A busy couple of days!

Monday, June 22, 2015
Fort William, Scotland, United Kingdom
Well, we've been around a bit in the last couple of days. Sunday morning we got up and took the ferry over to the Isle of Mull, a very pleasant 45 minute crossing. We then took the bus up to Tobermory, a very pretty little fishing village at the top of the island.    Now I thought the Kiwis were parsimonious in their road design, with all of their 1 lane bridges that we saw in New Zealand, but the Scots on Mull take economy of road building to a new level. Most of the 45 minute bus ride from the ferry landing to Tobermory is on a one-lane road, with bulges on one side or the other every 50 to 100 yards to allow cars to pass. Now this is a very busy road, with buses and logging trucks, not to mention dozens of campervans, going in both directions, so it was a bit unsettling to watch through the upper level window! I was sooo glad I decided not to brig the car over.     So, we wandered around Tobermory a bit, had some lunch at the local pub and picked up some samples at the local distillery (not enough time to do a tour). Then headed back on the bus and ferry to Oban. We wanted to try to get the last distillery tour there, but missed it again. Did get there in time to do a sampling, though. And we did get reservations for later in the evening for EE-USK, an excellent seafood restaurant on the pier (I never did remember to ask where the strange name came from). After getting cleaned up, we headed back down for another fabulous meal--everything was exceptional. It was also very entertaining watching the owner (I think) deal with the hordes of people coming and going (it's a big place and very busy) and those trying to weasel their way in without reservations. We went back to the room and had an early night--after trying one of the sample that we got from the Tobermory Distillery.
This morning, after breakfast, we headed out and took what turned out to be a bit over a 2 hour detour back to Tarbet, to pick up the rain jacket that I had left there on Saturday, along my favourite (not) very narrow, very winding road. Then off to Fort William, with a spectacular drive through the mountains. We stopped in Fort William for lunch at a good pub, the Grog and Gruel, and then headed out for a walk in Glen Nevis. The Visitor Centre there pointed us to a 2 hour walk along the Nevis gorge to the Steall falls. This took spectacular views to a new level.    It certainly matched the best mountain scenery that we saw in New Zealand. Then we came back to town and found our B & B, the Morvich, which is a very very nice place--we upscaled because there were very few vacancies when we tried to book on Saturday. We made reservations for dinner at the Crannog seafood restaurant and then wandered out to see a bit of the town, which is not very big and really not very impressive--really just a place to stay to go and see other "stuff" in the area. However, our dinner was, once again, very good. We finished dinner early and now I'm just considering trying another sample from Tobermory.
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2025-02-12

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