Friday 20 May 2011

Keilmore and Danna Island

Hi all,
having sampled a very civilised breakfast in Tayvallich, we carried on with our journey down the lonely Craignish pennisular. We were following the only road (it would be called a lane where we live) along the southern banks of Lock Sween. The terrain was very changeable; heathland, moor and mountains passed us by while searing beautiful images into our souls at every turn.
We travelled for mile after mile through this remote land and didn't pass a single car. Eventually we reached the tip of the penninsular and came to the village of Keilmore. I say village, there was, as far as I could see, only one building and that looked like a semi-detached. However, what it lacked in size was more than made up for by the scenery. Across the sea, the people who lived in the house would have a perfect view of the Paps of Jura. Very nice on a summer's day I thought, but I can't imagine what it must be like in winter when a roaring gale is threatening to rattle the putty out of their windows.
According to the map, Kielmore is also the home to Keil's Chapel, which is a short walk away around the headland. It's a 12th century building, that houses some grave slabs of a similar vintage. We are not religious and looking at old grave stones seems an odd thing to do when surrounded by such beauty, so we didn't bother. Instead we wandered around the foreshore of Loch na Cille, took a few photos then returned up the single track road towards Tayvallich. At the tip of Loch na Cille we noticed a little track going off to the right and being in a cavalier mood we decided to see where it led to.
It followed the loch around opposite to where we'd just been at Keilmore and with the exception of one ruined building the place was completely deserted. The photo above shows the building in its splendid setting. If it ever came up on Homes Under The Hammer, I might be tempted to put a bid in myself. While we were stopped at this building I checked the map and found that we were heading for Danna Island, so we carried on until we could go no further then we turned around and headed back to the lodge. The weather might not have been great, but we'd had a perfect day. We'd seen very few people and hardly any cars, yet we had spent the whole day in the most glorious scenery one can imagine. It was just me, my wife and Buzby and in our world, days don't come any better than this. I will leave you with another picture of Loch Sween.
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