For the past few days when the girls or merchants or strangers asked us where we were headed to next we replied, "Oban". Because that is where Grandma said we were going. Because that is where Tom thought we were going. I had been mapping out the routes we had taken and were going to take in the Ireland tour book and now the Scotland book and Oban made perfect sense to me. It was part of the circle, to the west of Inverness, and a location that put us closer to our next location of Edinburgh. Onward Oban!
The distance by car was a little over 100 miles and we figured two or three hours depending on Maude. We all got settled and off we went, Tom once again at the helm, god love the man. The drive through the Scottish Highlands is mountain after mountain. I was keeping track of our traveling with the tour book, reading aloud the areas, the names of mountains, and interesting things we might find to do.
The day was a sunny one, but as we traveled west the cloud covering got heavier and the air cooler. We thought perhaps we would see rain, something we still had not experienced much of, but other then ten or eleven drops on the windshield we were still clear of that it-rains-everyday-in-the-UK stuff.
About an hour into the drive the sun won and broke through the clouds and shone brightly as we had come to expect. We noticed that even though the sun rose at 4:30 am it seemed to take awhile to wake up completely and full sun didn't usually appear until around 10:00 am.
We made a stop for gas, water, and restroom facilities and Tom made the mistake of stopping near a shopping area. That of course led to Grandma entering the shops, the rest of us trailing behind her. The Scotland Shop didn't offer anything we hadn't already seen, but that didn't stop any of us from browsing. It certainly did not stop Grandma from picking up "a few items". I found a nice shop that sold homemade organic soaps and Tom even forked over money for some Scottish biscuits.
One of the things these shops offered in Scotland was whisky tasting, and that is whisky without the "e" in Scotland. Several bottles of different flavors and brands of whisky would be opened and poured into wee cups for sipping. I decided, since I was embracing, that I should try some Scottish whisky. I thought it might make a good gift despite my crowded suitcase for someone so I sampled some cream whisky and some honey wheat whisky. Both were okay and not something I would probably ever drink again. I decided not to overload my suitcase.
Back in the car Maude took us through the mountains and through some more beautiful scenery. It seemed like each time we drove we saw something that outshone what we had seen previously. The mountains went from foggy to snowy to rocky to grassy. None of them looked the same, and I was constantly trying to dive into the tour book to read about the mountains and track our route and take pictures out of the window at the same time.
Around the three hour mark of driving we pulled over in Appin when I spotted from the road a castle out in the distance. I began to frantically search for it in the tour book and suddenly we came upon this little cafe nestled into a nook off of the side of the road and Tom pulled over for me to take a picture and to stretch our legs.
Tom and the girls and I wandered off to the right toward a fence to view the castle while Grandma went into the cafe. The fence stopped me from getting closer to the castle, but as I snapped photos of it I noticed another couple had opened the gate further down to my right and were going through it and down a little path. Immediately Darcy and I were through the gate and following them.
The path led through a meadow of wild flowers to a drop off that offered us a nice view of Stalker Castle. Built around 1320 the castle belonged to the MacDougalls, Lords of Lorns. As with all of the castles in Scotland it passed through several hands and had a complicated history before landing in with the Stewarts of Appin. King James IV of Scotland apparently used the castle as a base for his hunting and fishing trips and the castle went through several additions and improvements. The castle is privately owned today by the Stewart-Allward family, is fully restored, and habitable which of course fascinated me greatly. It was also used in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Madison and Tom joined us and then decided to venture further down the mountainside. The path sort of disappeared through a thick brush of brambles and greenery, but this didn't seem to stop either one of them. Madison kept calling back up to us that it was quite muddy, but that there was still a path. Darcy and I decided we were hungry and not adventurous enough to get muddy and so we turned back to find Grandma.
The cafe was a nice little cottage with a gift shop and an indoor and outdoor eating area. Grandma was wandering the gift shop and the three of us decided to sit down and have a bowl of soup. We were joined eventually by first Madison and then Tom who had apparently made it all the way down to the shore of Loch Linnhe where he had a direct view to the castle. We ate soup and brown bread indoors because there wasn't any seating outdoors, but after my meal I ventured outside to read about the castle and to take in the incredible views.
Back inside the girls were getting ice cream, and I asked for a scoop of Turkish Delight. It was a pretty, pale, pink color with dark, pink bits in it and it just looked tasty. Madison reminded me that this was what Edmund had eaten from the Snow Queen in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and that made me want it even more. It came in a little dish with one of those spoons ice cream shops in America use for tasting and it looked so pretty. I dug right in and tried a little scoop. At first I thought I had eaten something else or that the spoon had residue of a cleaning product on it. I'm not bright when it comes to sweets and so I actually put another bite into my mouth. At that point I knew there was something wrong with the ice cream.
One of the funny things that we had learned about Grandma on this trip was that she was very encouraging of eating odd items, but when it came to trying them herself she always immediately shook her head, made a face, and said no. If she did try something new on her own, without prompting, she inevitably made a face and declared it "awful". We were always asking her if she wanted to try things just to see her shake her head and make a face. I took the ice cream, whispered to Darcy to watch this, and told Grandma to have a bite. She took her spoon, dug in, put the scoop into her mouth, and promptly made a face and gasped, "Ugh! That is awful! What is that? It tastes like perfume." Which it did. Perfume. That was the taste that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was as if the ice cream had been doused in perfume which it turned out, upon a quick check on the Internet, had been doused in rosewater. It had to be the most disgusting thing we had every tried and we all tried it. Tom, however, thought it quite interesting and finished it all up much to our horror.
Having filled up on food and sweets we headed back to the car for what we thought would be a short trip to Oban. How quickly we forgot that Maude loved to mess with us.
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