Traveling Up Through Scotland- First Stop Port Patrick

Dear Family & Friends,

After the Isle of Man we needed some relaxation, peaceful surroundings, and some exercise. Our goal this trip has been to walk/hike 3-5 miles a day.

Our first stop was Port Patrick. We have been here before and just love it. It is located on a remote bay in western Scotland. Originally founded as a rescue port for ships sailing the Irish Sea it is still used as such but also caters to tourism and summer homes. It is still a small village with only 600 full time residents. It never feels crowded. We stayed in a small inn above a pub with a great ocean view. 

Next stop was the Isle of Aaran. A small island with a few villages, a wonderful castle, and lots of hiking trails.

See the photos below for more details.

Regards

Jason

By the coast line near our inn.

Overlooking the bay with directions for local ships to various destinations!

A local pub sign..🤣🤣

Lots of beautiful old buildings.

The main road into town.

Everywhere…more and more war memorials.

We hiked to the top of this mountain for a view of the entire village and bay.

The view out the window of our room one night.

Water breakers.

A memorial to lost sailors and saved sailers.

The bay of Port Patrick. The tide changes are very extreme. In the morning the boats can be laying in the mud, and a few hours later they are floating in 15-20ft of water.

At high tide there is no beach here!

The proper way to finish a day…G&T

The view from our room.

A local grave yard going back hundreds of years.

One day we hiked a mile or so down the coast to explore this castle ruin.

Built in the 1200s and destroyed in the 1500 hundreds. With contestant wars most castles were eventually wrecked. This is known as Dunskey Castle.

My “Lady” of the castle.😍

 

The door jams are low and sharp!

Our next stop was the Isle of Arron.

We stayed in this quaint very old hunting lodge called “Butt Lodge”. No kidding.

There are lots of good hiking here. The first morning we walked to the coast and explored another castle.

A jellyfish swam right up to us.

Some of our hiking was over rough terrain.

Here we hiked several miles across fields to see ambient stone monuments and sheep, lots of sheep.

Here is another hike we did up this mountain. What started out as a small walk ended up 5 miles!

One morning we were walking back to our lodge from an 2 mile walk and we saw a sign saying, “arts and crafts and live music, 2nd house on the left.” We thought let’s go see. Well two houses were about a mile apart up the side of a mountain! 

On our way up the mountain….

After a couple miles of hiking up a dirt road it became a trail.

Working our way down the mountain trail.

The last mile or so was back along the beautiful coast line.

The next day we drove around the island and visited this castle. What makes it specials was it was built in the 1500s but was lived in until 1957 si it’s still in great shape and looks like you could move in today and be comfortable.

We could have some great dinner parties here!

We finished the day in the castle dungeon. And interesting thing we learned is the word dungeon is Gaelic for “highest point”. Originally prisoners we kept in the highest tower of the castle but they started to put them in the basement the word dungeon followed them.