Today was about as nice as it gets on the Western coast of Scotland - wispy cloud, faint sunshine, light winds. Although we ended up spending most of it creeping through dank undergrowth on a rambling walk through the woods. Inverary is an old fishing village on the banks of the famous Loch Fyne - home to some highly prized bivalves (although not by me). We're in Oyster country.
The village is usually busy with tourists apparently, but it wasn't too crowded on the Friday afternoon. The Duke of Argyll lives here, in Inverary Castle - which looks to me like it's made out of Lego. I don't know when it was built, but the symmetrical conical towers at each corner look like some kind of Disney-esque fantasy. No wonder the tourists love it. You can't go in it, though. Dukes only.
After the long drive over from Edinburgh - with an all-important pit stop for pancakes in Glasgow - we got to Inverary at around noon, nicely timed for a short ramble up the hillside to take in the Loch views, then into the village for a pie-based pub lunch. Of course, we came to one of those 'Left or Right' splits in the woody path, and obviously chose the wrong option. And possibly a few more times after that, also. Still, we came to see the country.
What seemed like a few hours later we were navigating along what turned out not to be the path, but a river bed. Having to bend double to get under springy tree branches, and frequently seeing shoes - or trainers in Grant's case - vanish into a boggy bit of marsh eventually became almost amusing. To those of us without hangovers, of course. There's only so much water your boots can take before it doesn't really matter anymore, and you just keep going for the sake of it.
We did see a lot of toads though. Hiding motionless in the undergrowth, they must have been thriving in the moist, insect rich woodlands. We even saw a few sitting rigidly on the path (found after a sharp downhill turn towards a 'road' spotted through the trees - which turned out to be an electricity substation). After a lengthy trek back along the road to town, hugging the Loch, the Steak Pie and beer tasted all the better...
