Ok, to warn you, this is a VERY long blog - so you need to either set aside some time, or read it in sections. And 'we' means Livy and me. For the rest of the pictures see my facebook account in a few days time!
Day 1 - 04-06-09
Emily Inglis' (a junior house student) family kindly offered to help us with our trip to the Scottish Isles this half-term, so after Sports Day finished at 12:00pm we left with Emily and her mother and drove north for two hours until we reached the seaside port of Oban.
We had about an hour to kill so Livy and I did a little bit of shopping (mostly window shopping), after which we drove down the coast for about an hour to another smaller port called Kennacraig.
We then caught a massive vehicle ferry across
to Port Ellen on Islay, where the Inglis family
live. They gave us the sweetest pink room to
stay in, and the beds were SO soft and
comfortable, you just sank in and never wanted
to get up.
Day 2 - 05-06-09
This morning we were woken up at 4am by the rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing outside our window. Thankfully we were able to get back to sleep, and we got up at the more respectable time of 8:30am. After breakfast we drove to Bowmore, the main town in Islay, and bought some food
for our upcoming camping trip. We drove back to the house (there are no traffic lights of roundabouts on Islay!) and packed a picnic lunch and picked up Emily and Laska, a black Labrador, before driving up to the north of Islay... somewhere.
We ate our yummy picnic on a 'secret beach' that not many people know about, had a long-jump
competition (I came last) and made an wesome sign from seaweed. Then we walked up along the cliffs, until we had a beautiful view of the Paps of Jura, the islands of Colonsay and Mull, and even, in the far distance, Be
n Nevis, the tallest mountain in United Kingdom. Unfortunately we didn't see much wildlife, except a Highland Cow, and sheep, of course. We made a small stop at a bird-watch house thing, and then... went home. The gappies beat the Inglis' in a game of football (4-3), I wrestled with Duich, the adorable golden Labrador puppy (daughter of Laska), and made amazing flapjacks with Livy. After dinner we tried to go fishing on a nearby loch on rowing boats, but there was such a strong wind that it was
impossible. I managed to catch the same piece of seaweed twice, though.
Day 3 - 06-06-09
Livy and I were meant to go horse riding in the afternoon, however the stables rang up to say that their instructor was sick, so we didn't get to go, which was disappointing. Because of this, we changed our plans and decided to visit Jura, instead of going on Sunday. We were going to borrow the Inglis' bikes and see how far around the coast we could ride, but the Inglis' said that they'd like to come along as well, and we were so glad that they did because otherwise we would have had NO clue whatsoever. We all went in the car on the ferry (Livy, me, Emily, Mr. and Mrs. Inglis and Laska) and it took just five minutes as Jura is so close by. Once we got there we took the path to the left and got out of the car and into
the back of the ute (Livy, Emily and me). Then we went charging across the countryside on a very rocky path, standing up and holding on for dear life. It took us about half an hour to get to the base of the two paps (mountain/hills). From there we left the car, put on our jackets because there was a
freezing wind coming through, and started to walk towards the left, tallest pap. It was hard work! I
got puffed quite quickly, and I felt bad because I thought that I might be holding everyone up, and I
was the only one without a pack, apart from Emily (who was BOUNDING up very fast). We climbed for about an hour and a half before we stopped for lunch. There was nowhere flat to stop, we kind of perched precariously as best we could. The view was absolutely amazing; it was like a satellite image. We had to scoff our food and pack up our picnic quickly because it started to rain and hail! We would have kept climbing to the top (we were about halfway to two-thirds up the steepest bit), but it was raining and the rocks were slippery, etc. I forgot to mention that it was all rocks going up, with a few grass patches! The big rocks were fine, but the little ones were so hard to climb, as they were unstable.
So we started to climb down, and I
fell over so many times, and resigned to
sliding down on my bottom. We went back to the car, but instead of going IN the car, like normal people, Livy and I stayed in the back of the ute, even though it was still raining. We were bumped to death going back. Once we
were lifted a good 30cm off the ground. We
got absolutely soaked, especially our legs and jeans, and our feet were already wet, so it was cold, but we were laughing like maniacs.
After a lovely hot bath we prepared dinner, and had an impromptu dinner party with two of Mr. Inglis' colleagues. We played charades using pictionary cards, and Livy had to act out being a hamster – it was hilarious.
Day 4 – 07-06-09
We drove down to the stables again today, but it was closed, so our dreams of riding on Islay were crushed. =( We packed another picnic lunch today, including a home made quiche Lorraine, and drove a little way round the bay to a rock they call 'Gaga's bottom'. The food was demolished, and then we moved down the shore to a slightly sandier beach, where we played cricket and D.O.N.K.E.Y. We walked back collecting shells all the way. After we got back to the house Livy and I spent over an hour scrubbing all the shells (I kid you not) and crying them on the AGA. Dinner was unbelievably delicious, salmon fillets with veggies from the garden. Livy and I made the pudding, which was a pineapple upside-down cake. It was our last night staying with the Inglis family, and they lent us heaps of stuff for our camping trip to Mull – we couldn't have gone without them. Ooh and we made bread. Well, we put the ingredients in the bread maker for the next day.
Day 5 – 08-06-09
This morning we had our lovely fresh bread and then sadly left to catch the ferry to Kennacraig. From there we caught a bus to Lochgilpead, and then caught another bus back to Oban. In Oban we did another shopping trip, after which our rucksacks (backpacks) were REALLY heavy. We caught the Ferry to Mull, which is another Island, bigger than Islay and Jura, which took 45 minutes. Oh, and the night before I found a horse riding place on Mull, which was near Salen, so we decided to catch the bus to Salen and camp there somewhere so it would be easier to get to horse riding the next day. We had no idea where we were going to stay,
so we just got off the bus and walked randomly down the road. We found a lovely spot by a waste-water treatment plant and a ship graveyard. After setting up our tent we collected wood and made a fire, but we only had time to toast a few marshmallows because the tide came in so quickly. Dinner (scrambled eggs with water and instant noodles) was cooked on our borrowed trangia, but after that we had to go into our tent quickly because we were being eaten alive by midges, and it was raining (but it was more the midges).
Day 6 – 09-06-09
I didn't have a very good sleep because I was cold and uncomfortable, but that was okay. I got up at 9am and we had boiled eggs and tea (made using the trangia again). After packing up our tent and all our stuff we tried to go have a look at the ship graveyard, but it was too wet, so we just hauled our very heavy backpacks to the centre of Salen where we were to be picked up by the horse riding lady. By the way, Livy and I kept thinking... Salen... sounds like Salem, Salem witches; we are camping by Salem Forest, under a full moon.... eek! Anyhow, at 2pm we started a 1.5 pony trek. I rode 'Iona', a little white Highland pony, and Livy rode 'Forest', a dark Fell pony. All the other riders were experienced, which was a little daunting, and I was told that my pony would most likely rather
trot along the beach than canter with all the other horses. Great. It was a lot of fun though, and Iona did canter for a little while before settling back into a very bouncy trot. Livy's pony decided to roll in the water as we crossed a stream, so she got wet all up her legs, which was very funny. We caught the bus back to Craignure, and caught the 5:00pm ferry back to Oban. Mr. Gore, the director of studies at Ardvreck, lives near Oban, and offered to give us a lift back to Ardvreck on Wednesday, so he picked us up from there and we drove back to his house after seeing a beautiful view of Oban from the top of a tower shaped like the Collosseum.
When we arrived at his house Livy and I almost died because the view was so beautiful. His house overlooked a loch, and there was a kind of valley, with mountain ranges in the background. We started playing a PlayStation3 game called ‘LittleBigPlanet’ at around 11pm, and we played until about 2am before we realised how late it was. It's a REALLY good game actually, though challenging. We planned to wake up at 4am to see the sunrise over the loch, but we were too tired and didn't get up.
Day 7 – 10-06-09
Livy and I just bummed around and played
LittleBigPlanet until lunchtime, when Mr. Gore came down and we had a picnic lunch on the loch, frying bacon on a fire. After that Livy and I washed up whilst singing and dancing to her iPod that we plugged into speakers. =) It was a fun week, but alas, we had to return to work, and we drove back to Ardvreck that afternoon.
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