Well, there isn’t a superlative to describe the views we saw
today but more of that later.
It was raining when we left our B & B at Oban this
morning and headed towards our next hotel at Pitlochry. Because we were unable
to find any accommodation on the west coast we had decided to go to a more
central location before heading further north.
Since we had already traveled some of the roads on the
direct route, Mick had decided to take a more circuitous route which passed
through the Ben Nevis and Glen
Coe National
Parks.
We left Oban heading north on the A85 and turned onto the
A828 where we stopped to visit the
Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary. The entry price was £10 each.
This sanctuary began life as a seal rescue centre and has
now grown into a centre with many aquatic animals and fish on display in tanks
and pools. It is also built on the shores of Loch Creran.
The displays were excellent and contained a good variety of exhibits.
There was also a schedule of feeding demonstrations and we watched otters and
seals being fed and trained.
The young lady on the microphone during the displays was an
Aussie girl from Brisbane
and we had a chat with her after the show had finished. She had been there for
8 months and was about to leave and spend a week back in Australia before heading off to Asia to work in a wildlife park.
Outside in the woods they were trying to encourage red
squirrels to come to the area by controlling the grey squirrels. Apparently
there were 3 of them that are in the area but we weren’t able to catch a
glimpse of any.
We enjoyed our visit immensely and left when heavy rain
started to fall.
We then continued on the A828 heading east and didn’t get
far before stopping again and again to take pictures of the unbelievably
beautiful views with mountains, valleys and streams. Just magnificent. Neither
of us could find words to describe what we saw.
When we started our Scottish adventure we agreed that Wales and the Lake District
would take some beating for their inherent beauty. Today, we both agreed that
nothing matched the Scottish Highlands.
We watched a Scottish Navy rescue helicopter on exercises
flying through the narrow passes with its rotors seemingly metres from the
sheer rock walls.
We stopped, yet again, at the Glen Coe Mountain Resort which
had a massive car park (free), a large restaurant with accommodation blocks and
strange looking hut accommodation (see pics). There was also a chair lift,
called the Cliffhanger Chairlift which
ascended 2800 feet to the top of a mountain from where skiers, presumably, would then descend the slopes. Obviously there
was no snow at this time of year.
The lift was working and for £10 per ticket it was taking
people to the top. Some of them got off and walked down, some took their
mountain bikes up and tried to commit suicide coming down the slopes and others
(Mick included) just went up and down to take pictures of the magnificent
scenery from the top. Lyn, despite Mick’s cajoling, refused to go for the ride.
From his vantage point, Mick could see that there was a
mountain bike track and a walking track down from the top and the views were,
well, breathtaking.
Fortunately the sun shone for much of our time there but it
started to rain again when we left but it soon turned sunny again. Such is the
weather pattern in Scotland
it seems..
We arrived at Pitlochry at about 6pm which is probably the
latest we have booked into anywhere and then had dinner at the Acarsaid Hotel
before settling down for a rest.
And then we heard on the news that the Aussies managed to
lose yet another cricket test due to their incompetence. We were doing so well
to start off with, then bang it all fell apart. We only get an hour of
highlights each night, as it is televised on Sky (pay TV) and the places we go
don’t have it.
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