First part of this years trip took us to Lochgilphead which lies at the head of Loch Gilp, an inlet on the western shore of Loch Fyne. Although now quite run down it was originally a small but busy fishing village. We spent two nights at the excellent Lochgilphead Caravan Park before travelling on to Oban to catch the ferry across to the Isle of Coll.
A little distance from the camp site is the Crinan Canal which has grand tow path. We decided to walk south towards Ardrishaig where we observed some young female students work the lock gate to allow a rather large pleasure boat to pass through. Always an exciting experience. Walking back along the opposite tow path made this a most enjoyable circular walk.
The following morning we left to catch the 3pm CalMac ferry at always busy Oban. Lovely smooth 2.45 hour crossing took us to Arinagour, the principal settlement and ferry port of the Inner Hebridean Island of Coll.
Coll is 13 miles long and 3 miles at its widest point. Not hugely populated and very unspoiled, its ideal if your looking for some peace and quiet . Some good walking with quite roads for cycling.
We stayed at the west end of the island at the Garden House Camping and Caravan Site, run single handed by the lovely friendly Ken Graham, an Englishman who had moved to the island in 1991 and purchased the former Breachacha Estate Walled Garden and turned it into a well sheltered campsite, that must be booked in advance on line. Full details and prices can be found on the internet.
Surrounded by a RSPB reserve we were serenaded by various bird calls including rasping crex-crex of the corncrakes and a rather noisy cuckoo. The 18th century large walled garden is listed by Historic Scotland as an early example of an estate garden with very few openings. It formed a historical grouping with the nearby Breachacha Castles.
Arinagour is a village and the main settlement on the island. It has a well stocked shop with restricted opening hours, a post office and a very nice hotel which has a bar and a restaurant.
The restaurant serves a lovely lunch time menu and has access to a well laid our garden that over looks Loch Eatharna and out to sea. On a Saturday there is a Craft Market in the community centre.
A short walk from the village is the parish church, built on 1907, which is described as a Gothic Revival Church with a timber roof and lancet windows.
The main attractions at the west end of the island, where our camp site was located, are the beaches. The nearest, Breachacha Beach is within walking distance just across the headland. Overlooking the sea Loch are two castles. The earlier one of the two is a 15th century tower house that was the stronghold of the Macleans of Coll. It was restored to a liveable condition in the 1960’s by Nicholas Maclean-Bristol and his wife Lavinia, who incidentally still lives there.
The newer Castle, known as Breachacha House, which is also a category A listed building was constructed in the mid 18th century. Samuel Johnson and James Boswell stayed at the newer castle on their tour of the Hebrides. Some work has been done on the castle although one section still looks derelict.
A short bike ride up passed the Airport, turning left down to a car park ,where you can safely leave your bikes, from there you can explore two beaches. Both are approached via paths across the sand dunes.
Cossapol Bay was the first, not another person to be seen.
On a further day the mile long beach at Feall Bay was an ideal place to sit and enjoy our piece in lovely warm sunshine.
Again cycle up passed the Airport, but this time turn right at the junction and cycle to the RSPB office, parking our bikes in the car park. Quite a long walk through the sand dunes down to another deserted beach at Hogh Bay. Again we sat in the warm sunshine and enjoyed our picnic.
Before walking back to our bikes we walked a little further to see the Hebridean Centre which houses Project Trust, an international volunteering charity for young people. Established in 1967 the centre offers young people across the UK, Ireland and Europe international volunteering experiences of between 8 to 12 months duration. The aim of the volunteering experiences is to empower young people to develop their confidence, resilience, awareness and leadership skills. We have learnt since that it is up for sale.
Unfortunately all good things come to an end. We did not really want to leave Coll, after nine nights on the island we really began to feel at home. with its lack of people and the peace and quiet. Also Ken Graham made us so welcome there’s a good chance we would return another year his Garden House Camp Site.
Back across to Oban via the ferry, pick up some messages and on to the family owned Argyll Caravan Park for a further five nights. The site is located on the shores of Lock Fyne, the longest Sea Loch in Scotland, and forms a part of a 50 acres site that includes a great deal of static holiday homes.
Direct from the site you can walk the 2.5 mile walk to Inveraray (the City Link Bus 926 runs passed the site into town every 2 hours). The picturesque town was rebuilt from 1744 to allow the 3rd Duke of Argyll to to build a new castle on the site of the old town, there's privilege for you! The town, which developed in association with linen weaving, herring fishing and tourism, was the administrative centre of the former county of Argyll until 1975.
From the amount of people visiting the town, even out of season, tourism is seems be the towns main income. Grand wee shops and restaurants, a pier with a Clyde Puffer docked along side which makes sense when you lean that the Para Handy author Neil Munro was born in Inveraray. Don’t hesitate to call in Caffe Bella for a very tasty Fish Supper.
When paying a visit to the town one can’t leave without a guided tour around its rather grand castle. In 1744 the 3rd Duke of Argyll demolished the original castle and build a completely new building. 40 years in construction, the work was largely supervised by the Adam family, still to this day renewed as gifted architects and designers. On completion it was more like a grand classic Georgian mansion house than a castle.
Also a must is a look around its gardens which are beautiful especially on a lovely warm sunny day.
Another walk from the site is following Loch Fyne towards the village of Furnace, some of which can be quite boring when walking tree lined areas, but saying that the section that runs along side the Loch can be quite beautiful. A 3.5 mile walk each way but not a circular one unfortunately. The next section of our journey took us via Fort William, whose car park provides marking for motorhomes. This allows a wee bit of time to stock up supplies for our next port of call.
We first camped at Loch Ness Shores in September 2015, since then the Camping and Caravan Club has taken responsibility for the site. It now appears that this site is utilised for folk to start and finish the now notorious NC500 therefore most are in and out in one night which is a shame because its a grand area to explore including the formidable Loch Ness. The Loch, which is best known for its legendary monster Nessie is second to Loch Lomond in area but double its volume and has a total length of 23 miles, an average depth of 600 feet and a maximum depth of 754 feet, plenty of room for the monster and his or her family.
Just below the camp site, above Loch Ness is the Jane Fraser Memorial Obelisk. She was the only child of Simon Fraser and Elizabeth Grant his wife.
Foyers is the name of the river that runs into Loch Ness and has two waterfalls. One Upper Falls at 140 feet and one at Lower Falls at 30 feet. The Falls were used to power the first large scale commercial hydro-electric scheme in the UK, created in 1896 by the North British Aluminium Company. The aluminium smelter was closed in 1967.
The area around the Falls offers some lovely walks and some spectacular views of the waterfalls and surrounding area. Above the Upper Falls is the village which boasts a café that sells some good coffee and cake, which adjoins a general store which in cludes a post office counter.
Walking north from the campsite we wanted to find Boleskine House notable for its association with Aleister Crowley, the English occultist and ceremonial magician (magick) and founder of the religion of Thelema. Another of its owners was Jimmy Page guitarist and founder of Led Zeppelin. Sections of Pages fantasy sequence in the film The Song Remains the Same was filmed in and around the house. The house has a very strange and spooky history and was fire damaged in 2015 and again in 2019. It was originally built on on the spot where the ancient Boleskine church had stood until it was burnt down killing most of its congregation. Boleskine House Foundation took over ownership and started restoration work and the house is expected to open to the public some time this year( 2025). Unfortunately we could not get close enough to the house to take photos. so i have used a stock photo.
Opposite the house is the Boleskine Cemetery, also none as the Clan Fraser Cemetery, its history is linked to Culloden and obviously Clan Fraser. A few generations before Culloden a wizard is said to have raised the bodies of the dead in this graveyard. The local minister Thomas Houston took on the wizard and was able to put the dead back to rest again! Nice one Thomas.
Moving on again to our next stop, south of Aviemore, to the Dalraddy Holiday Park, part of the vast Dalraddy/Alvie Estate which has been owned by Williamson family since 1927. The Estate includes holiday cottages, a camping and caravan park’ hill farm with sheep and shorthorn cattle, native pinewoods, heather moors and produces its own wood chip for bio fuel. This quiet 98 acre site reminded us of some sites we had previously visited in Europe, mainly i guess because the part we camped in was set in amongst a beautiful mixed woodland. A large hard standing area with both electric and water met our needs for a five day stay. The facilities were cleaned every day, showers had good pressure. Staff on the site were very helpful and friendly which helped make our stay a very enjoyable one.
Worth a walk through the estate via the Moor of Alvie through the woods with various cartoon and animal cut outs for the children’s tractor and trailer ride. After this woodland walk you can cross the railway bridge and join the Badenoch Way which took us to the wee village of Kingraig and the Old Post Office Cafe Gallery for a coffee and cake reward. Our walk back was via the Badenoch/Speyside Way into the holiday park. This certainly is a beautiful part of Scotland, well worth a visit.
As you are only four miles from Aviemore, a bus ride into town which is always pleasure. Famous for its winter skying it boasts some grand sports shops which to be honest we made the most of. Originally we intended to walk back but it was so hot (unusual for this part of the world) it was decided to catch the bus back.
On our last afternoon we walked along the Badenloch/Speyside Way two miles towards Aviemore on to the Alvie Loch passed the Duke of Garden's Monument over looking the beautiful countryside. The walk offered some close up views of the trains that run on the line that borders the walk.
Our journey up to Peterhead was made more difficult by a police road closure which forced us to use single track roads which we were not expecting. The warm summer weather had disappeared and normal Scottish weather had resumed.
Marina Bay Holiday Park is situated overlooking Peterhead Bay which lies to the south of the town and forms a natural harbour along side an award winning Lido Beach. As well as clamping pods and holiday lodges the site offers hardstanding touring and tent pitches with access to a shower and toilet blocks along side a laundry and dishwashing facilities.
The reason we wanted to visit this area was to see Europes leading white fish port. Its said to have capacity for a fleet of some 300 vessels. Of course the industry has not been helped by Brexit and Keir Starmer’s recent 12 year extension of European fishing rights.
Peterhead was founded by George Keith, 5th Earl Marshal in 1593. The ports south harbour was built in 1773 by engineer John Smeaton and the north harbour was began in 1818 to designs by our old friend Thomas Telford. Towards the end of the 18th century it became a fashionable spa and has also been associated with he former whaling and herring fishing industries. But like many other previously thriving towns it no longer does so. Closed and charity shop dominate.
A walk in to town from Marine Bay takes about twenty minutes and then down to the west pier and the Dolphin Cafe for a reasonable priced lunch two days running so it must have been good.
Lighthouses are something that fascinates both of us, so seeing one in the near distance it was agreed that we should catch the 62 bus south from Marine Bay to the fishing village of Boddam and walk down to Buchan Ness which juts out into the sea on which stands the Buchan Ness Lighthouse. Its reached by a bridge you can walk the complete circumference of the lighthouse.
Established by Robert Stevenson in 1827 and built by John Gibb of Aberdeen, the distinctive red bans were added in 1907. Damaged by a mine during the second world war, although thankfully no one was injured. Automated in 1988, the lighthouse is remotely monitored from the NLB’s HQ in Edinburgh. The fog horn was discontinued in 2000. As with many other lighthouses the adjoining buildings are now holiday lets.
The Scottish Maritime Academy sits just above Marine Bay and offers a range of maritime training across the Merchant Navy and Fishing sectors. It also has a very nice restaurant open to the public.
Our next stopping off point was near to the country town of Kinross at Gallowhill Caravan and Camping Park a family owned site that certainly was not the best site we have ever stayed at. A little run down with facilities that certainly were not cleaned regularly. Gents area had only two showers (a £1 for six minutes) one of which was out of order until the day we left!
At first we walked into Kinross but to be fair it was quite a stroll. So the following day we cycled in and discovered that we could book a ferry trip across Loch Leven to Castle Island. A ten minute trip where you get to appreciate the size of the Loch and the beauty of the surrounding countryside as well as a good view of Kinross House “a most sought after private retreat” for a min 3 night booking at £21000 per night. That’s next years holiday sorted.
Basically you get 45 minutes to explore the castle and its grounds before the ferry drops of the next batch of passengers and can return you to the mainland.
The castle in question was Lochleven Castle where famously Mary Queen of Scots was held prisoner between 1567-68 when she was forced to abdicate as queen before escaping with the help of her gaolers family.
Possibly built around 1300 the castle was the site of military action during the Wars of Scottish Independence (1296-1357). in the later part of the 14th century the castle was granted to William Douglas, 1st Earl of Douglas and it remained in the families hands for the next 300 years. In 1675 Sir William Bruce, an architect, bought the castle and used it as a focal point for his garden. Never again to be used as a residence.
Before embarking on the boat trip we cycled part way round the Loch Leven Heritage Trail as far as Burleigh Sands to enjoy our piece. The total length of the Heritage Trail is 13 miles on a good track which we intended complete the following day but the weather deteriorated with some real heavy rain so this most enjoyable ride was out of the question.
After our stay at Gallowhill we set off to see our daughter and our grandsons for 3 night stay before we travelled to Lauder Camping and Caravan Site which has not changed much since it only took caravans and tents.
Our stop here was a little different from our previous ones because had volunteered to look after our sons 2 dogs while the family was on holiday in Spain. As you may have already know we are not dog owners, but although they did not settle to well in the motorhome we thoroughly enjoyed having the dogs and were different animals once we got them home to our house.
Our walking had to suit the the distance two small animals could manage but being located in the beautiful Borders were still able to to enjoy some countryside.
Our nearest village was Oxton, a beautiful small village in the Lauderdale district of the Scottish Borders. Which had a well stocked Community Shop open at certain times 7 days a week and run and staffed by volunteers. About 3 mile round trip from the camp site.
In the opposite direction was a roadway that took us passed Hillhouse to some very lovely rolling countryside.
Well another trip has reached that’s its conclusion, a total of 916 miles, six different camp sites. Obviously some campsites were better than others. The highlight of the trip was the Island of Coll somewhere we would like to return too at a later date.
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