South Kintyre

Friday 3rd August 2019

Dunaverty Bay Beach

For the next week we have booked a cottage on the Crinan canal, however we wanted to see some of southern Kintyre before we headed up there. So we left Carradale where we overnighted and headed south to Southend. Southend is a small collection of local services in beautiful scenery. Close by is Dunaverty Bay a beautiful sandy beach curving around Dunaverty Point. There is a lifeboat station with operated between 1869 and 1930.

Gavin on Dunaverty Beach
Me on Dunaverty Beach

After a lovely stroll along the beach and back we carried on towards the Mull of Kintyre, well me made it about half way! The road was so narrow with a very bad surface and it just got worse and steeper if we had carried on. Even if we had made it there was a long steep walk to get to the lighthouse or the memorial and we wouldn’t have had the correct footwear.

View on the way to the Mull of Kintyre

After turning back from the Mull of Kintyre the road took us back through Campbelltown which we passed through yesterday. This time we stopped and found a little cafe for lunch, I had a lovely jacket potato.

Gavin in Ardrishaig
Ardrishaig

After lunch we carried on towards our cottage, with a brief stop in Ardrishaig to stretch our legs and take a few photo’s.

We found the cottage relatively easy thanks to the great directions provided. It is small and cosy with one double and one twin room and has all that we need for the week. We are right next to the Crinan Canal but there is a grass bank between us so we can’t clearly see the boats going by. Once we were settled in I took advantage of the cottages facilities and put on a load of washing.

Ferry to Ferry

Friday 2nd August 2019

Sunny last day on the Isle of Bute

Today was our last on the Isle of Bute, and it was lovely and sunny again. We spent the morning in Rothesay watching the ferries and boats coming an going before some lunch in one of the harbour front cafes.

We then drove up to Rhubodach at the north of the Isle of Bute to catch the roll on roll off ferry across to Colintraive. The ferry journey took less than 5 minutes.

View of the Kyles of Bute
Kyle of Bute and on the mainland (left) half way down you can see the ferry that goes across to Isle of Bute on the right – very short crossing.

Back on the mainland continued our journey over into Argyll, where we got a great view out of the Kyles of Bute which flow down each side of the Isle of Bute and could see the ferry we had just been on. We made our way down to Portavadie to catch our second ferry of the day, taking us across Loch Fyne to Tarbert. It is possible to drive around the loch but it adds an extra 90 miles onto the journey.

Tarbert Harbour
Tarbert Church

We stopped for a short while in Tarbert which has a very pretty harbour with lots of small fishing and pleasure boats. We walked up the hill to see Tarbert Church.

Skipness Castle
Gavin on top of Skipness Castle
Me on top of Skipness Castle

Gavin did a great job driving from Tarbert down a narrow single lane road with passing places to Carradale on the Kintyre peninsula. On the way we took a small detour to visit Skipness Castle. Skipness is also where the ferry goes across to Arran from, somewhere we don’t have time to visit on this holiday.

View from Kintyre Peninsula across to Isle of Arran
View from the Kintyre Peninsula across to the Isle of Arran.