A short drive away is Kilchurn Castle and we had a printed walk from Walk Highlands to follow. On arrival at the parking area the heavens well and truly opened with really heavy hail, so we decided to sit it out in the car until it stopped, despite me protesting that hail was fun! We had fun catching bits of it while we waited..
The walk instructions tell you to cross the railway by going over it, but the gate is now locked, you can follow the track around instead which doesn't take any longer as it passes under. The sun had started to shine and we were treated to views of the surrounding hills. We were a bit sad that we weren't up high in the hills enjoying the views, but knew that it would have been very windy judging by how blustery it was at ground level. The Castle was closed which was a shame, we hadn't realised it had specific opening times. Google now tells me that you can get inside the castle from 1/4 - 30/9 from 9.30am - 5.30pm. We still enjoyed wandering around the outside.
The Walk Highlands route tells you can you can follow the shore of Loch Awe in dry conditions so you don't have to return the way you came. The water line was nearly up to the shore so we followed it through some woodland tracks. You could see where the loch had flooded out as it was covered in debris including hundreds of plastic and glass bottles - the whole area really needs a good clean up. I rescued on glass bottle which looked of 1960's vintage which had Oban stamped on the side and still had it's cork. We were soon back at the path and headed back to the car to plan our next adventure.
We decided we would take a look at the River Orchy and drove off to follow the minor road which follows its banks. Last time I had been there the river level had been so low Emma and I sat on an island in middle of the river and were able to sit on the dry river bed playing with stones. On this occasion it was utterly different, a few days of heavy rain and it was wild. Then it started to hail. Really heavily. We pulled over to wait for it to pass but it just kept going so we decided to push on to get off of the minor road. We abandoned all plans of walking as the weather was just getting worse and drove off to take a look at the view point just off the A82. Once we got there the skies cleared and we debated heading up a small hill (An Torr) just off from the layby, but the weather closed in again.
The Bridge of Orchy Munros, Beinn Dorain and Beinn an Dothaidth looking lovely in a brief sunny spell from the view point. It's hard to believe Emma and I walked these Munros last Easter with very little snow on them.
Dark Clouds starting to roll in..
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