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Monday, October 14, 2019

MENU's UK Adventure 7. From Mallaig via Oban to Rhu, Glasgow and south to England

The next stage of our expedition was to Rhu (also known as Helensburgh on the Clyde),

one of Scotland's top 10 seaside resorts

We were to travel via Oban at the express instruction and advice from several people, both in SA and in the UK,

who said "we must NOT miss it". So we didn't

Oban is a small seaside resort with a perfect horseshoe bay, which grew up around the distillery
and was made famous by Sir Walter Scott in his poem The Lord of the Isles

Our task and we did decide to accept it, was to locate the Green Shack,

which lurks on the dockside at the Ferry Terminal, and have some lunch there

Parking is a bit of a problem but we found some behind the ferry port and walked into town

and it was a Chinese tourist who directed us; he was also rushing there

We had imagined a restaurant looking slightly louche, but no - it actually is a green shack

containing only cooking equipment, cooks and huge amounts of seafood

The tables are these sawn slices of tree trunk upon which you place your takeaway

and usually stand as there is not much space to sit

and it is probably the most popular place in Oban. Why?

You look at the menu on the wall, stand in a queue,

get your spouse to hunt for a space on the 'table' while you place your order and wait for it

And, yes, it was raining lightly... This is Scotland; it is green and lush - and it rains

As you can see, the seats are fairly non functional, unless you are 2.5 metres tall

and while they don't have a loo (the railway station does - and they don't like non-passengers using it)

they do have a very necessary hand wash facility with multilingual instructions

Now, how to choose and what choices there are; these are just a few

Give up with the translating of Pounds back into your own currency; just look at the plates coming out of the kitchen

Very cheap coffee and tea for the UK too

Should have had the crab sandwich, the price doubled down south in Cornwall

Piles of fresh oysters just waiting to be shucked

Extraordinarily good fresh plump mussels

Crab and Lobster

Lynne had been longing for a good crab. We never see these in the Cape

Pa and son tuck in; silly Mum had gone shopping instead

Our order was, of course, the famous Seafood Platter for two at £32.50. A complete steal

On top, two superbly sweet seared scallops in garlic butter;

beneath, a lobster, hot smoked salmon, crab claws, peeled prawns, calamari, cockles, langoustine

and more mussels than we could finish

Served with bread and butter, a tartare sauce, a sweet chilli sauce, lemon and Tabasco

You eat with your fingers or a mussel shell and get wonderfully involved. It was scrumptious

GO TO OBAN!, if you go to Scotland. Do not miss this

There are other places to eat seafood there, but none as good and as generous as this

Only one thing was missing: a glass of Chenin blanc would have been enjoyed!

Watching a young gull celebrating his flying skills after lunch

The gulls were about, hoping for anything dropped, but they didn’t bother us

We saw lots of young Herring Gulls

John went to see the Oban Distillery while Lynne did some shopping.

Had a look inside at what was on offer. One can nose the whiskies free of charge. With this long drive, no tasting

Ouch! Prices of whisky in Scotland are very scary for South Africans. R1850 per bottle

We don’t have the nearly 50% duty the Scots have and so can buy it for much less here

Fishing boats in the harbour alongside the Green Shack, waiting to go out to get more

John spotted this lovely Labrador in the harbour; they love water

He swam from one side of the small bay to the other

The ferry and the hill behind. It must be a lovely place to live. Well, in the summer....

Off to the Isles

Our AirBnB accommodation in Rhu. Our friendly and helpful landlord was the local fire chief

and we invited him to come and visit Cape Town in our summer fire season

With global warming and the recent serious forest fires in Europe,

the Scottish fire service is getting training on how to deal with forest fires now; they do have many forests

Our apartment was the two windows in front of the cars. To get here, you pass the famous Gareloch Naval base

This is very close to Glasgow, perhaps half an hour's drive and Glaswegians come here to relax

Lynne had heard many happy stories of family holidays in this region

Loch Lomond is just over the hill and a very short drive away. We went, we saw, we went home. It was wet

OK it did stop for a while and we could just see the other side. We sat and ate our lunch in the car

Balloch Castle is on the other side of the loch; we thought, if we get a sunny day .....

But we didn’t, so after two nights in Rhu we were off to visit Glasgow, Lynne's mother and her family's home town

Sadly, no family is left there anymore

What to do in Glasgow on a sunny day? Visit Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

It is in one of the many spectacular Victorian public buildings in Glasgow, which has many art galleries

There is a large eclectic collection in this Museum

Here is an early hill climb car with two engines

Behind it an exhibition of fashion through the ages

It is a really magnificent building with such power and presence

There is a huge pipe organ at the end of the main hall. Entry is free and they depend on donations

Queuing for a welcome cup of tea; museums always make one thirsty

The Café is famous because Rennie McIntosh designed it

and you can still see some of the original chairs, walls, panels and other embellishments in the Museum

Lots of quirky exhibits

including a Spitfire, hung over Elephants and a Giraffe

and sadly, just as we headed upstairs to see some very famous paintings, we were told the museum was closing

Time goes so fast when you are having fun

so we headed off to our AirBnB apartment for the night. Third story, the balcony to the right

Comfortable lounge, well equipped kitchen

and a nice bedroom. But, sadly, no hot water at all

We were just there for the night before heading off to England for our next stop in the Lake District

But that is a story for next week…

From Glasgow to the Lake District; Keswick and Windermere

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MENU's UK Adventure 6, From Speyside to the west coast. Mallaig and Skye

No one deserves to get ill while on holiday;
sadly we find that we invariably pick up something on the plane
and the flu that John caught early on made us both rather ill.
So ill that we both spent a Sunday in bed while at the Inn at Rothes, such a waste
This was before Covid was discovered and we suspect that we had an early version of it

Dinner downstairs that night when we emerged was a simple pea and barley noodle soup, all Lynne could manage

John was on the mend, although his cough still lingered, and he managed this respectable beef and ale pie

with chips, broad beans, sweet corn and cabbage

We both agreed that Stout would be a very good supplement, as it contains magnesium, selenium, potassium, phosphorus, biotin, and is chock full of B vitamins, and we can thoroughly recommend the Spey Stout,

an excellent, rich, dark Scottish beer

We were feeling a little better the next day

and headed to the famous Speyside Cooperage in Craigellachie, which we had on our list of things to see

The craft of cooperage goes back more than 5 000 years

Should you visit the area, it is really worth going there. https://www.speysidecooperage.co.uk.

Each year they make and repair over 100 000 casks – barrels, hogsheads, butts and puncheons

The work is very, very skilled and the coopers spend their days shaping, shaving and charring casks

These coopers are currently not making new barrels, but enlarging and reconditioning some of the older sherry barrels

The whisky industry prefers to use barrels which have been used previously in the wine and sherry industries;

they add complexity to the ageing whisky which spends at least three years and often longer in them

The barrels have to be examined and repaired. To watch the coopers is absolutely fascinating
They work in complete silence (except for the hammering!),
and with complete concentration, they do not even talk to each other, as they get paid piece work
There are machines that could help, but they prefer not to use them
You can see one on the left sealing his barrel with reed
David Mackenzie, whom we saw here, holds the Guinness World record for making a 190 litre barrel in 3.30 minutes
He can remake more than 50 barrels in a day – good money

Each has his own mark and this is the pile of barrels they have completed

Sad to leave beautiful Speyside, we headed off to our next destination, which was Mallaig

We travelled via Inverness, where we stopped at one of our favourite supermarkets, Aldi, to stock up on food,

as we would be self-catering for the next few days

and then down the side of bonnie Loch Ness via Fort William. It is such beautiful countryside

Cawdor Castle was on our way, but we only caught a glimpse

as the entry fee of £12.50 (R230) each was a bit too rich for us

and we couldn’t spend long enough there to justify the cost

If you know "the Scottish play", Shakespeare's MacBeth, you will know about this ancient castle

It is still occupied by the Cawdor family

Loch Ness is very long and narrow and there are many tourist boats plying the loch

Not a single sight of the monster could be seen

John found a patch of ripe brambles and picked some to add to our breakfast fruit

The countryside is astoundingly beautiful, so green with ancient forests and steep slopes
covered in pine trees which give an income to the landowner
The Earl of Argyle seems to have many pine plantations

Mallaig is the old ferry port where, in years past, you took the ferry if you wanted to visit

There is now a bridge at the Kyle of Lochalsh, much further up the coast

We had wanted to stay on Skye, but could not find affordable accommodation at this time of the year

and Mallaig sounded lovely

We found this Fisherman's cottage on AirBnB and it was a gem

It has been completely renovated to a very high standard inside with two double bedrooms,

and is fitted out with everything you could need

There is a washing machine and dishwasher in the kitchen,

central heating for those chilly Scottish nights and lots of indoor and outside space to relax in

Zoe and Matthew were our lovely hosts. They are both at Glasgow University and run this as a business

What is very special is that the house was Matthew’s Grandfather’s and he was a fisherman

From the front windows, you can see the ferries coming and going between the isles

One day, we saw this traditional lugger in full sail in the distance across the bay

The town of Mallaig is a short walk or drive from the cottage; you can see it on the hill behind the lamp post on the right

We headed there for a walk and to get supper on the first night as we had been travelling all day

Our hosts had recommended The Cabin
We didn’t feel like sitting in a restaurant and they have a take away door around the side

Magnificent fresh Cod and chips for about £8.50 each

The evening view from our cottage, looking across the Skye and the other islands with Mallaig town and harbour on the left

The next day, we headed off to the Ferry terminal to take the boat crossing to Skye

It is very good value; cost for the car and us, return, was £30

Driving north to the bridge would have been a very long 6 hour roundabout trip

and the fuel cost would have been more than the return fare

The crossing took less than an hour

This ferry, which left at 10 am, is large and modern, but be aware that they are not all large

Heading out, following a fishing boat into what looked like a typical rainy day

Off to make sure there will be fish and chips this evening. It stayed dry most of the day....

but we did have a few downpours

The rivers on Skye were in compete spate, with white water tumbling over the rocks to fill the lochs below

It is so beautiful, with the hillsides covered in heather

High mountains and lovely houses, many of them offer accommodation for tourists

This is the self-catering Sligachan Lodge

River Sligachan with its ancient three arched bridge

In the background, the mountains are nearly as high some of ours in the Cape

We headed to the Talisker Distillery in Carbost, about half way up Skye on the Western side

Talisker was, until recently, the only distillery on Skye and they still claim that they are;

the two newcomers, Torabhaig and Isle of Skye Distillers, are ignored by the old firm which is owned by Diageo

A tasting glass for the very thirsty - holds about 2 litres

Inside the tasting room, John could not taste the whisky,

but bought a dram (£7) to put into his small bottle, which he enjoyed when we returned to our cottage

It is far too peaty a whisky for Lynne, so she just had a nose and a tiny sip of this classic

Prices start at £65 per bottle and rise quite rapidly

Some of the bays are an attraction for yachtsmen and women

We did have one amusing occurrence on Skye, but it didn't start out amusing

Lynne was still quite ill with bronchitis and flu and at one point found her asthma puffers were not working at all

and she was struggling to breathe

“We need a chemist”, she told John and we found one in Broadford, a small village

To get there, John had to turn up a side road and Lynne noticed that we passed first a crematorium,

then a hospice, then an old age home and finally a medical practice

Wow, do they have things well organised!

We went into the medical practice and saw a doctor, who examined Lynne

and prescribed some cortisone

that really helped to get Lynne better quickly

The sun came out and, suddenly, a flock of sea birds was flying in thermals

There is an attraction on Skye called the Fairy Pools and, as we were quite near, we decided to go and see them

We parked in this magical forest to have some lunch which we had pre-packed

Moss on the trees shows how wet the climate is on the islands

And the ground is so damp and the soil so shallow that trees fall over and some of them continue to grow

Shaggy sheep

The Fairy Pools are on a river which flows down from the high mountains
Sadly you need to take a very long walk to get to them and, without waders or Wellington boots,
it is not possible, as you have to wade across some streams

Lush green hills and valleys with winding rivers and burns

Kinloch Bay is on the way back to Armadale, the Ferry port on Skye

You can look across at the mainland and we were told that on a good day you can see Ben Nevis,

the highest mountain in the British isles, 1 345 metres above sea level

We did see it later on our way to Oban via Fort William

The dark areas are all purple heather, you can see it quite distinctly on this headland

This looks like a lovely place to spend a holiday on Skye

More brambles; we picked some to go with the breakfast muesli

A new addition to Skye's distilleries. Torabhaig's stills were commissioned in 2016
We arrived just too late for a visit to the distillery, but met the manager who told us that the product is heavily peated

These sheep were hilarious. Fat and almost all dark brown,
they have white tails and they don't seem to be in control of them at all
We laughed so much at them as they spin around on the back of the sheep like whirligigs