You cannot judge of a tree by its WWOOF.: A Grand Day Out

Well yesterday didn’t start out too well. We had pretty awful hangovers and had to ask Rob if we could roll over our working hours to today instead, which was fine. We were invited over to the neighbours Graham and Jo along with the rest of the family for a barbecue on Wednesday evening (our second BBQ of the week!). We had a great evening meeting the neighbours, eating lots of good food, sitting outside until the midges arrived, mocking Matt for his Bon Jovi purchase (Matt: when I was 7 years old) etc. Graham was rather nifty with his wine topping up skills and for some reason when he offered us a whiskey at the end of the evening we thought it was a good idea… So as I was saying, Thursday morning was not a good one. We slept most of the morning in the caravan but it soon turned into a sauna with the beautiful sunshine streaming through. We couldn’t waste the rest of the day and continued with our plans to head out to Ardnamurchan point (the most westerly point of mainland Britain don’t you know).

The roads around here are incredibly windy and narrow so the journey was not a quick one but as we drove up to the lighthouse I spotted movement in the water and noticed a pod of dolphins. So we rushed out and sat on the rocks watching them in the sunshine (we soon forgot about our sore heads). After a bite to eat we drove round to the beach at Portuairk. The scenery around here is just stunning. Beautifully clear sea with white sandy beaches, mountains rising up behind us, the mountains of Rum and Eigg jutting out of the sea in the distance, I can heartily recommend a visit! We started exploring and walking over the rocks into different sandy bays when we came across a small stone hut nestled into the hillside above a cove. It was a pretty picturesque spot and perhaps we were staring at it for too long because the owner promptly came out and invited us in for a look round and a cup of tea on the decking!

We sat with her for quite some time chatting about all sorts of things, watching a man check his lobster pots, keeping an eye out for otters. It turns out that she lets the hut for holidays (it is a 5 min walk from the road and literally one main room with a small bathroom at the back but beautifully done up) and we are extremely tempted to return. We walked on to Sanna beach from the hut which was beautiful in the early evening light.

We got back to the house at 9ish, ate some delicious fish pie (thank you Justine) and then as we were lounging back in our luxury caravan Matt shouted “Look” pointing up at the sky. I thought it’d be some interesting bird or something but then he said “Look, that cloud looks just like Mandy (aka Andy)”. And do you know what? He was right! What a funny day.

The rest of our time here has been lovely. It’s been fascinating learning about mushrooms in a commercial setting and Rob has been great at teaching us all aspects of the job. We’ve had a very chilled out time and pretty amazing weather too.