UK Day 5 – Glasgow to Connel

We got up early to be out of town by 9am, to avoid a parking fine. Since my phone was finally giving me internet (I’d got the settings from O2), I thought I’d try the navigation. It worked great! But it drained the battery pretty damn fast. The car charger (a normal Samsung one) didn’t work, so I’ll have to buy another one. Or most likely, just not use the phone for navigation, except in big cities or something. I bought a big book of maps of Britain for 2.99 GBP anyway.
We ended up taking a wrong turn, or rather missing the turnoff we needed, and ended up on the wrong side of the lake for our first destination of the day: Dumbarton Castle. But that was OK, since we got a good picture of it from the other side:

We turned around and drove back onto the M8 and then got off on the correct street to get there. They wanted admission, but we didn’t bother, just walked around on the outside for a bit and took photos. It’s got some great views!:


We drove on, heading in the general direction of Oban. There’s some beautiful lake and mountain views all along with roads we took. This is certainly a beautiful part of the world, here around Luss, even the Youth Hostel is palatial (really!):
 
We had lunch in Ballyhennan, in a church, again. We both had mussels, and boy were they good!! Yummmmm:

We continued on past more spectacular scenery:


The view at Rest and Be Thankful (yes, that’s what it’s called!) was amazing:

And onwards towards Inverary:

Next stop was Inverary Castle. We actually paid the 9 GBP and went inside at this one, since we’d read nice things about it. The Castle is still inhabited by the Duke of Argyll and his family. We could see the kids’ toys outside on the verandah. But part of the house is open to view by tourists. Unfortunately, you can’t take photos inside:
 

Some more fantastic scenery between here and Kilchurn Castle (ruin), which we stopped at Loch Awe Hotel to view better (mainly because we wanted coffee!):


Next stop was St Conan’s Kirk, not far away. The church, though it looks really old, is only from the 1930’s. It’s quite amazing:



We stopped in Connel and looked for a place to stay, since it was getting late. It’s quite pretty:

 
The hotel is an historic house, called the Lora Falls Hotel. The room was nice, though in the smoking wing, which is why she gave is the discount, no doubt. We only ended up paying 65 GBP for the twin room:

 
We ended up having dinner here, since there was nowhere else in town as far as we could see. It was quite busy in the hotel bistro and we had to wait for dinner. But it was quite nice (though expensive compared to what we’d had in the past). We both had beer and we tried some whiskeys. Which is why there was no blog entry!