Halloooo! How’s things? Hope you’re well. Well, we’ve been pretty busy this week. We – me, hubby, the kids and my stepdaughter – travelled up to Cuil Bay near Duror (one the west coast in the Highlands) for a long weekend last weekend.

And it was fantastic.

We had a lovely weekend and didn’t want to come back.

Sigh.

It was just so relaxing.

We didn’t do a lot, but here are a few pictures to show you what we did do.

Above is the boy travelling over the bridge to Eilean Donan Castle. I’ve always wanted to go there (being a big fan of Highlander and castles and Scottish castles in particular) and I loved it. It’s not a huge castle, so we were round it pretty quickly, but was really good to see.

Apologies for the slightly blurry pics. It was a blowing a gale when we went. I couldn’t take any pics inside because you’re not allowed, but I bought a guide book and that’ll remind me of it. I love castles. I love the history, I love the design, I love the old furniture and equipment, I love the atmosphere. Eilean Donan doesn’t disappoint on any of those!

We stayed in Cuil Bay Cottage (see above), a traditional wee cottage almost in the middle of nowhere. There are other houses in this area, but they are far apart enough that you really feel you are alone.

This is an evening view from the front garden of the cottage. The scenery was breathtaking. Not the really high mountains of Glencoe to the north (we travelled through Glencoe – if you have never driven through it, do it. It’s amazing! I’ve never felt so overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty of mountains until I went there!), but gorgeous none-the-less. Anyway, we had a fab view of Cuil Bay. The night the last picture was taken was really clear, there was a crescent moon in the sky throwing light over the fields and mountains and there were literally millions of stars in the sky. It was amazing!

During our stay we walked down to the beach which was no more than a quarter of a mile away.

The girl and I went first…

…with the dog…

…who had never seen the beach or sea before…

…and jumped straight into the water! Sigh. We had to bath her when we got home.

We all went on our last day there. The weather was fantastic and you could really feel the warmth of the sun. Lovely. We drove part of the way there because hubby isn’t strong enough to walk that distance, but he managed to walk a wee bit.

We searched for beach treasure and generally had a lovely time.

I took lots of pics and we made lots of lovely memories.

Other things we did on holiday included…

…crossing the Bridge over the Atlantic (above) to visit Seil Island. We had lunch there and then visited Oban.

We also looked out for other castles. Above is a pic of Castle Stalker which is north of Oban. We couldn’t visit, but it’s a lovely castle.

We also had lunch at some really nice places. The food was great.

It was just a lovely weekend and one we’ll never forget!

Dawn xxxx