Oban

We did a bit of research and discovered a car museum on the shores of Loch Lomond so the cars tempted Harry while the Loch tempted me (for a walk not a swim). Harry had a great time looking at the exhibits in the little museum housed in what was once the great Argyll Motor Car factory -  world famous cars like those that featured in Back to the Future, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Batman, Herbie, Night Rider, Starsky and Hutch, Fast and Furious and Harry Potter. Surprisingly, when we finally caught up on the shores of the Loch (after Harry didn't follow my vague directions to the tea room) the sun was out and the lake looked a picture.

Then back into the car and onto Oban, 3 nights and not a lot of travelling for a while.  The first night we went into town and there was a pipe band playing - great (I'm not kidding) and we sat for ages listening and sampling Scotlands finest fish and chips. Day One was the sunniest over our whole holiday and perfect timing cos it was Oban's highland games.  Here we spent most of our time watching the heavy weights competing (of which one was a kiwi) to be the best - hammer throw, weight over bar, small and large stone, caber.  Very serious stuff - except when the handle on the weight broke and it couldn't be thrown backwards over the bar.  It took us till after lunch to realise this was good family entertainment with no alcohol.  After watching everyone else exercise (the most we had done was to eat waffles and strawberries with the occasional walk to the loo) we walked up the hill to the amphitheatre - a folly overlooking the village called McCaig's tower.

The boat trip out to Mull, Iona and Staffa was eventful and as we got further from the mainland the boat got smaller and smaller until it wasn't much bigger than the basking shark that followed us for most of the way on our last part of the journey.  Well worth the 'rock and roll' travel and we clambered off eagerly to walk to the cave and up to the top of Staffa.  Staffa was a treat, a little breakaway from the Giant Causeway in Ireland.  A rich husband bought the island for his wife as a birthday present - the story says she didn't think much of the gift and gave it to Historic Scotland but I like to think she saw the real value in it and wanted everyone to appreciate it. We didn't have long enough on the island or on Iona where we sat beside a stone wall looking out to sea eating our lunch to the mooing of cows in the field behind - rather romantic - and then wandered past all the little houses, shops and post box up to the Abbey (we took the long way round to avoid the cows).