The pretty fishing village of Tarbert is a bit out of the way, on the Kintyre Peninsula, but I picked it as a good home base for taking the ferry across to Islay, which has a dozen or so distilleries, several of which are my favourites. The only problem was a message from Caledonian McBrayne Ferries advising that they had advanced the timing of the return sailing by an hour. This left too little time for us to explore the island, so I cancelled the trip.
Apparently, problems with the ferries are common, with the company seen as dysfunctional and with an aging fleet. According to the elderly Scot who sat next to us in the Waterstones Bookshop Café that morning, it was all the fault of the Scottish National Party, typified by ex-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, whom he took pleasure in reminding us was ‘led away in handcuffs’ recently.
Thankfully the owner of a great little shop on the waterfront (all the shops are on the waterfront), called West Coast Whisky gave us plenty of alternatives to ponder. So we instead took a drive to Campbelltown. It was a spectacular drive along rugged coastlines on a warm and still day. We had a nice lunch in the back garden of the Ardshiels pub, and went on a tour of the Glen Scotia distillery. I had never heard of it but earlier this year it won an award for the best single cask whisky in the world (beating about 5,000 others). After the tour we were given a tasting. I was driving so didn’t partake. Maureen said it was a pretty decent drop though, that she thought I’d like, so we might get a bottle from Whisky Galore in CHCH on our way home.
The weather was warm into the evening so I went for a run up to the ruined castle that overlooks the harbour, and took in some nice views, as well as running a section of the Kintyre Way that skirts the castle.
Later on we thought we’d go for a drink in one of the local pubs, to sample some local colour. Turned out one was over-run by loud, drunken Scots who seemed to be on a sports tour of some kind. The other (at 8pm or so) had a loud disco style rave going on, of the type that in NZ would only be reaching that pitch at about 1 o’clock in the morning (so I believe).
We wanted to experience some local colour, but yeah, maybe not that much. We settled for a quiet cider back at the apartment.
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