Loch Fyne Holiday

Before I get started on our holiday I wanted to talk about how Scotland is divided up into areas. The area I live in is the Highlands, but within that I also live in an area called Ross-shire and within that a town. The area we visited is called “Argyll and Bute”. Now Bute is actually a Scottish Isle. The Isles of Mull and Iona are also in Argyll and Bute region…confusing isn’t it.

For ease we are calling this our Loch Fyne holiday as our cottage was looking out to Loch Fyne. On our way down to the cottage we were informed that there was an issue with our water supply and were offered another cottage near Inveraray, on the shore of Loch Fyne. It would have been £100 extra normally, but our original cottage owners paid the difference as compensation and so we stayed in Garron Lodge. Below you will see red dots indicating the change of location.

It was a cottage with lots of character on a road no longer in use, next to Garron Bridge. It sleeps 2 and allows pets so ideal for us.

Our original cottage was much more isolated and not as close to the shore of Loch Fyne. On one of the days we drove out to see it and the higher position gave a nice view but we were still happy with the change.

The blue dots on the maps above are some of the places we visited on this trip. You will hopefully see that this area is almost like a hand dangling down and the fingers are different peninsulas and between them are different sea lochs. We tried to explore each of these peninsulas over the week and took a short ferry ride to the Isle of Bute one day.

I would love to come back to the area with my SUP as there were quite a few great bays and lochs that would be fabulous to paddle on. Lochgoilhead area was very calm on a windy grey day, so that seems a good spot, but there were many more I would have enjoyed.

Lots of the towns we went through on the mainland and on Bute had gorgeous double fronted stone houses with bay windows that are very much the sort of houses that I dream of living in (if I knew a good handyman and had lots of money to keep it well maintained). The house prices were much lower than we had expected and with Glasgow not being too far away it was a surprise.

However, saying that on one of the days I said to my husband I was annoyed in the Highlands we often get stung with extortionate delivery costs or just refusal to deliver to our area and I would say that some of the villages at the end of some of these peninsulas would be more of a challenge to deliver to than where we live. Ah well.

The area we were touring had signs saying ‘Scotland’s Secret Coast’. It did feel a little like that, an area we weren’t too familiar with although had briefly passed through a couple of times, but we are glad we took a week to explore this area and what it has to offer.

Finally, I wanted to mention about our wildlife webcam. My husband put it out and it captured a tail, hip and a claw shot of what we assume to be a pine marten but the greatest evidence of animal activity is how much the bugger has chewed the strap for it. It is almost chewed right through on one side and lots of other attempts along the strap used to tie it to the tree. This isn’t something we had expected. Disappointing when the images and video we do see are not great.