We woke to what we thought was a beautiful day. There were few clouds and, whilst it was chilly (about 6 degrees), it looked as though it would be another great day.
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| The harbour |
Then we decided to go to the Tourist Information Centre to see about trips to Fingal's cave and the whirlpool. Both sound like a lot of fun.
The attendant gave us a lot of help. He said that landing on Staffa Island is not permitted and, in his opinion, that really reduces the attraction of Fingal's Cave. He also said that many boat tours outside the islands have been cancelled for the next few days because it is too rough. He thought that it is unlikely we would even get close to the cave. and his comment was, "What will you see? A hole in some rock."
He also said that the whirlpool is very dependent on the time and the tide. Some trips have been cancelled because of the roughness. He gave us a list of things to see on land. So, that settled it. No northern lights, no Fingal's Cave and no Whirlpool.
We headed to the Oban Whisky Distillery to see whether there were any places left in tours. we grabbed two tickets for the midday tour. The guide was such a great guy. He had so many tales to tell. It was a thoroughly interesting time.
Oban Whisky Distillery has been operating for more than 200 years and has never expanded. It is one of the smaller distilleries in Scotland with an annual capacity of 670,000 litres of whisky. They have two copper stills. They used to malt their own barley but now that part of the process has been subcontracted. Everything else is the same. They have six distillers who handle the entire process.
The distillery started in 1794 and have two stills. The distillery is on one acre of land and cannot expand. The malted barley is roasted over some peat which imparts a very slight smoky flavour. There are 10,500 litres of water in the fermentation and that is drained off as "wash". The copper stills have a capacity of 7,500 litres.
It was a fascinating tour and we were provided with a taste of three different whiskies. They really are very good.
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| The Oban Distillery |
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| Peat |
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| The original grinder |
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| A fermentation vat |
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| One of two copper stills |
After that, we decided to wander through the town. There are lots of old buildings and interesting shops. We needed a nice souvenir to remember this place.
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| The Oban Inn |
Whilst Don and Julie went to see McCaig’s Tower & Battery Hill, Narelle and I had a quiet afternoon just wandering through the whole town.
John Stewart McCaig was a local banker who had the tower built in 1897, at a time when there was very little work for stone masons. He also wanted to leave a memorial to his family. It is just a round structure with arches of three levels. It actually look quite good and dominates the skyline of Oban.
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| McCaig's Tower |
Then went to a little restaurant called Coasters for dinner. It was my first experience with Haggis Bon Bons and they are so good. They are deep fried balls of haggis served with a sauce. They were really nice.
We stayed there quite a long time at Coasters and then walked home along the Esplanade. It was very cold but looked stunning.
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| Sunset |
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| The harbour at night |
A brilliant day.
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