We woke to an initially dry morning in Fearnoch Forest – but the rain was on its way. Glenn did a quick bird walk and saw new birds to him this year the great spotted woodpecker and the gold crest.

It was raining by the time we got on our way down the Mull of Kintyre (made famous by Paul Macartney) to the ruins of Carnasserie Castle. We walked up the hill to the castle in the rain. It was the home of the first Protestant Bishop of the Isles, Master John Carswell, who wrote the first Protestant bible in Gaelic in 1555.

It used to be a luxurious mansion but it was burned in 1685 down by royalist after the owner chief of the Campbell clan sided with a Jacobite rebellion. It was never repaired.

The first tower was very narrow to get up but there were good views from the top – and a swallow had a nest somewhere in the top.

Down on the bottom there is an impressive kitchen fireplace with water spout on one side and oven on the other – very sophisticated for 1555.

I then went up the second tower, passing through the remains of the great hall with impressive fireplace. The views from the top were very rainy and misty. We have seen them before on a better day and you can see a long way up the glen.

We walked back down the hill in the teaming rain and stripped off our wet gear trying not to get the inside of the van wet.

As it was so wet we decided to go to the dry museum. It was quite pricey at 15 pounds but contained lots of artifacts and information related to the nearby burial cairns and standing stones. This area was a very populated area around 5000 years ago and contains large burial cairns with cysts in the middle containing the bodies. It also has standing stones nearby aligned with the sun.

This good schematic shows what happened in the past in this area and in other parts of the world.

There were many pots and some in the beaker style related to other areas in the uk – and many stone tools.

There was a skeleton of a woman with food in a beaker and tools for the afterlife from around 2000 BC.

After enjoying the warm dry conditions we drove to a car park beside the standing stones to have a van lunch. It was then time to brave the conditions again – only Lisa, Glenn and I this time.

The standing stones were aligned and the burial cairns were huge.

It was very pooey underfoot as there were large numbers of sheep and lambs in the field. Glenn went almost horizontal on a big slide and managed to maintain his footing. If he hadn’t managed the result would not have been good.

Glenn got himself inside a big central cyst and saw me and Lisa outside with our umbrellas.

We got back to the van soaking again and decided that was enough sight seeing for the day and headed down the road .

We went through some very lovely towns and past some rainy views. We stopped briefly at the high pass Rest and Be Thankful but we couldn’t see much.

We found a big layby on the side of Loch Lomond to stop overnight. The rain was still coming down and it was cold so I made a cozy chicken and chorizo with potatoes and vegetables one pan bake. It was well received by all. As we were earlier than usual having dinner we then had a game of five crowns, our favorite card game. It was fun – Lisa cleaned up but she seemed to get every joker and trump card. Myself and Sean on the other side of the table got very little.

It was a quiet night – until the trucks started at 5am!