Ilse of Whiskey (Islay) 21 October - 24 October

This post is dedicated to Helen and Jane. I had been a bit reluctant to take the van over to the island, because I thought the combination of ferry + rubbish roads + location of the campsite would result in the whole exercise being a bit of a frustration.

So with only a days notice, the girls organised accommodation for three nights, somewhere to leave the van, a car and ferry for the lot of us. It was a very impressive effort.  Helen gets an extra gold star for driving us everywhere.

Our trip to Islay was really about one thing - whiskey. I'm going to assume that anyone who is interested in whiskey already knows the process by which it is made (which we were told many times), and anyone who isn't interested won't care, so I won't go into it here.

We also learnt more about the scale and might of the awesome empire that is Diageo. They own pretty much every major label of alcohol in the world - and this includes 21 distilleries in Scotland and Ireland. There are 5.2 million people in Scoltand, and Diageo own over 7 million whiskey barrels. However, we did join their 'friends of the single malt' (I think we have moved beyond being just friends now) which got us free entry into all of their single malt distilleries (which normally costs 6 pounds each) and we got to keep our whiskey tasting glasses too. We got 8 between us, and they normally sell for 5 pounds each, so we did pretty well.

Lagavullin distillery.

Those aren't all my glasses. 

Hmmmm - will they notice if I steal one of thier bottles?
We enjoyed ourselves alot here, we pondered asking them to light the fire adn go and get us some pizza.

Two thumbs up for leaving us alone in a room with all your booze!

This is the approved method of whiskey tasting.

Each of the distilleries had something special to offer. Our favourite was Lagavullin - when we got there they had finished the tours, but took us through to the tasting room anyway. There we got to try their range of whiskey plus all the Caol Ila ones too, because that distillery was shut. The she told us to enjoy ourselves, and left - with all the bottles sitting on the table. Choice.

Ardeg was the only distillery with a cafe (which seems like the others are missing a trick) and Bowmore was special to me because I ended up having 4 or 5 drams before breakfast (it was just down the road)

Apart from whiskey we also watched the All Blacks finally get the world cup. I don't think I would describe watching this as 'enjoyable' in any sense of the word - but a win is a win, so yay!

Watching the AB's. A bit nerve racking, except for Josh - ice cold. Note: fresh scones and cream prepared by Helen.

This is our reaction to the win. Not a lot of smiles - but we were very happy.

Me doing my 'Graham Henry ecstatic with joy' face. It was ALMOST an awesome photo but he turned away just as the photo was taken. Question - have my eyes always pointed in slightly different directions?

Yorkshire pudding and gravy (thanks Helen!), roast lamb and roast veggies. Yum!

This is what happens when I'm not watching. Guys - I'm right behind you!

Absinthe - tastes like bad idea with a long, lingering finish of regret.

We had lunch at 'The Holy Coo' which was just down the road. It was great.

Venison and strawberry casserole with red cabbage and chips, served in a massive Yorkshire pudding.

The lady who ran this place was very friendly, a great cook and a bit mad. Reminds me of someone.......

We also tried to go for a walk. I think the photos speak for themselves.

Started off OK....

....and it was very pretty....

...but it got quite muddy.

By the way, this isn't because of the mud, Jane always makes me carry her like this. 

This is Josh pretending to look cold, wet and a bit miserable....

....and this is Josh REALLY looking cold, wet and a bit miserable. Look at that face -  he doesn't like being cold .

Make sure you read the plaque.

Bowmore is the only distillery The Queen has visited - they put down a barrel just for her. I signed the book MorganR but got nothing!

The big copper stills are amazing - and so is the brass spirit safe in the background.

And this brings our trip to Scotland, and out time with Helen and Josh to a close. We are really, really glad they joined us for this leg of the trip. Mainly because they are such lovely people and Jane and myself were getting a touch of cabin fever. Also, we had not realised how remote Scotland is (the main road around the north east coast is single track) and how closed everything would be. This, plus the weather, meant we had to make our own fun a lot of the time which was clearly not a problem.

I think if we had not had them with us we probably would have abandoned Scotland, which would have been a huge shame - because without a doubt it is the prettiest and most dramatic scenery and most amazing driving of our trip so far. Thanks guys, and looking forward to seeing you in NZ!

Our last breakfast together - you may notice that my face has lost weight.

A rare shot of our van in action.

And back to where our adventure started and finished - the long term car park at Prestwick airport.

Inveraray 20 October - 21 October

It's a long way to Inveraray......it's a long way to gooooooo.

It wasn't actually, which was why we stayed there for a night as a stop over for our assault on the whiskey fortress that is the Isle of Islay.

On our way we visited the Cruachan - The Hollow Mountain. This is not actually a setting for the Lord of the Rings, but is a power station.

To keep things neat and tidy they formed a cavern in the mountain and situated the turbine room in there. This required hollowing out 220,000 cubic metres of granite, and the cavern is high enough to house the Tower of London. It is also an 'on demand' power station, so they release water from the dam at the top of the mountain to produce power at peak times (i.e. when everyone gets up from TV to make a cup of tea, apparently party political broadcasts produce the highest demand), and then pump all the water back up to the dam at low demand times.

You reach it by driving along a road 1km into the heart of the mountain itself, and the whole experience is quite surreal. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos, so I stole some off the internet.

The road into the mountain - the tour guide kept telling us about the 'tropical microclimate' in the mountain. It's a constant 15 degrees - wheeeeeeeeee!  The tower is tunnelled through granite, which is apparently strong enough that there are NO SUPPORTS!  Eek.

The turbine room - those are actually the 'donkey engines' (starter motors) that sit on top of the turbines. Most of the cavern is underneath the floor.

Inveraray, which looks a little grim because it was raining, was actually quite pretty. It had a whole black and white motif happening. While there we visited the jail, and I had a bacon roll which only cost a 1 pound and 20p. It's the little things that make a place.

Inveraray had many of the things we look for in a town, a good cafe, some attractions, and well signposted massive carparks. I like the way that the houses are camoflagued to match the sky.

We visited the jail - while the original was pretty grim, the refurbished building was the first in the area to have gas lights and central heating. 

The death masks of Burke and Hare - the famous serial killers who would murder folk and sell the corpses for dissection. As with all valuable antiques, these were found in a cupboard during a clean out.

Jane practicing for the up-coming trial. 

A view over the 'exercise yards'

Scottish wit - the graffitti says 'one room to let' and gives the date the current inmate was leaving.

When they built the new prison, they found that conditions were actually too good and three quarters of the prisnors were reoffending immeadiatly after being released so they could go back in. So they introduced hard labour, including this machine. You would have to crank the handle around 14,000 times in a day - and the warden could adjust the difficulty with a screw (which is where the term 'screw' for a prison warder comes from). Best of all, it makes a really hideous noise. Very, very entertaining.

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!!