Oban 18 October to 20 October

Our journey to Oban started with our fastest get up and go ever - 30 minutes! This was mainly because we woke up at 11:00am, which is the checkout time. Some campgrounds charge another day if you leave late so.... we crept out in our stealthy white van of stealth and no-one noticed anything!

Oban is a lovely small fishing village, mainly used as a stopping point for people visiting the various islands just off the coast. We decided to stay for a couple of days, because we had been moving around quite a lot, and had just done a fairly massive drive from Skye (6 hours in one day).

McCaig's Tower is on the top of the hill. Oban fact: population of a bit over 8, 000 (which makes it the biggest town in the area), but this increases to 25, 000 in the tourist season. Which is definitely at some other time of the year.

Why so sad, big plastic statue?

A hi-vis vest to serve whiskey - safety first, everyone.

We visited a restaurant attached to a brewery, which strangely had only one of their own beers on tap (they made 6), but the food was excellent. The lads also visited the Oban distillery where we got to try cask whiskey taken straight from a cask.

We also wandered up to McCaig's tower, which is a strange structure that looks a bit like a hollow Colosseum. The storey goes that in the 1890's John McCaig noticed that a lot of the local stonemasons had no work in the winter, so he commissioned them to build this structure in the winter months to give them a job - as a memorial to his family (and him, he died before it was finished). It is 200m in diameter and would have cost half a million pounds in today's money.

So, Oban was very pretty, and a lovely place to spend a couple of days.

The outside of McCaig's Tower....

.....and the inside. Not very towery.

Possibly contemplating the view, but probably wondering what is for dinner.

Helen having a staring competition with the sun. It lost.

Off for a jaunty walk. This is the road to the campground, which did make us wonder if the sat-nav was having one of its moments.

The early episodes of Man vs. Wild were not very exciting.

So, onwards to the Isle of Islay and more whiskey!!