22nd Anniversary weekend away

We couldn't get away until Saturday, because Denise's running group had organised a night out on Friday: the idea was to have a nice drive, stay overnight at a nice hotel, and then have a nice drive back. Denise had done the booking and had found The Cairnbaan hotel in Argyll and Bute. This hotel is situated about half way along, and right next to the Crinan canal, which runs across the long peninsula that runs down along the western side of Arran.

The hotel used to have the reputation of being the roughest bar in the county, but now it's a really nice hotel, with a real ale bar, and a nice restaurant serving food made entirely from local ingredients. Seafood is a speciality, being, as it is, very close to Loch Fyne, where some of the very finest seafood comes from. I had some Loch Fyne mussels as a starter, and they were absolutely fabulous. Denise had a fillet of haddock cooked in a Thai style curry sauce. For my main course, I had some succulent scallops - so, we pretty much zeroed in on the seafood then.

The bar of the hotel had a conservatory and an outside area where we could sit watching the boats going through the lock, drinking some very nice real ale. At the time we were there they had one beer called Avalanche, which was a light fruity tasting pale ale; and Piper's Gold, which I have had before.

Unlike back home this weekend, we had some really hot weather. It clouded over from time to time, and did drizzle slightly at one time, but only for a few minutes, and the sun soon came out again.

The drive over was very nice, taking the northern route through Callander and Crianlarich. This road can be very frustrating if you are on a schedule. It's quite winding, but potentially fast, but there is always someone driving at 40 mph, even on the faster stretches. And of course, at this time of year there are a lot of caravans and camper vans struggling up the gradients. We were in no hurry, so it wasn't so bad. The roads either side of Callander were the worst stretches: that's a really popular spot. Once we'd got towards Crianlarich and on to Inveraray, it was a lot better.

We stopped off in Inveraray for a break and a cuppa on the way over, and found that they the Vital Spark from the TV shows of Neil Munro's Para Handy Tales, moored up in the harbour. Here are a couple of piccies. It's a typical Glasgow 'puffer' that used to run cargoes up and down the west coast and to the islands before the modern roads and bridges were built, or CalMac took over running all the ferries. Going to go and watch the new episode of Top Gear now, cos D has gone off training. Again. ;-)