Saturday 11th August - The Last Post

Saturday 11th August

Cloudy and damp this morning in Edinburgh

The Last Post

We left Spylaw Bank House, and David and Joy, at about 9:30. We had to fill the car up with petrol and drop it off at Hertz at the Airport. David directed us to a nearby Fuel Station which entailed a minor detour and then a short trip to the airport. It was relatively easy to find the Hertz car returns - all good.

We then trundled down to the Departures lounge. We had a long wait as our British Airways plane didn't leave till 16:00. Still we had coffee and lunch to help fill up the time.

Next, we discovered our plane was about 3/4 hour late as it had had issues with bad weather at Heathrow. Still by 17:00 we were off and made good time to Heathrow and landed at 18:00. We had to make a connection to our Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong which was due to depart at 20:10. Time was beginning to get tight.

To our astonishment when we landed at Heathrow they were still having issues trying to clear the backlog of flights from the morning, so there was a plane sitting in our plane's parking stand! We had to sit out on a side strip and wait until it was pushed out to take off. We sat for 3/4 of an hour stuck in our plane. According to the pilot he knew that there were about 72 passengers on our plane who had or were liable to miss their connecting flights including us. By the time we got off it was 19:00 and we still had to get to Terminal 3. We, and the other 72 worried passengers, hurried up several passages to where there was a bus waiting to take all of us to Terminal 3. He hoofed it - luckily!

At Terminal 3 there was a mad rush up to Gate 27 hoping that we were going to make it. There was a huge crowd of people all waiting to board. They had only just started to board Business Class and Premium Economy so we were ale to relax and breathe a sigh of relief.

Our plane finally left at about 21:00 and then we had to sit on the tarmac for about another 3/4 of an hour while the backlog cleared itself.

Still here we are at Hong Kong airport in plenty of time for our last flight at 21:05.

Signing off

Ruary and Mary-Ann

P.S. Thanks to all those family and friends who read our Blog and to those who made the odd comments.

Thursday 9th August - Spylaw House in Edinburgh, St Cuthbert's Church, R.L.Stevenson & The Spylaw Tavern

Thursday 9th August

A beautiful afternoon and evening

Edinburgh - Spylaw Bank House, 

St. Cuthbert's Church, 

R.L.Stevenson 

& 

The Spylaw Tavern

We nearly got lost in the Hermiston Interchange coming off the M8 and trying to get onto the A71 into Edinburgh West, but after a bit of a detour we got to Spylaw House at about 5:15 - a grand old place. David greeted us out of the garden. Here is view from the driveway.

... and the front door:

Once we were signed in  he took us upstairs to our bedroom:

It had a lovely large bathroom - with a bath - travellers' joy.

Here is where we had breakfast the next morning - linen napkins and all!

recommended that we head down to The Spylaw Tavern for dinner.

On the way we visited St. Cuthbert's Church:

... a really old building - 1095!!

It had a beautiful old bell tower:

Robert Louis Stevenson

... had grown up in Colinton, so there was a statue to commemorate him:

... with adescription at the base describing his childhood:

The Spylaw Tavern

We walked up the street to the pub:

 ... and in the front door - looked more like a house than a pub:

It had a really nice atmosphere in side:

Looking back:

We had Haggis Balls for starters

Thursday 9th August - Trip to Edinburgh - Ferry & Road including "The Vital Spark"

Thursday 9th August

A cool cloudy morning and then a beautiful sunny afternoon

Trip to Edinburgh - 

Ferry and Road 

including 

"The Vital Spark"

We set off at 8:30 down to the Port Ellen wharf to wait for the ferry "The Hebridean Isles" Amazing to watch this huge ferry come in towards the landing, do a 180 degree turn almost on the spot and then back in!

Once on board we were able to wander round:

After two hours we could see Kennacraig coming up:

Once off the ferry we headed for Glasgow, but stopped for lunch at a nice little cafe in Ardrishaig called the Rumbling Tum:

As we went through Inverary I remembered Google telling me that The Vital Spark of Para Handy fame was undergoing refurbishment there and sure enough there she was:

Wednesday 8th August - Islay - Port Ellen - The Laphroaig Distillery

Wednesday 8th August

Cloudy cool morning with a smattering of rain. Fine afternoon.

Islay - Port Ellen - 

The Laphroaig Distillery

1. The tour started at the Malting floor where the barley is brought in by trucks and then deposited in these silos called "Steeps" and water is added to start the malting (sprouting) process:

2.The soaked barley is put in to these "Chariots" and spread out onto the malting floor - about 7 tons at a time - quite a physical job - until it malts even more:

3. After a couple of days it is fed down to a cold peat smoke floor to absorb the peaty character without cooking it.

4. Here it is down on the "smoke" floor. You can see the grid to allow the smoke to come up

5. Here is the peat and the furnace to create the smoke. Carol has a peat cutter in her hand. The peat hags are out by the airport - see ...:

6.Once it ahs had a day or two to absorb the peaty character it is sent through to the rollers that turn the peated barley malt into grist - like flour in the right hand section of the box:

7. From there the grist is added to giant stainless steel tanks and hot water added to create a mixture called a wash. Once this has been separated from the grist ready to be pumped through to the stills it is called a wort:

picture to come

8. The wart is then added to the stills with yeast to create alcohol. You can see the condenser cylinder in the background:

9. Once the process is complete, the whisky is then pumped into barrels:

like these:

10. These are the four types of barrels used. From the right: a quarter cask, a standard barrel, a .... and a tun - got to check these

As a registered friend of Laphroaig owning a square foot of peat bog that Laphroaig uses I got paid my "rent" in kind:

Wednesday 8th August - The Pilgrims Way to Laphroaig

Wednesday 8th August

Cloudy, cool morning with the odd spatter of rain. Fine later on

The Pilgrimage 

to the 

Laphroaig Distillery

All pilgrims walk to their "shrine" don't they, so I walked fro Port Ellen to Laphroaig Distillery which took me 35 minutes:

This is a bit like the "Stations of the Cross"

1. The Start:

2. Down to the Ardbeg turn off:

3. Up the hill:

4. Start of the Pilgrim's way:

. 5. Along the top

6. Passed the dry-stane dyke:

7. Down the hill:

8. Passed the bay:

9. Through the woods:

10. Turn into the drive way:

11. Down the footpath for pilgrims:

12. Arrival the "The Shrine"

Wednesday 8th August - Islay - Port Ellen - Standing Stone

Wednesday 8th August

Cloudy, cool breeze, odd sunny spells

Islay - Port Ellen -

Standing Stone

This morning we drove back to Bowmore to the Visitor Centre to get a Gaelic phrase pamphlet and some information about walking tracks near Port Ellen. We got a handy little booklet that described a walk to a Standing Stone that just suited us.

So after lunch we set off up the road to a side track:

... and there it was over the wall in the middle of a paddock:

There was a sort of a style hidden amongst the weeds in the wall so over we went and got right up to it. It was like contacting Iron Age people of 3,000 years ago;

It was pretty well shaped into a rectangular profile across!

Tuesday August 7th - Finlaggan and the Island Sheeps

Tuesday August 7th

Cloudy cool morning with spatters of rain and then just cloudy with sunny breaks

Finlaggan 

and 

the Island Sheeps

From the little cafe in Bowmore, where we had coffee upstairs, we drove off to Finlaggan the ancient seat of the Lords of the Isles, where the MacDonalds reigned supreme from 1266.

On the way we passed a grazing sheep - reminded me of the "Sheeps" in "The Hills is Lonely" by Lillian Beckwith

We finally got there after driving down some pretty dodgy roads - if you could call them that! Mary-Ann said "Is that it?" She had been expecting a little village with toilets and a place to rder some lunch and all it was was a Visitors Centre in a shed - a nice one - and a little museum - a nice one. As for the rest of the site it was just tussock, bracken, a loch and some ruins on an island - but beautiful in its isolation. Looking back up to the Visitor's Centre:

Here on an island was situated the Lord's main residence on Eilean Mor (the Large Island) all now just a collection of ruins, "Look on my works ye mighty and despair", Ozymandias by Shelley

You had to walk over a section of marshy lake to get to the island - "Eilean Mor" -The Big Island where it all used to be:

... and then you were at of what was left of their kingdom

Sad place really!