Roadtrip: Scottish Highlands Part Two

Other articles in the series:
Roadtrip: Scottish Highlands Part One

We took a rather roundabout route to get to our final day 2 destination of Kyleakin, which is situated on the edge of the Isle of Skye.

Once again the weather was unseasonably hot as we made our way up the A82, with our first main destination being Oban. The last time we did a road-trip we stayed in this town for a single night and figured it was a good place to get a bite to eat.

There was a distance of 77 miles to cover first though. The west coast of Loch Lomond was pretty enough and we took a few snaps while heading north.

Turning off the road toward Invararay, the hills suddenly got a lot more rugged, and we were heading through valleys and around huge mountain ranges.

We couldn’t help ourselves, and just kept stopping just to marvel at these massive hill ranges that were literally right next to us.

Passing Loch after loch we eventually gave up trying to count how many we passed. They were all quite low on water, despite the rainy spring that the UK has endured and lots of seaweed was everywhere to be seen.

Being in the wilderness has it's advantages when nature calls as there's nobody about. We pulled over somewhere after Inveraray, did our thing, then jostled through some trees and down an embankment to the Loch's edge. There was not a soul around.

After what seemed hours we came to the The Falls of Lora, which is just outside of Oban. These are not actually falls, but a section of water that runs close to the Connel Bridge connecting the north and south sides of the mainland.

It consists of a 30m trench for deep water ships and this creates a lot of riptides, currents and turbulence. We did cross the bridge after our visit to Oban, and I can contest this is true. I wouldn’t like to fall in there!

As we entered Oban, @bingbabe recognized the hotel we stayed in TEN years before. It seems it is still there and going strong. It was around 1.30pm and we were a little hungry.

The town was busy as it was Saturday afternoon, peak time and very hot. Everywhere seemed packed out. We did find a little café off the main road named ‘Julie’s Coffee House’ were we could sit down too; bonus!

I ordered a Prawn Marie and @bingbabe a Coronation chicken sandwich along with some Mushroom soup. Decent enough food and much better than that crap we had the night before at Balloch.

Of course being in Scotland we had to order Iron Bru as our soft drink. I don’t think there is anywhere that DOESN’T sell Iron Bru north of the border.

After eating our fill we headed on to the next part of our journey which was north again toward Ben Nevis.

We purposely went past Castle Stalker on the way. I remember quite well this castle that is perched upon an island and is really a photograph for postcards.

iPhone's are not very good when it comes to zooming, the photo looks a little grainy.

Built originally in 1320, this is a sight to behold. We would have liked to have done a tour and you can visit it in the summer, but time was pressing and we already had a lot of travelling to keep our schedule. Oh and, what a name!

The original castle was a small fort, built around 1320 by Clan MacDougall who were then Lords of Lorn.[3] Around 1388 the Stewarts took over the Lordship of Lorn, and it is believed that they built the castle in its present form around the 1440s. The Stewart's relative King James IV of Scotland visited the castle, and a drunken bet around 1620 resulted in the castle passing to Clan Campbell. After changing hands between these clans a couple of times, the Campbells finally abandoned the castle in about 1840, when it lost its roof. In 1908 the castle was bought by Charles Stewart of Achara, who carried out basic conservation work. In 1965 Lt. Col. D. R. Stewart Allward acquired the castle and over about ten years fully restored it. Castle Stalker remains in private ownership and is open to the public at selected times during the summer.

Continuing north on the A82, we passed Fort William until we had our first sighting of Ben Nevis which is the highest mountain in the United Kingdom. I spotted The Nevis Range Mountain Resort which was off the main road and we decided to go explore and see if we could get some better views of the mountain.

The views were poor of the big mountain as they were blocked by some others, but we noticed there was a cable car to the top of the range, and spontaneously decided to go up.

As we ascended we noticed that there was a bike trail all the way down the mountain, and some rather timid riders attempting to descend. It looked ridiculously dangerous, but some get their kicks from this.

The cable car had some very dirty windows which didn't help much when it came to photographs.

On reaching the top, we noticed it was not really the top but the base point for skiers. There were several other cable cars dotted around, but all were out of action as it was mid summer. Ben Nevis was also completely blocked from this vantage point, a little disappointing.

A short walk brought us to the edge of one of the large mountains, with quite a drop and some spectacular views. It was around a mile walk round trip and worth it to peer over the edge.

The cable car was a little wobbly and stopped several times on decent. I don’t know how new it is, but it’s was not up to the quality of the one we took during our trip to Mount Saleve in France which we visited a couple of months back.

To be continued...

All photographs are my own.