White Hart Hotel Port Ellen

An interesting castle ruin. The main castle is on a rock. Part of the old kitchen fell into the sea. They built another block of buildings on the main land.

Afterwards, I climbed down to the base and saw the natural cave underneath the castle.

... de quelque chose c'est vraiment beau aujourd'hui on a visite les chauses de geant c'est impressionant je ne sais pas quel phenomene de la nature a put sculter ce paysage mais c'est quelque chose de jamais vue et je ne crois pas revoir ca ailleur ...

... is to sign up with the distilleries beforehand. Joining up with Classic Malts (www.malts.com) gives you free entry (normally £5 or so), and with Laphroiag (http://www.laphroaig.com) they give you 1 foot square of land, plus your rent (a miniature cask strength whiskey)

Robert seemed to really enjoy the new scenery, but was a little unsettled at night as all the travelling was breaking up his routine.

For eating out ...

The name "Carrick-a Rede" is from the Scottish Gaelic "Carraig-a-Rade", which means 'rock in the road' - OK, I'm not that good, that's from the info leaflet I picked up, ha ha!

The "road" it's referring to is the sea route for Atlantic salmon as they journey west past Carrick Island. So 350 years ago, some fishermen erected a rope bridge between the mainland and the island, so they could get to the best spot to catch the salmon! How clever ...

... d wake the baby - when Benandonner saw the size of this 'baby' lying there, he figured Finn must be HUGE if this was the baby he'd produced! So he fled back across the causeway, destroying it as he went, so that Finn couldn't then follow him back....and all that remains of the Causeway is what you see in my photos, and similar structures at the 'other end' of the causeway (The island of Staffa in Scotland)

... so it even had trapdoors - an interesting video about the history told us that the menfolk used to put the woman and children in the traps, cover it with a stone slab and then set the ground above on fire, keeping them safe from the intrusion. Only so long that can work though, as much of the Macdonnell Clan were wiped out in one battle - women and children included.

One of the occupants ...

... it worthwhile to visit the Emerald Isle.

So our plan was to stay with the McCulloughs and hopefully not drive them crazy over the next five days. They just moved into their new garage/house two days before we arrived. They will build their dream home next to it in the next two years. Brian's parents live next door and are farmers. More about them later. To get to their house we had to follow Sara in our Range Rover rental. The airport ...

... the only catch being you must collect in person. So, Islay was a main destination for us in planning this trip. It’s a small island, absolutely stunning, even in the rain and fog. It’s the only place we stayed for 2 nights, in a b&b in a 200 year old country manor house full of elegant antiques on a hill overlooking the farms and fields below. Wow. What a life. The weather turned and our 2nd day there was sunny and warm. We drove all over the ...

... don't really eat out, but literally there was about 10 takeaways and 1 restaurant on the high street... I wasn't loving that ratio. And the restaurant was a Cellar restaurant, so we nearly didn't spot it! I ordered some more wheaten bread for a starter (yes it is that good ...

Co Antrim

Belfast to Ballintoy via Antrim, Ballymena and Bushmill

The eve of the 12th of July; we had to skip our scheduled Bushmill wiskey brewry due to a high jacking and burning of an empty tourist bus. turned out ...