Scotland 2012 part 3 - Out and about

Typical Scotland....spectacular vistas.  Taking a break on Loch Awe.  Had just been listening to the first Cuckoo of summer.

....ruined castles on Lochs with Mountain backdrops. Just minutes before two Tornado jets screamed down the Glen

just over our heads on a very low pass!

I took this through the window of the restaurant we had dinner in.  We were next to the shore and had fantastic views

over the Sound of Jura to the Islands of Islay and Jura.  Here a boat idles slowly through the Sound as evening draws in.

Empty beaches...here we are down by the Mull of Kintyre...you can just hear Paul McCartney and Wings....

Saw my first Eider duck here and watched Arctic Terns and Gannets feeding just off the shore.

Here we are just taking it easy in the beautiful village of Tayvallich on Loch Sween.  Just relaxing pondering how we could be at work..

Seal and birdwatching at Brunerican bay near Southend at the Mull of Kintyre. We watched a colony of 20+ seals lazing on

rocks and playing in the sea. We watched an Otter which was my favourite 'spot' of the week and saw Terns, Gannets, Cormorants, Rock Pippets, Ring Plovers, Oystercatchers, Hooded Crows and Wheatears.

Inverary Castle...the ancestral home of the Duke of Argyll, chief of the Clan Campbell.  Spoke to the Duke, as you do , as he was walking the grounds. Has some great artefacts and a superb armoury with artefacts from the battle of Culloden.

Visit their website here click here for Inverary castle website 

The Commando monument at Achnacarry.  It was here in WWII that the Commando's training base was set up at the decree

of Churchill in an attempt to build a force of fighting men to hit back at the Germans on mainland Europe.

For more information on this historic place click here

Today there is also a memorial garden, sadly growing due to combatant deaths in the Afghanistan theatre.

The lighthouse at the very tip of the Mull of Kintyre.  It's quite a journey to get here but the prominent offers views

over the sea to both mainland Scotland and Northern Island.

This is the memorial to the victims of the Chinook crash in 1994 on the Mull of Kintyre which killed Military personnel returning from Northern Ireland and was the RAF's.worst peacetime disaster.  Full details can be read here