Tales of Home [9]

Mrs Figg wrote:good luck Dave.  
Ladies wee-wee tubes around the world thank you very muchly.

Uhuh !

well mine do its the they make you stop for the loo.

Best of luck, Dave! I hope no bears (or drunken Scotshobbits) get in your way.

Thanks everybody!
Our first long day today.
Remember what Halfy said about the dangers of trying to keep up with grad students when you've aged a bit?
The same principles apply to field work too.
Gotta be done though.  
I've still got the moves to keep up with the best of em
{{but I'll pay for it tomorrow... }}

Well, at least I don't have to keep up with them every day. You've got weeks to go. Somehow I think your challenge is healthier than mine.

{{Wish you could all hear what I can right now- I'm at work (night porter in a big hotel) and the MOD is on this weekend in my hometown (actually been on all week) its a big Gaelic singing competition, moves about the country- right now about a dozen competitors who are staying here are on the landing just in front of my main desk, discussing, singing, improvising and generally sounding amazing singing old Gaelic songs without accompaniment- just their voices. Sounds incredible. The melodies, and when the all the voices slowly come in, got goose-bumps!}}}

Impromptu moments like that give me the tingles & you remember that for a long long time, its great isn't it

If you had one of 'em fancy modern phones you could video it for us.

No longer in the old folks home, or is this a second job?

{{Just about to head off to work on the nightshift. Should be an interesting night-
1. theres a full moon.
2. the hotel could audition for the Shining.

3. Its been full of 'mediums' and 'psychics' all day doing readings and stuff.

So, assuming for the sake of argument, there is anything to their mumbo-jumbo- then I have to walk about a dark spooky hotel all night in which they've spent the day poikng the dead with a stick and stirring them up  
And worse I noticed they had been researching on the work computer the local massacre, in which the Lamonts got brutally murdered and betrayed- by my ancestors!

So of I'm not here tomorrow Ive probably met my end in a gruesome and terrifying fashion at the undead hands of Lamont Highland zombies! Least its not quite Samhain! (though close enough!!   )}}}

fill your pockets with protection crystals, shove a bible down yer pants, chew garlic, adopt a friends dog for the night to go round with you. carry a bag of salt, Lastly, invite that stupid %£$*^ Evette Fielding to really meet a ghost cus that dappy &^£$ is such a faker ! its about time she really did get the shits & spooked out ! Actually watching someone else being scared brings out the hero in oneself. Keep a whistle in yer pocket, Ive heard spooks hate high pitched noises I wonder who thought THAT one up ? If all else fails wear waterproof undercrackers

Petty - how does your little spit of land support such a large hotel?

But I'm sure the McTyrant clan can take a bit of spooks. They're probably more scared of you than you are of them...

{{Well no ghosties, booglies, nor faeries (the last being particularly likely as the hotel is next to Morag's Faery Glen) its seems the stench of spirits on me put off the actual spirits!

"how does your little spit of land support such a large hotel?"- Halfwise

Ah, there's a tale of sorts Halfy- there are still a surprising amount of hotels and B&B's in my town- it was with the advent of the industrial revolution that the town transformed from small village around a strategically located castle (you can easily spot any vessels trying to come up the River Clyde from a great distance- for the very same reason massive anti-ship guns were located on the hillsides here in WW2 to stop German ships coming up the river to the Clyde shipyards, and the entire breadth of it was defended with an anti-sub boom from shore to shore).

But it was the steamers, the puffers and the railways combined that made the town the ideal get away for the shipyard and steel and iron and coal workers of the industrialised Glasgow and surrounds that made it a tourist destination. Within  a days journey of Glasgow, affordable, and now easy to get to. The Clyde is a boundary, on the Glasgow side of it you are in the Lowlands, but on this side your in the Highlands, and the rest of Scotland is open to you, well not so much then but more than you might expect- lochs such as Loch Eck, which now the odd canoeist takes too (also known locally as the Mirrorloch)-



once had steamers of its own taking tourists up and down its seven mile length granting access to the villages of Glenbranter, Strachur and so Loch Fyne.



But in Dunoon one of oldest and most prominent hotels is the Argyll, as its right in town and originally right on the shore, but a lots been reclaimed since it was built and now there's a garden bit, a road and a carpark between it and the sea.







When it comes to big hotels there were three main ones, McColls, The Selbourne and the one I work in, The Glenmorag. Sadly McColls was demolished a few years ago, which was a shame, I worked there in my youth as a waiter for a while and it was an amazing building, particualry inside as it was all built in the art-deco style-



Sadly a pile of rubble now. The Selbourne is down the West Bay on the beach front-




There's a whole load of hotels along the West Bay, Selbourne is the biggest, but there's also The Esplanade-



Bit small, but you can see the whole row of them along the far bay here-



This was it in the early days-



and similar view today- not a lots changed-



And there are a few other notable hotels around town or the immediate area-





And if you yearn for a taste of what it was all like back in its heyday of tourism, the you can also arrive at the Victorian era pier aboard the paddle steamer Waverley, still steaming her way around the Clyde to this day.



These days the town basically survives on a mixture of event hosting- Cowal Highland Gathering, hosting events like the MOD Gaelic festival, the biking trials, rallies, and hotels do stuff like the mediums and psychics thing too, or other conferences or special events which keeps them ticking over- were about half full but seasons over and were into winter now, it only shuts down totally four weeks a year, two in November and two in January (doesn't effect me though, still needs security). Mainly the town sells itself on being a 'Gateway to the Highlands'- and the scenery is pretty good. And you dont have to go far before it gets better and not too much further before your wandering in spectacular and breathtaking. So has that going for it.-

Morags Faery Glen, next to my hotel, originally part of its estate-



and the similar Puck's Glen, about six miles out of town-



Theres a ton of these littel places with walks wand bridges over small streams and rivers that flow down the hillsides here.
Also near Pucks Glen you have the Botanical Gardens-





ad a couple miles out of town th ether way you have the Chinese Lakes- no idea why so called, they are a Victorian folly, the bridges ect were built to look damaged and older than they are-



and if you ant your vistas bigger you can always go hill climbing for a view of Lock Fyne and Inveraray (about an hour and three-quarters drive through beautiful countryside and passed Loch Eck (the Mirrorloch) on your way-



or maybe of the Kyles of Bute if you ant to go  bit further afield-

}}

lovely pictures Petty ! beautiful & looks unspoilt. liked the history too

love the faery glen and the Chinese lakes.

Looking at it on the map I see it's not the small slip of land I had imagined, and in fact the River Clyde coming out of Glasgow sort of rams you right into the arms of Dunoon. It's been fun looking up all the little pubs and hotels - decent prices too. Not a bad stop for a weekend vacation out of the big town.

I love all the glimpses of your local history that you share on here, Petty. Really interesting stuff, and gorgeous photos as usual!

halfwise wrote:Looking at it on the map I see it's not the small slip of land I had imagined, and in fact the River Clyde coming out of Glasgow sort of rams you right into the arms of Dunoon.  It's been fun looking up all the little pubs and hotels - decent prices too.  Not a bad stop for a weekend vacation out of the big town.

If I ever go on my long-dreamt-of European I'd definitely like to visit forum friends, so Petty's part of Scotland has been on my mind before and it looks like the kind of place that would be an easy sell to anyone I might be traveling with. How difficult is it to get to Dunoon from Glasgow, Petty? I vaguely recall you mentioning before* that some customer service department had insisted you lived on an island other than Britain.


*So I got curious and Google indicates that "before" in this instance means "almost seven-and-a-half years ago" (>link<).

{{Its a peninsula so there is a land route from Glasgow to Dunoon, a good drive too, you go through the Loch Lomond national park



over the rest and Be Thankful Mountain path,



if you leave in the morning a small twenty minute diversion will let you have lunch in Inveraray, where I would strongly recommend the George Hotel-






then round Loch Fyne to Strachur, along Lock Eck side to the Holy Loch,



round it and your in Dunoon- couple hours drive on a good day.

However most of winter the Rest and Be Thankful can be all but impassable, and if its out there is no land route, the fasted and most travelled route therefore is across the Clyde by ferry, the shortest route taking about 20 minutes the longer one about 40 (hence why package companies like Amazon think we are an island as deliverers go by ferry not road)- ferries are regular, every twenty minutes and if it gets very busy they throw another boat out, there's a car ferry and a passenger only. And there is a direct train link from the ferry terminal to Glasgow central (about 30 minutes if you get an express train, an hour if it make all the stops on route). If your driving it is faster than going round Loch Lomond, but its nowhere near as stunning a route. }}}

That definitely makes the idea of renting a car seem much more attractive.

{{ I tried to get the route on google maps but wouldn't even give the land route as an option, just the ferry route, so had to break it into two stages, sing the turn off at Arrochar as a mid point roughly. Also Ive done it assuming anyone visiting would be coming from the airport in a hire car, Glasgow airport is actually nearer the town of Paisley than it is Glasgow, but if you were arriving at Glasgow Central by train, say from England there is a train connection there right to the Dunoon ferry terminal in Greenock-




You also cross the Clyde by the Ersking Bridge-





By comparison taking the ferry across, either on foot and then the train or by car is more direct and quicker, though unless you've a thing for passing through old shipbuilding and steel work areas of the west of Scotland its not as scenic a trip, though the ferry journey is which you miss out on if you go by road

}}

The drive looks stunning. I've had a hankering for a while to try to do the Western and Eastern Highland Line. (No idea when I'll actually manage it though. ) Perhaps I could find some time when in the environs of Glasgow.

Done with Harvest at LAST!!!
 

Congrats, Dave! Enjoy your well-earned rest.

Whoo-hoo!  Time for a pint!