{"id":78,"date":"2012-05-25T23:30:01","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T23:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/?p=78"},"modified":"2012-05-30T08:08:15","modified_gmt":"2012-05-30T08:08:15","slug":"oh-oh-theyve-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/?p=78","title":{"rendered":"Oh oh, they’ve arrived."},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s the day when Wolfgang, Caroline and Ralf turn up which mean that relaxed peace that myself and Al have been enjoying for the last couple of days is going to end.<\/p>\r\n

So with this in mind, we start as we mean to go on; with a hearty full breakfast at our B&B. \u00a0What better way to kick start the day.\r\n\r\nFirst things first; we’ve got a couple of logistical things to sort out so we head into Bowmore to see the tourist information people (who by the way are really really helpful considering how busy they are the moment). \u00a0 \u00a0 We enquired about tickets for the bus that runs down to the Clootie Dumpling Ceilidh on Saturday night but for that we’re better asking Florence down at the post office in Port Ellen so we head down there.<\/p>\r\n

It seems that not much Post Office business is being conducted by Florence today, the gent behind the counter is doing all the transactions, whilst Florence takes telephone calls and answers enquiries from people like us all related to the Festival, everyone in the place is laughing and joking. \u00a0One of the most pleasant Post offices I’ve been into.<\/p>\r\n

Myself and Al decide that we’re heading to Ardbeg for lunch and whilst we’re there we may sneak in a tour. \u00a0 Prime reason for this is we’re actually leaving the island on the day that is allocated to Ardbeg so we’ll miss any activities they’ve laid on.<\/p>\r\n

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\r\nArdbeg is just up the road from both Lagavulin and Laphroaig so we pass those two first heading to our destination. \u00a0 \u00a0The distillery itself is run by a total of ten people, yes ten !! \u00a0 The property is immaculate and very welcoming, the whitewashed walls which are so dominant on Islay stand clean and shining in the gorgeous weather we have yet again today. \u00a0 \u00a0Lunch was taken (Aberdeen Angus burgers) and then we booked ourselves on the 3pm tour. \u00a0 It’s just gone 12 so we’ve got plenty of time for a quick walk around the exterior of the buildings. \u00a0 Whilst climbing on the rocks, we come across four gents who are having a mid-day seista after probably partaking a little too much of the spirity.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

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We jump in the truck and head up the road a little further to Kildalton Cross, an 8th Century cross related to the one on Iona. \u00a0 Lovely setting and very peaceful especially with no-one around. \u00a0 Definitely worth a visit.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

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Further up this road is a lovely pebbled beach of Claggan bay – which at the time had quite a few Oyster Catcher birds and their young running about in the grasses. \u00a0 \u00a0 If you get the chance, go there and enjoy some of the cracking stones that are washed up on the beach.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

It’s back to Ardbeg and tour; \u00a0for the price (\u00a35) it’s a good tour and comes complete with samples any of the five taste explosions that Ardbeg have to offer from their \u00a0breakfast whisky \u00a0 Blasda \u00a0<\/span>through to the Alligator. \u00a0 You’ll also get the \u00a35 back if you spend more than \u00a325 in the shop); which to be honest is a bit of a no-brainer having sampled the Alligator \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\r\n

Then it’s into the truck and head to the airport to welcome the trio of travellers; \u00a0we figured out that they’d probably be landing from the sea so we drove onto the beach and wrote a huge Hi \ud83d\ude42 into the sand and then parked there and awaited their arrival. \u00a0 To be honest; it was a good feeling seeing the plane banking over the bay and we were both waving like mad men at the plane as it passed in front of us.<\/p>\r\n

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Unfortunately for us, Al had collected a large rock from the beach (long story which I won’t bore you with) however when she put it into the back of the truck she had put it in the vicinity of some of the bottles of alcohol we had in the back. \u00a0 \u00a0Let’s just say in our rush to get back to collect our arrivals we may have been travelling a little bit too fast over the rough track back from the beach to the main road and everything in the back jumped up and came back down again when we hit a relatively large pothole. \u00a0 \u00a0 There was a smash followed by the smell of alcohol in the truck; never a good sign. \u00a0So getting out to have a look I find alcohol pouring out of the back door. \u00a0 \u00a0 It seemed that Alisons rock had came down hard enough on two bottles that were in the bottle crate smashing them to pieces. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Thankfully it only came down on two bottles of wine, narrowly missing my bottle of cask strength 11 year old Caol Ila from 1993 which I had taken up to savour and share and finish with friends.<\/p>\r\n

In the evening we drove down from our B&B (The Anchorage just along the road from Bruichladdich) to ‘the pub’ at Portnahaven. \u00a0 \u00a0It’s an experience, and a cracking pub. \u00a0What basically is two small front rooms of a cottage has been turned into two distinct areas; dining on the right and the bar serving area on the left. \u00a0 \u00a0We manage to squeeze the five of us into a small table for four; when I say squeeze I mean that Wolfgang is on a stool at the bar on his own. \u00a0We did eventually get a table for five of us and had a very pleasant meal and drinks.<\/p>\r\n

Many thanks must go to my Wife; Caroline (Smudge) who drove us back to the B&B since we’d all had a drink in.<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s the day when Wolfgang, Caroline and Ralf turn up which mean that relaxed peace that myself and Al have been enjoying for the last couple of days is going to end. So with this in mind, we start as we mean to go on; with a hearty full breakfast at our B&B. \u00a0What better […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islay","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Ardbegsigns.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigmcateer.co.uk\/islay\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}