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We people who go camping do have a habit of heading west towards the Atlantic coast. Here, the prevailing winds from the south west bring all the rain there is ashore. One can expect some wet weather. And so it was on 8th August 2009. The rain hammered down on the roof of the tent as we pondered on how to spend this day. Well let’s start by being silly and making a video of the water on the tent roof – from the dry inside, of course.
It looks as though it was all a bit nerve racking for some.
But a decision was made – that we would visit the island of Luing (pronounced, more or less, ling). This was a short ferry ride from Seil which, of course, you reach by crossing the ‘Bridge over the Atlantic’. Luing is not a big island – in area it may be less than Kerrera but one could take a car there – a return for us and the car was less than £10. Now I know that works out at about a pound a minute but we reckoned that we could walk from a car and not get too wet and we could carry spares in the car for if we did get soaked. We also hoped to find an interesting place. We did. This turned into a special day for us.
But the weather was not auspicious at all as we sat in the car for the ferry journey.
That’s Port Cuan on Seil.
We make the short but wild crossing of Cuan Sound which has a rapid tidal race – up to 9mph. The little ferry – it could hold three cars – felt suitably powerful.
We arrived and stopped in a lay-by to get our bearings. A chap drove up and plonked a sign out advertising Luing Show – that very day. We felt sure we’d be there.
Just by the lay-by was Luing fire station. One tends to forget that even small islands need facilities.
Luing has two definite villages plus other settlements that might be deemed a bit lesser. The population in 2001 was 220 which includes the tidal island of Torsa which had but one house,
Unlike Kerrera, Luing has roads and motorists like us – brand new visitors need sign posts.
That’s the two villages – Toberonochy and Cullipool (where we didn’t find the WC).
I went (take that how you will) behind the fire station and was taken aback by a field of bulls. I couldn’t place the breed, but they looked impressive creatures.
The coast over Cullipool way looked interesting. We decided we’d head that way first.