“Got a feeling '21 is gonna be a good year, especially if you and me see it in together. I had no reason to be over-optimistic but somehow, when you smiled I could brave bad weather”
With a nod to the seminal 1969 album Tommy by The Who, and a little date upgrade!
Happy New Year to y’all; we hope you had a wonderful time over the festive period.
So, here at Iona Cali, we have been feeling the pull of the wild to get out and about again after being happily ‘housebound’ for the last two weeks, and so we are out on the road again!
This short trip has been planned around an overnight stay at the Crinan Hotel on Scotland’s West Coast, and we plan to be out on the road for a quick 6 or 7 days, which started mid-afternoon today and got us as far as a regular stop for us on Loch Lomond, Slanj in Tarbet.
Our room view, Crinan Hotel
Our next stop was the Crinan Hotel in Argyll, where we had booked an overnight stay. Having ‘freshened up’, we had a drink in the small bar before sitting down to our dinner, and what a meal it was! We chose all local seafood, including scallops, a fillet of halibut and langoustines, all washed down with an excellent bottle of Sancerre! As we headed off to bed later that night, we booked a second night in the hotel, so good had been our experience!
After a comfortable night’s sleep, we had a full Scottish breakfast, and later in the day, we walked up and over the Crinan woods at the rear of the hotel. The walk took us a couple of hours, and we climbed some 375 ft, all of which gave us an excellent appetite in preparation for another wonderful dinner.
We woke the following day to a heavy frost outside, and after our room served continental breakfast, we set about defrosting Iona before heading north in search of our next night’s stopover. En route, we drove out to Easdale Island and parked, intending to stay for the night. However, as the local shop and pub were shut, we decided, after a walk around the village, to drive further north to Oban, where we found a reasonable parking spot in the town.
Once Iona was settled for the night, we walked around the centre of Oban and enjoyed a curry in the local Indo/Chinese restaurant before returning to Iona for a good night’s sleep.
Our final night of this trip was at the motorhome site in Ardfern, where dusk was gathering, and the evening turned into a lovely sunset at the head of Loch Craignish. As the last embers of the day slide over the horizon, we set off on the twenty-minute walk to the local hotel, The Galley of Lorne Inn, where we enjoyed a libation and a chat with the bar staff and a couple of other folks from the campsite.
The following day was a gloriously clear blue-sky affair, and the trip back to ‘Auld Claes and Porridge’ was a pleasant journey as we travelled south to Glasgow and home.
Check out our route below:
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