We headed off for an hour's drive to the seaside. An overcast but calm day.
First stop to Seil Island via the Clachan (Atlantic) bridge built in 1792. The single lane, steep stone hump bridge is very pretty as it crosses the bay. The road is hilly and scenic to the top of the island to the slate town of Ellenabeich. This town is shadowed by soaring slate mountains and the town itself and adjacent Easedale Island exist as reclaimed land, made from the slag heap.
The cottages are tiny and joined together making a couple of whitewashed rows with a tiny harbour.
The 3 min ferry trip goes to Easedale island which is now the smallest inhabited island in Scotland with just 50 residents in tiny whitewashed seaside cottages. The island is famous for the World Rock Skimming championships using flat pieces of slate.
This island has a rugged outlook and totally surprising old slate mines that were destroyed by flooding towards the turn of the 20th century and as men went off to war, didn't have the manpower to restore them and return to operation. There were 400 inhabitants on the island at its peak.
The slate mines filled with water and look like huge swimming pools with clear blue water and slate edges. We walked the perimeter of the island with sea birds chirping and sail boats cruiaing by 😊. There were people winter bathing in the icy deep water.
We finished the afternoon with a trip to the Cruachan Hydro Electric plant, opened by the Queen in 1967. We did a tour of this incredible set up involving a tunnel called the Hollow mountain, which runs ¾ of a mile underground down to sea level, with a dam above and has an electrical output that can power 100,000 homes.
Tonight we went to a hotel on Loch Awe for dinner and I enjoyed local lamb.
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