Returned again to the mainland for a stay at the Argyll Hotel in Inverary for the night of day six.
Above the Beamer parked in front of the Hotel. A lot of bus parties at the hotel but a little interest in the car from a group of middle-aged bikers.
The day started as usual with the now expected breakfast and after packing and settling the bill at the Islay Hotel we left to drive a couple of kilometres down the road to the Laphroaig Distillery. I had pre-booked a tour earlier in the year as I am also a Friend of Laphroaig but we arrived a little before the tour was to start. This gave us the chance to look round the shop, also to collect my dram as rent on my plot and print out the certificate. I ended up buying a presentation set of the Quarter Cask (48%) and a polo shirt. The tour was similar to the Bruichladdich but a little more corporate in character, nevertheless very interesting and worth the visit. After visiting my plot we drove a little further down the road to find the Lagavullin and Ardbeg Distilleries, and later on the way back to the ferry the Bowmore Distillery, but didn’t spend any more time on tours.
At Laphroaig they had a similar spirit safe to the one at Bruichladdich. If you can understand everything the young lady was saying you’re doing well 😉
We were told that the Kildalton Cross, a few kilometres past Ardbeg, was worth a visit so we drove on to find it. Only when looking for more information later did I realise how interesting it was because when standing at the site without knowing the background it is just another relic.
On the drive back across the top of the island we found the peat bogs (no relation to Pete Boggs 🙂 ) that we had been told about on the Laphroaig tour. The Laphroaig peat is cut by hand and left in situ to dry out before being transported to the distillery. Although we spotted some drying in the distance we saw nobody actually working as this was a Saturday.
The peat bogs on the top of the island
The road is dead straight from just outside Port Ellen past the airport almost to Bowmore but as you can see from the next photo it does tend to undulate as it runs straight across the bogs.
The road over the peat bogs on the top of the island
The next place of interest before reaching Port Askaig again was Finlaggan, another mediaeval site steeped in history with a small museum. When we arrived we had trouble finding a spot to park the car which I thought was strange because we had not seen that many visitors at any other location. Turns out that there was a wedding taking place and as we approached the gate to the small path down to the ruins and lake they were making their way back up to the car park where they boarded a bus and a number of other vehicles. There were people in the party that we had spoken to on the ferry to the island the previous day.
We reached Port Askaig with time to spare and joined the queuing cars by forming a new row to stand at the front of the car park and I wandered down to the ferry dock to take a few pictures of the picturesque hotel and the ferry arriving. Back at the the car waiting to be directed onto the boat we had both doors open as it was quite warm. And then the officer charged with loading the ferry turned up to discuss the waiting vehicles with the person in charge of the car park. He was looking for a large van or something similar to fit in a space just behind the loading door at the front of the boat, but there weren’t any that day. “No problem” he said, “we’ll take the BM (pointing to us) – it’s got big doors and will need the space anyway”. I couldn’t believe my luck, this meant that we would also be first off and wouldn’t have to sit behind the caravans and trucks on leaving the terminal.
Just as I had expected there was nothing on the road in front of us after leaving the ferry terminal at Kennacraig in West Loch Tarbert and we reached Inverary at the head of Loch Fyne after a spirited drive over the A83 through some lovely countryside along the shores of the loch.
After checking in to the Hotel we briefly visited the bar until our restaurant reservation time. We were a little disappointed initially with the hotel, the interior was very tired and in need of a good makeover, so to find that the food in the restaurant was so good made up for it. It seems to be a senior citizen tour bus stopover which probably accounts for the state of the place, but then for the very reasonable (compared to other hotels on the trip) prices one can’t complain too much. After dinner we went for a stroll around the town before returning to the bar to partake of the local ale – again. I was beginning to get a taste for local ales, much better than I remember typical English bitter back in the 80’s before we moved back to Holland, and very different from the typical Dutch pilsner. Here I drink mainly Grolsch.
