Wednesday 15th August 2012
August 15, 2012 in Wildlife Village by Jan
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Good Morning Villagers This is the final part of Jill’s wonderful holiday report along with fantastic pictures. Such a shame it has come to an end. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading all about it. Thank you so much Jill. Who is next??
Old Drover’s Bridge, Inverary
Dunoon is a ferry port to Greenock and a very pleasant harbour front again with gulls and oyster catchers and my hooded crows pecking about on the foreshore. I also walked up to the Castle Museum that showed in tableau form how life was in Dunoon as it was thriving port in its heyday and also well known for illicit whisky making!! Had my lunch looking over the water watching cormorants, gulls, crows and oyster catchers, and a gannet flying in and out! 
Boarded the coach again for the very pretty drive towards Tighnabruaich and Argyll’s Secret Coast…..wow what a spectacular view! It was a beautiful sunny day so we all piled out of the coach to take the obligatory pictures with the view in the background of the Kyles of Bute and the Isle of Bute over to the left. We could see the ferryboat way down below and also the paddle steamer “The Waverley” was in port although we didn’t know that at the time! We continued on to the very end of the point of land between the Kyles of Bute and the mouth of Loch Fyne and came to the tiny village of Tighnabruiach which consisted of a Bank, a Lifeboat station with shop, a few houses and Suzy’s Tea Rooms. Stopped here for about an hour so people could get refreshments and a cuppa, and I walked along the sea wall, and down onto the beach and found a few pretty stones and shells, and also the now very common hooded crows put on a good show of cracking mussels open!
I stood on the lifeboat launching slipway in the hot sunshine, took deep breaths of the salty air, and thought where else on earth would I rather be!! We boarded the coach again and started the couple of hours drive back to the hotel reflecting on the week and thinking this was one of the best holidays I had been on. Along the way taking pics from the coach window again of the scenery as it unfolded….This part of Scotland is a real gem – somewhere I had never thought of as being so picturesque having only been to Fort William twice back in my 20′s and that was with the only intention of climbing Ben Nevis!! So the revelations of this spectacular part of our country was a real joy and an experience I will be repeating in the coming year. I will leave you with a photo of the Loch Awe Hotel overlooking the Loch…and a last view of Loch Awe itself. 
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The Dyfi Osprey Project and the Scottish wildlife Trust have kindly given their permission for us to post still and video images from their webcams. To visit their sites please click on the relevant link. Loch of the Lowes. Dyfi Osprey Project.
