Fri 8th May
I tried to have a decent wake up today, which usually means leaving at about 9.30am, and I managed to achieve. I’d planned to move on along the main road and drop in at Arduaine Gardens, which was a National Trust site. As I arrived at the site a fleet of Lotus cars had entered before me and were blocking, what I was to later find out was, the car park. I think they were unsure where to go, and gone into the wrong car park, intending to park at the hotel next door. There was a camper in front of me, and another car behind. The chap in the car behind got out and spoke to the camper in front of me, I wasn’t sure what he’d said. The Lotus cars looked like they’d figured out what to do and were turning round and vacating the car park. The camper had slotted himself through into the carpark, but I was waiting for the lotus’ to fully exit so that I could enter. I then had the man from the car behind come up to me (I had my window open), he said something like ‘Are you going to move?’, quite sharply, at the same time as me asking him ‘is that the car park?’ (I still wasn’t completely sure, as there were no signs, and the whole lotus debacle had confused me.) So, I replied ‘I’m just waiting for the cars to move’, and he snapped ‘well move forward so I can get past’. I was shocked and replied, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t KNOW’. As I was saying the sentence innocently and still in shock, my feelings obviously caught up with the situation and went into ‘who do you think you are’ mode, as I snarklily emphasised my ‘know’ and he walked off. It really annoyed me, I didn’t know what was happening, he hadn’t asked me to move, I was being patient and waiting on the Lotus cars to move. Eurgh! I considered he was probably in a rush, and his impatience came out as rudeness. I vowed that if I saw him in the gardens, I would tell him politely that he upset me with his rudeness, but nay I didn’t see him the rest of the day.
I walked down the path past the hotel café, which had lovely views out to the Sound of Jura and Luing Island, and clocked it to fill my water up on the way back. Once in the gardens there were two trails to follow, an upper garden and a lower garden. I followed the upper garden and again, like Brodick, it had beautiful smells from all the rhododendrons. The gardens were created in 1898 during the time that exotic plants were all the rage. There were many plant explorers going out to discover new plants and flowers across the globe, bringing back their samples to Scotland where they were able to nurture them in the temperate climate they get here due to the North Atlantic Drift. The Garden is proud to provide a personal vibe that other gardens on show may not.
After my walk along the upper garden, I settled by the lawn area to have my lunch in a sun trap on a bench. I watched the people coming and going including the gardeners and had a mistlethrush join me on a low branch. I immediately sent my friend Brian a video, as they are one of his favourite birds. As it was such a lovely morning and a beautifully peaceful spot, I decided to get my sketchbook out a do a quick sketch. I need to work on fitting everything onto such a small page, or maybe I should focus on drawing just a small area of my view, rather than everything in my peripheral.
When I had finished my sketch I continued down to the lower garden, which consists of a few ponds linked together. I could see the tadpoles where the light was shining on the water and I thought if they have this many tadpoles they must have a hell of a lot of frogs around, which must be hiding, as I couldn’t see them. I then caught sight of another mistlethrush skuttling along the lawn stopping every so often with his head cocked to one side. He’d hop a bit more, then stab, stab, stab into the ground. He got his worm! He did this a few more times before I left him to it. On leaving the gardens I made use of the loos, then went to the hotel café to ask for my bottles to be topped up. I’m getting a bit braver at asking now, as I asked for all 4 to be filled, and I didn’t buy anything.
I’d read my wild swimming book a few days ago and clocked that there was a wild swimming spot on the island of Easdale. It was a slight diversion off the main road on my route round the coast, but that was the point, to see places you wouldn’t ordinarily visit. I set off on my way there travelling down the undulating main road, then turned off towards the Island of Seil, which the Island of Easdale is located off. Seil is joined to the mainland by a small humpback bridge called The Clachan Bridge, or the bridge over the Atlantic, which is very pretty stone bridge with little purple flowers sprouting out all over it. I then drove to the other side of Seil to the little village of Ellenabeich, parked up in their carpark, another free one! and had a wonder over to the main area. They had an information centre that was quite small, where you could book the Sea-fari boat tours, and also doubled up as a small gift shop. I asked here about the ferry over to Easdale, which was every half hour. The next one was in 5 mins, and I wanted to get to grips with what was in Ellenabeich before journeying over, so decided to aim for the one after. Over the road from the information centre was a restaurant called the Oyster Bar, which apparently is a nice place to eat. I had a quick look at the menu and the fresh seafood didn’t jump out at me, so I dismissed it as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but having looked back at the menu online now, I see it does sell mussels, oysters and langoustine, they were just hidden by the choices of sandwiches, burgers, steak pie etc. Next to the information centre was the village museum, and after some knowledge of the area I popped in to fill the time before the next ferry departed. There was an elderly lady on the desk who I said hello to before starting a peruse of what looked to be a fairly in depth ‘homemade’ museum. It looked great, different sections with their own glass cabinet of artifacts, giving information on the history of the people, slate industry, nature, home life of the village, war stories. As always, too much information to take in, but a lady from the village had set up the museum wanting to provide visitors with its story. She had hand made a lot of the props and you could tell a lot of love had gone into it.
Ellenabeich is a slate village, as is Easdale I was going over to visit, and the slate from this and other villages on these island shores was used all over the world to roof buildings, as well as for other uses. They are known as ‘the islands that roofed the world’. I boarded the ferry, a small boat able to take around 10 people, we had the postman on our trip, and took the 2-minute journey to Easdale. On reaching the other side I wasn’t too sure where to go, the book stated following the houses around the old quarries and looking for the L shaped one. All the slate quarries had ceased being used in the early 1900’s and were now all filled in with sea water, which meant you were able to swim in them. I’d looked on google maps and OS maps but couldn’t see any L shaped mass of water on the island.
I thought I’d have a general walk around and see what was on the island, with the homes being the nearest point of interest. There was a sign for a gallery and the museum for this island, which the lady in the Ellenabeich museum had told me about. I headed for the gallery first, which was in the downstairs room of one of the quaint little whitewashed houses. It had mostly shell themed pieces that were quite bright and arty. The lady who made them was sat at the desk and definitely looked the arty type and was very friendly when I started speaking to her, telling me about where to go in the area, she advised on Iona, being a place of unique feeling. She said it was for everyone’s own interpretation, but it had something special. I was planning to go to Mull at some point hopefully, so would try made the ferry journey over while I was there. She pointed me in the right direction of the quarry pools and off I went in my search.
I made my way round the island, and it was covered in waste slate, really giving you a sense of the busy working environment it would have been. I eventually found the pool that most resembled an L shape. There were a lady and her two children down by the shore and I didn’t want to seem like I was intruding, so walked round the island a bit more to give them space to do what they were doing and move on. Of course they may have been going to swim too, in which case I would have to join them. This ended up being what happened. I felt a bit awkward walking down to where they were, it wasn’t like it was a beach where you happen to be in the same area, you have to purposefully walk down the slate embankment to enter the water. I skuttled down and said loudly ‘do you mind if I join you?’ I thought that would break the ice and be less weird than just getting on with stripping a few metres away. They were friendly but didn’t talk much, the mum was too busy worrying about the dog as he was getting fidgety with them all trying to get in the water. After changing I started to make my way in. It was cold, but not as cold as I’ve been in before. I had to be careful where I was placing my feet, obviously the slate was flat, but it was also a little slippery. I was waste dep in now and the children were asking if it was cold, and it wasn’t to be honest, not now my bottom half had got used to it. The children were sat on the other side of the quarry and hesitating about getting in, but the mum obviously wanted to get in and she was asking the children to come over to look after the dog so she could have a swim. The girl said she’d swim over but she was taking her time about getting in, so I tried to coax her. I told her to try and beat me in and I counted down, 3, 2, 1… in I went. She stayed on the rock she was propped on. Oh well, it was a good way to get me in. I swam around and it felt nice after a few seconds. I lay back and floated on my back, the water cushioning all around me, it felt so relaxing and cool, with the added warmth of the sun shining on my face. The children were now happy to talk to me. The mum was less communicative, so wasn’t sure if she was wary of me as a stranger, or just still worrying about the dog, and getting the kids to help. I swam around for a bit, the thought of what was beneath me was a little unnerving, but if they advertise swimming there it must be fine. The mum spoke to me a little more as time went on and was very friendly, giving me advice on where to go in the local area. She said they had moved to the area after covid, having come here a lot when they were younger, renting their window cleaners holiday home. When covid hit they realised how much they missed it and needed that environment in their lives, so one by one her mum, aunt, sister and her all moved up that way from Yorkshire and Nottingham. I found out the mum was called Emma, her son was Zeth, he was possibly 10 I think, as her daughter, Ida, was 9. As I got out to get dressed Zeth asked if I liked climbing, to which I replied ‘yes, what kind of climbing’, I wasn’t sure where the conversation would go. He asked me if he could show me something once I’d got ready, some rocks to climb over. Off course I’d be up for clambering over rocks, so as soon as I was dressed, I joined him over by the rocks and he and Ida showed me how they climb up and over the rocks, claiming they do it at speed. Then Zeth showed me him traversing along a rock above a rock pool. I was sure he’d be fine, but I felt responsible for him as Emma was back at the reservoir. I was running and jumping over these rocks with the kids, and they were treating me like their new friend, and I didn’t feel any different from being their friend but suddenly realised how did it look as a nearly 40-year-old hanging out with the kids. Although we feel normal like we are still kids ourselves, it is certainly not the case and quite sobering to stop and think about it. The kids were brilliant kids, so inquisitive and friendly, asking all sorts of questions.
We headed back to the ferry for the next departure and as we reached the other side, I said my goodbyes as I went to enquire about the campervan car park for over night parking. There was a sign that said to pay the £10 in the info centre, or post in the letterbox if it was shut. I moved my van round and started to settle for the evening, making my dinner and having a blow on my cornet. I noticed a van pull up a short distance from me, he took his dogs for a walk and when he came back, he drove off. Didn’t think much of it, until I went for a walk to watch the sunset, going to the normal carpark, which was situated by the beach. I noticed the man’s van, so approached him and asked if it was ok to park here for the night. He didn’t think it was an issue, just that they put the campervan overnight parking area in to ensure the main carpark doesn’t get overloaded with campers. I would presume this is for the peak seasons. So, after I watched the sun set, I went back to the van and moved it to the main car park. And as the man had quite rightly pointed out, this car park actually had a view, whereas the other one was tucked away with no view.