A grand old paddle steamer…

We left Kintyre today for the Isle of Arran. Down at the pier, as last time, the weather was quite rough and it was raining.

We felt sorry for the competitors in this children’s gymkhana in a field next to the pier…

 

We were second in the queue and only a short time to wait before the ‘Loch Tarbert’ reached the pier. To our amazement there were more cyclists than cars!

The passage was a bit rough but the weather seemed to get calmer as we reached Lochranza.  We drove down towards the campsite where we had stayed before and caught sight of this stag lying in a dip!  Good set of antlers though.

Further along to the pier we spotted the Waverley with crowds of people waiting to go on board.  I had seen a documentary about the paddle steamer, built in 1946 to replace the old Waverley that had perished in the Dunkirk rescue.  It has been done up and is resuming the Sunday trips down the Clyde. Apparently the anecdote goes that when the Scots were banned from drinking on a Sunday, the steamer was very popular as you could drink all day with no prohibition!  I must admit she made a splendid sight. The only thing to spoil it was a couple who bellowed at us as we parked momentarily to take a photo. They were asolutely apoplectic and VERY rude. It was an extraordinary incident – they seemed to be full of such venom.  Not officials in any way but looked and sounded like Colonel and Mrs Angry.  The worst thing of all was that they were English!  We found the incident oddly unnerving. When we stopped further up the road to take photographs we were blasted by two car horns! Unlike the Outer Hebrides the roads here have two whole carriageways!  We were starting to wonder whether we should have come. Things can only get better…

This is the scene we were photographing – can you blame us for stopping?

Mother and three cygnets

Gaining some independence…

I love this photo of three Black Guillemots (or Tysties as they’re known here) having a bit of a barney…

Come to think of it, the two with their bills open remind me of the “Colonel” and his missus!

Way above our heads in the cliffs Peter spotted this Fulmar (presumably the female) in her nicely decorated penthouse suite.

We eventually found our way to our new temporary home for four nights – Bridgend Campsite – where we discovered that it wasn’t as much as we expected.  A bargain!