We got away from our BnB at 8:50am and arrived at the ferry terminal at 9:30am. We were put in a maybe queue to get on the 9:50am ferry. Alas, we were 1 car too far back and missed out on the earlier ride.
No worry, that gave me time to get a start on todays blog.
It’s been a long day, we have both been awake since 4am, no reason, we were just awake. Our drive to Craignure this morning was interesting. The first half was on my least favourite roads, yes, you got it, the two way single lane roads with passing points dotted along its length. To make it more interesting we were followed on it for most the way by a very large fully loaded timber log truck, add to that livestock carriers going to the Salin Show, a bus and bike riders coming the other way. But we made it!
Our ferry left on time at 11am, we still cant get over how efficient they are, about a 20 minute turnaround. Blue skies with puffy white clouds (ok, there was a touch of grey to some), a beautiful morning for our crossing, just a slight side to side roll.
On the way down to Loch Lomond the traffic came to a standstill and a few cars way in front of us started doing u-turns. It all started flowing after about 15 mins. From what we could see a red car came to grief crossing a narrow stone bridge, there were bits of red car strewn along the roadside from the start of the bridge and about 10m after.
On our way down the hill to Luss we were talking about Loch Lomond, I decided that the Banks of Loch Lomond were only Bonnie on the western and southern sides, they were way too steep and rugged else where to be Bonnie. With that and a 4G signal, Deb looked up the words to the old Scottish song “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond” and regaled me with a few verses. I was touched by her musicality. ?
We got to Luss around 1:30pm, we amazingly got a great park near the Loch and the cafe we were going to for lunch. All these small villages are extremely busy due to the summer holidays and most of them have very restricted parking. We both ordered a “Stokie” for lunch, Deb had a Scottish Mature Cheddar Cheese Stokie, and I had an Egg Mayonnaise Stokie! A Stokie is basically a large soft bread roll with a filling, served with salad and mayoslaw. They were huge, mine was a bit like an egg sandwich on steroids and Deb’s was exactly as it said, a big bread roll with a huge pile of grated cheese, it looked like they waved the butter at the roll from about a meter away (very little made it onto the roll). Now they were a culinary experience we can both tick off our bucket list and not revisit, ever!
After lunch we walked around the village of Luss. Down to the jetty and onto the beach to touch the waters of the Loch, it was cold. We then walked down and had a look into Luss Parish Church St Kessog’s, built in 1875. It seems it is host to 5 relics dating back to the Viking days around 100ad. There were many colourful houses and gardens in the village.
Next we drove around the southern end of the Loch looking for a good place to get a photo up the length of the waters. It took a bit but we eventually found a way to the Loch edge at the Ross Priory, a beautiful building in its own right.
We drove to The Lodge Forest Visitors Centre to take a bit of time out and commune with nature. We took a walk down to a waterfall and onto a forest hide. At the waterfall there were 2 parents with their children and dogs. The children and dogs were all playing in the creek. They were absolutely soaked, both the children and the dogs, but they were having so much fun! The waterfall was better than I expected, dropping maybe 7 or 8m. We then went onto the Forest Hide. It was described as a Red Squirrel hide, but the fine print talked only about the birds you might see. A bit disappointing, we are yet to see the elusive British Red Squirrel. We did see quite a few different birds that were drawn to the area by liberal amounts of birdseed and bird feeders in the area.
An interesting fact for you all, there are 31421 Lochs in Scotland and 1 lake. And today we went to that very lake, yes we visited the Lake of Menteith just east of Aberfoyle. The lake comes close to the road at its western end and we managed to find a small fishing track that allowed us to get to the banks of the lake. It looked like a Loch to me. ?
We arrived in our hotel in Callander around 5pm, checked in and went for a walk around it before dinner. But I get ahead of myself. We are staying at The Roman Camp Hotel. It is old and VERY quirky. At check-in we looked up a hallway, and the floor undulated for its full length, maybe 10 to 15m. We got shown around a few ground floor rooms, some very comfortable rooms – a guest lounge, a tea room and of course the library. We were then taken to our room, the doorway measures around 5’6” or so, so we ducked coming in. Our bed is two singles pushed together and is lumpy, to match the pillows. None of the furniture seems to fit in the room, it’s all crowded on the window side of the room. And then there was the smell, an old world, musty smell that has been attempted to be masked with a “sweet” room deodoriser. We quickly opened the window.
During our walk around the gardens we discovered a walled garden behind the bistro, it would have been magnificent in its day. You could see it was both a decorative and food producing garden, but it hasn’t seen any love for some time. There was even a small grove of Yew trees, and they looked amazing.
We had dinner in the Bistro, the food was excellent. After dinner we went down and sat by the swiftly flowing Teith River that runs passed the hotel. It was very relaxing and a great way to finish our day.
Tomorrow we go to Glasgow, a city that has transformed itself from the working class industrial/shipbuilding capital of Scotland into a cosmopolitan city of many surprises, like a Necropolis. ?
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