which is a real delight. It is a small town (we walked around most if it in twenty minutes twice while we were there) and is a port on the River Dee. We found the B&B which was two cottages put together and run by an elderly widow, a Scot but without the accent.  She gave us some tips about where to walk and where to eat.  The tide was out and 3 or 4 fishing boats were sitting on the mud next to the jetty.  We strolled around the town admiring the pretty buildings which are painted in various pastel colours but merge into an harmonious whole. Many of the buildings had stonework arranged around the windows and doors in a pattern known as quoining in South Australia where many buildings follow the Scottish style.

Our landlady's top recommendation for dinner was the Selkirk Arms and we went there.   It was superb.

Kirkudbright and River Dee

The Crinan Canal

Saturday 29 May. Our week's lease of  a self-catering cottage started today and we had to be over on the west coast, above the Mull of Kintyre, between 4 and 5.30 p.m.  We had a long way to go.

Merelyn and I got up about 6.30 and went for another walk around the town.  We looked again at the marvellous wooden statue of a mother and child "in memory of loved ones lost at sea".  There was no-one about and things were very quiet.   Surprisingly, the church was open (Kirkudbright has very little crime - the landlady said she never locks her car) so we went in.  It is completely different from an English church and every available space was taken up with seating - perhaps they have big congregations.

Just north of Kirkudbright is a hydro power station which has a fish ladder which we stopped to look at. Next destination was New Galloway where we stopped for coffee, cakes and delicious shortbread. There was a butcher shop in the town and we bought some supplies, including pork and leek sausages which turned out to be a top taste. There were health signs all over the shop and a notice asking customers to order cooked meats before ordering raw meats.  We noticed the butcher washed his hands in between handling the two.  Lynette told us that a year or so ago there had been a health scare, involving meat, in this district.

We kept on A roads and then motorways to make good time and intended to take ring roads around Glasgow to avoid the city centre - particularly as the Scottish Cup Final was taking place in Glasgow today.  But we did our wrong lane trick again and ended up crawling through the centre and then the suburbs for a long time.  We finally got clear and drove north besides Loch Lomond and then turned west.  The country is spectacular. For a long time the road hugged Loch Fynn and the views were superb - hills on one side, water on the other, boats at intervals and little towns on the far side of the loch.  We passed through Inverary and Lochgilphead, both pretty white towns beside the water and found Bellanoch without any trouble. The instructions were easy to follow, we found the keys where they were supposed to be and we were soon installed in the very comfortable cottage. 

The description we had been given fell short of reality.  They told us we were next to the Crinan Canal but they didn't tell us we were facing the Great Moss and had views across to misty hills in the distance.  They didn't tell us the location and scenery were indescribably beautiful.  They didn't tell us that there was a basin for mooring yachts and a swing bridge right outside the front door and we could spend hours watching boats using the canal and the keeper operating the swing bridge. They didn't tell us we'd see ospreys flying overhead and a wealth of other birds in the vicinity. They didn't describe the place properly and someone ought to sue them.

We spent the next week in Paradise (although real Paradise might be a tad warmer and drier). The views of the hills were always changing - sometimes clear, sometimes wreathed in mist or cloud, sometimes with the sun shining on them.  The long hours of dusk provided a great show with the hills gradually darkening. It didn't get completely dark until after 2300 and started to get light again about 0330.

The cottage was an ideal place to stay and a great base for touring that part of the country.  We were well pleased with it.

Sunday 30 May. We needed supplies and fuel so drove into Lochgilphead.   After lunch we decided to walk along the canal to Crinan. The scenery was just beautiful. Not far from the cottage is a bird hide overlooking the Great Moss or Moine Mohr, a vast peat bog which is home to many birds and unusual butterflies and is a heritage area.  The River Add cuts through the peatmoor and has a wide and shallow estuary and in the distance are mountains on offshore islands. On the other side is the canal and behind that forested hills. We kept stopping to admire and photograph the views.

At Crinan we found more locks and then the sea lock which allows boats access to the ocean. There is a basin here where yachts and fishing boats were tied up.  There were also a couple of old Clyde Puffers, including the Bright Spark.  These were steamers that used to ply the canal with excursionists.

There were a good few tourists in Crinan which is really a tiny place.  There are some houses and a hotel which we had been told was very expensive and which did not welcome locals. We decided to avoid it when we went out dining.

We spent some time at Crinan then started back.  At one of the swing bridges we spoke to the keeper and asked him when the fishing boats would be going out through the sea lock and he said next day between 0600 and 0700, depending on conditions. We resolved to get up early next morning to watch them go out.

Monday 31 May.  Merelyn and I took the car and drove  to Crinan.   We were in time to watch the whole proceedings, from the time the fishermen arrived at the boats, put their gear aboard and readied for departure.  There were two boats, both a bit rusty, dirty and untidy.  They reversed into the sea lock and there was just enough room for the two of them if they manoeuvred in a certain way, which they were obviously practised in doing.

We returned to Bellanoch, packed lunch and all three of us walked along the canal in the other direction to Cairnbaan.  It was a beautiful walk in warm, sunny weather and we enjoyed it immensely. The land rises a bit so that the area west of Cairnbaan is the highest point of the canal.  There are a series of locks and also a reservoir for feeding water into the system - they lose thousands of litres everytime a lock is used.

We talked to a lady living besides the canal at Cairnbaan and then had a drink in the hotel.  We headed back, stopping to have a lunch with a view.  There were not as many walkers on this section and not many boats were using the canal.  Nearing Bellanoch we found two young girls sprawled on the bank next to their bikes, obviously tired out.  They asked us how far was it to the nearest shop and were dismayed when we told them a couple of miles - they were pretty thirsty so we gave them drinks from our water bottles.

Swing bridge on Crinan Canal

Tuesday 1 June. The weather continues to be beautiful - warm and sunny. We told the Postmistress we had brought the weather with us from Oz and the Scottish Tourist Board was going to give us money.

We drove to Oban to sightsee and to do some shopping.  We first drove to the top of a hill overlooking the town where an industrialist started to build a mock Roman ampitheatre, partly to give work to local people and partly as a monument to himself.   It was never completed but has been landscaped with gardens inside and a viewing platform outside.  From here you can see all of Oban and the islands nearby.   The harbour is busy and colourful.

We went down into the town and parked in the Co-op parking area which had a notice saying "2 hours parking with token, available from store".  Merelyn asked two employees separately and was told by them both, "Don't worry about tokens, just park". At least we shopped in their store and then walked to the waterfront, sat on the seawall in the sunshine with dozens of other people and watched the scene.  People, mainly tourists and including a good proportion of Germans, were walking past. There were boats moving backwards and forwards, little ferries and two large island ferries, birds and even a seal which surfaced in the harbour and also watched the proceedings.

We enriched Oban's economy by buying lots of clothing, mainly sweaters and jackets.   There was a good selection in the shops, of very good quality and the prices were reasonable.  We filled in forms so we could claim back the VAT when we left the country but in the event we never bothered.

On the way back to the cottage we stopped at Arduaine to have afternoon tea in the hotel and then to visit the National Trust Scotland gardens. I found them a bit uninteresting after some of the outstanding ones we had been seeing but the other two enjoyed them.  I was more interested in a sign in the adjoining property which was evidently owned by the survivor of the two brothers who had originally established the gardens and later gifted them the the National Trust.  He seemed to be unhappy about the way the Trust was managing the gardens and expressed his feelings in the sign and in a book which was on display beneath it.  I photographed the sign for my collection.

Sign next door to Arduaine Gardens

We stopped at Kilmartin, visited the church and looked at some of the carved stones in the graveyard. Inside the church there were memorials to the Campbells of Duntroon and we wondered if there was any connection with Canberra.

Wednesday 2 June. Off to Inverary today to look at what was built as a planned village to replace the one cleared when Inverary castle was built.  This is the headquarters of the Campbell clan and the castle is occupied by the Duke and Duchess of Argyll.

Because we parked outside the hotel we felt obliged to go in and buy something even though there were no restrictive parking signs. We had morning tea but the staff were indifferent and offhand and one of them just stood around - pretty dumb of them because Inverary is a big tourist stopover on the way to Oban and they could have attracted a lot of custom.

The towns in this part of Scotland are small, including Oban, but very busy with tourists - Scots, English and Europeans with a smattering of Americans - even though it is early in the season.  Get away from the towns and things are very quiet indeed.

There was a piper in full regalia playing his pipes in just the right place for tourists to have their picture taken next to him and give him money.  We walked up to the castle and had a look at it from the outside, at the view of a hunting lodge on a distant hill and at the highland cattle grazing in the fields.

We drove back through Kilmartin Glen to have a look at some of the standing stones and burial sites in the Kilmartin Linear Cemetery and at the Temple Wood stone circles. Some of these monuments are 5000 years old.  This area is where the Scots, as a race, had their origins.  I didn't know Scots was the name used to describe the people who came from Ireland and settled here.

After a bit of a rest we got dressed up as well as our meagre wardrobe would allow and went out to dinner at Tayvallich Inn.  Taking advice we had booked, which was just as well because the tiny little town on Loch Sween is a great favourite with yachties and campers and the Inn was packed.

Before we went to dinner we drove through the town and on to Keills chapel which is a lonely little building set under a hill and in the midst of fields.  It is a 300 metre walk from the car park and a sign warned us to be beware of cows with young and of the bull. It was raining, the path was muddy and steep and we had good clothes on so we were content with a distant view.

The meal at the hotel was good - they specialised in seafood so I had a half-dozen Loch Sween oysters.  They cost over a pound each, were sitting in a pool of saltwater in their shells and tasted salty but bland.  No wonder people rave about the local oysters when they come to Australia.

Thursday 3 June. A lazy day as the morning brought continuous rain and it was warm and snug in the cottage.

In the afternoon the rain stopped and we drove into Lochgilphead to do some shopping and then to Ardrishaig which has a sealock at the other end of the Crinan Canal.   This is nowhere as interesting as the one at the Crinan end. Lynette and Merelyn walked the canal from Lochgilphead to Cairnbaan where I met them with the car.  They said it was nice but probably the least scenic section of the seven miles they had now walked of the nine mile length of the canal.

Crinan Canal is publicised as "the prettiest shortcut in Britain" and it must be fairly obvious we were immensely impressed by it. During the week we were there we saw many yachts using the canal.  There weren't huge numbers and there was no commercial traffic.  Perhaps it gets busier further into Summer but it is difficult to see how the canal fees alone would pay for its upkeep.  There are a few keepers along its length who operate the swing bridges and the sea locks at either end. The keeper at Bellanoch seemed to have a very boring job.  A few times a day he would lower a boom across the road then open and close the bridge.  The rest of the time he would tend the gardens and lawns and paint everything in sight.  There were times when there was nothing to do and he was very keen on watching for the osprey and following it as it flew over.

He had the place looking picture perfect.  Everything is in grey and white and the quoining on the building is very distinctive. It is such a lovely place.

Crinan Canal - "prettiest shortcut in Britain"

Friday 4 June. More rain - we didn't dare face the Postmistress. In the afternoon Merelyn & Lynette visited the historic sites at Achnabrek where they saw spirals, circles and lines etched into the granite and dating back to 5000 BC.   They also visited Dunadd Fort, site of a hill fort from 500 AD on an isolated hill that provided a 360 degree view of any approaching marauders. Dunadd was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Dalriada.  Little remains of the fort except a short wall and carvings of  a hog, a basin and a footprint. Later they walked along the towpath to Crinan again and I met them there with the car.

Things were very busy at Crinan.  It may have been the weather which was closing in but there was a sudden rush of boats wanting to use the canal. We spoke to the lock keeper who had to operate the sea lock and a canal lock and then drive a mile or so to operate a swing bridge. It was right on 5 p.m. which is normally when things close down.  He was run off his feet and had phoned for someone to come and help him.

We stood in the rain to watch boats going through the locks.  The basin was full of fishing boats and the Bright Spark was getting up steam.   We were told it was going through the lock later which we would really like to have seen.  Unfortunately we couldn't find out what time this would be and as the rain was quite unpleasant we left and returned to the cottage.

Off to Glasgow

Saturday 5 June. We were all ready to go by 0820, left the key and set off.  It was 90 miles to Glasgow which took us under 2 hours to drive. We had booked into a B&B on the outskirts of Paisley which is itself on the outskirts of Glasgow and near the airport. We went straight there and arrived much earlier than we were expected. The owners were out but their two young sons received us and agreed to our leaving our bags there.

Lynette had to leave to return to commitments at home and we had arranged to hire a car for the remainder of the trip. We drove to the airport and found the car rental area - space, as always, is at a premium and all the car rental companies were housed in the one building which was a relatively small demountable outside the terminal building.  Business was brisk, there was a queue at every counter and a line stretching out the door.  We had booked with Europcar and they said it would be OK to start the hire a day early.  We said goodbye to Lynette and then waited until the car was ready.  We had asked for a small car and got a Ford Fiesta which was ideal for getting around the narrow roads and manoeuvring into tight parking spaces.

We drove back to the B&B, met the parents and moved the bags into our room.  They told us some good places to go and we had just-adequate maps in the road atlas so we got lost only a few times.  First stop was the Burrell Collection and lunch in the cafe.  Sir William Burrell was a wealthy Glasgow ship owner who sold his entire fleet just before World War I and so amassed a fortune.  He spent the rest of his life collecting works of art, firstly for his own interest and then on behalf of the community when he decided to hand over the collection to the Glasgow City Council.   The terms of the gift were that it had to be housed in a separate building so many miles away from Glasgow and in a country setting.  He was worried that the smoggy Glasgow air would ruin the art works.  For many years the Council was unable to satisfy the conditions but eventually a rich lady donated Pollock Country Estate to the Council and certain changes were made to Burrell's deed of gift.  The collection now sits in a purpose-built building in the middle of extensive parklands. It is a wonderful collection - he had superb taste.  One worry is about the numerous works of art such as alter pieces, choir stalls etc. that came out of various churches - how were they acquired?

We stayed there some time and then tried to find the Museum and Art Gallery.  Our barely adequate maps didn't pinpoint the location and, although we did eventually find it, it was well after closing time. We found a parking spot near the city centre and walked to the pedestrian malls.  On the way we saw a disturbance where some drunken git was getting into arguments with other men and hassling passers-by.   He ripped off his shirt and ran into the centre of the busy road.  Two police officers arrived, tried chasing him which didn't work and finally coaxed him into coming over to them.  We left at that stage.

We had a look at Central Station which had some very interesting architecture under a huge glass roof.  We did a walking circuit of the centre back to the car and then drove to an area near the university we had been told about.  We didn't think it was very special and overall we didn't think much of Glasgow.  Plus there were all those drunks who kept asking us for 10p.

We drove back to Paisley and after some effort found the pub we had been told about and had a good meal.

Part 2 Part 4

Home | Trips Index