Oban Bay

In common with the rest of the town, the pubs and restaurants in Oban aren’t very inspiring. There isn’t any nice sea fronting pubs with cosy beer gardens that you sometimes find in resorts. We do find a few offering local beers though and on Thursday we venture into one of those but they turn out to have no beer at all. So we move on, much to their horror. Don’t advertise what you’re not selling!

The next pub does have some local beer and sells us Oban Bay’s Ginger Jakey which isn’t too bad at all as well as a decent meal.

On Friday we look for somewhere to walk and find a secluded if slightly scruffy beach. We take a signed walk from it to a neighbouring village, which lands us in another housing estate with the only form of sustenance coming from a Happy Shopper type store, where we stop for a ice cream before heading back.

That night we strike gold and find the Oban Bay Brewery tap. Cuan Mor not only sells a selection of their beers but also does some very fine food. 

 Probably the place to go in Oban. It’s busy, so I guess everyone else thinks so too.

(Friday 16^th August)

The Cuckoo's Calling And Oban Too

This morning we leave for holiday and travel up to Oban. As is often the case on these long journeys we take an audiobook with us. L nominated the new JK Rowling... I wasn’t initially keen but this is the new incognito as man private detective story ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ written under the name Robert Galbraith and its very very good. It's really sad that people felt the need to expose her as the author.

Having arrived in Oban, we’ve just got to wait a week now to find out the conclusion. 

Oban is a place that we haven’t really visited before, only passed through. So this year we've dedicated two nights and one day to Oban. Perhaps this is a mistake, it’s a strange place. A mix of industrial estates, housing estates with a ferry terminal and a permanent traffic jam. We camp at the back of one of the industrial/housing estates at Roseview campsite, in what is actually quite an idyllic location.

I’m not sure L is terribly impressed though. We’ve only had the tent up five minutes and I come back from checking out the facilities to find she’s set fire to it. A night or even a week in a 5 star hotel isn’t obtained quite that easily though. I get out the tent repair kit. Pretty soon, with the aid of patches, glue and some safety pins, it’s almost as good as new. 

(Thursday 15^th August)