The Best of Argyll
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Maximum adventurers: 11
Departure point: Glasgow Queen Street Station and Glasgow Airport
Drop off point: Glasgow Queen Street Station
This Adventure is FULL
This guided walking/hiking tour offers all aspects of the west Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
In Glen Coe, north Argyll, we will visit Coir Gabhail (the ‘corrie of booty’, also known as the Lost Valley), which is concealed on a high meadow behind a massive rockfall. Glen Coe, in addition to offering one of the most stunning views in Scotland, is also attributed to being one of the best-exposed examples of cauldron subsidence. We will have a dramatic walk around the Isle of Jura’s north shore beside the Corrievreckan tide race.
The Isle of Jura has a unique landscape and seascape of exposed wildness and raised beaches. It is surrounded by islands, large and small. No two days are the same here as menacing skies are quickly followed by blue skies and the sea is dotted with grey and black seals.
Southwards we will explore Kilmartin Glen, heartland of the first Gaelic-speaking Scots, with a unique concentration of prehistoric monuments. Among them Dunadd, the ‘capital’ of Scottish Dalriada. From within its ruined walls, beside the traces of ceremonial rock carvings, you can, in your imagination, step back 1500 years.
Day 1 – Friday, October 1st: Glasgow – Glen Coe – Oban
We will meet in Glasgow in the morning between 8:00 and 9:00AM and drive through Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park to Glen Coe for our first walk. Glen Coe offers wild mountain scenery in a famous setting beyond Rannoch Moor. The Lost Valley (properly Coire Gabhail, or the corrie of booty) is a dramatic glaciated ‘hanging valley’ situated between two of Glen Coe’s famous ‘three sisters’ ridges. Hidden from the world behind massive piles of tumbled rock that fell from over steepened mountainsides late in the ice age, it is reputed to have been the place where the Glen Coe MacDonalds hid their stolen cattle. About 4 miles (6.5 km) and 1000ft (305m) ascent. After our hike, we will travel on to Oban where we will stay in Wellpark House for 2 nights.
Day 2 – Saturday, October 2nd: Isle of Jura
We will go by hired boat from Craobh Haven to the north end of Jura for a rough but spectacular walk around the wild Corrievreckan shore. Red deer are unmissable and we should keep an eye open for porpoises, seals and otters in the Sound of Jura and golden and sea eagles in the air. If wind and tide are right, then the overfalls in Corrievreckan make one of the most stirring sights of all the world’s oceans, with one of the biggest of all standing waves. Do try not to fall in.
Day 3 – Sunday, Ocober 3rd: Oban distillery – Kilmartin Glen – Glasgow
We will start the day with a tour of Oban Distillery.
After our dram, we will travel south to Kilmartin Glen. This may well have been one of prehistoric Scotland’s most densely inhabited regions, a fact hard to appreciate in today’s thinly-populated Argyll. Burial cairns and stone circles, rock carvings and standing stones, duns and hill forts speak of millennia of continuous habitation. We start exploring the glen with a visit to Kilmartin House Museum, followed by a walk to take in the best of the prehistoric monuments around Kilmartin. The walk will be mostly on paths and up to 5 miles (8 km). Our route back to Glasgow takes us along Loch Fyne side, through the Arrochar Alps and past Loch Lomond. We will be back at Glasgow Queen Street Station around 17.30hrs, so you will be able to take the 18.10 train to the Adventure Travel World Summit in Aviemore.
Trip Design, Logistics & Guiding: About Argyll offers guided walking / hiking holidays to quiet, remote corners that can only be reached on foot, enabling you to enjoy the solitude of Scotland’s secret places. You will discover more about the history and culture, nature and landscape of what is one of the world’s most excitingly varied small countries.
Operator: About Argyll Walking Holidays
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