An early start was out of the question. The day ahead of us was as much a question for us, as it was for anyone else. Having “forgotten” a proper raincoat and the weather forecast and a small burst pipe in our hotel room told us we should have, we just had to treat ourselves to a new jacket. With the perfect timing Scotland has, stepping outside of the shop our new coats got their initiation while we walked to Inveraray Castle. 

Yes. WhiskySpeller goes all touristy today. Brace yourselves! Cliopatra, our tiny car, loaded with many days of clothing and a variety of footwear, also deserved a resting day. Up the hill we went. Walking. If you have met us, we are not really the walking types, but there we went and – we survived! Imagine that. 

The Castle and tour are quite nice and gave us some background about the Duke(s) of Argyll and Clan Campbell. Warm whisky (something they call it “tea” around here, strange stuff), and a nice wee walk through the village gave us the much needed rest inside our heads and some water drops on top. Honestly, they were water drops and not sweat, we are not in that bad condition. Also, the temperature probably would not have allowed us to sweat anyways.

In a way, it was weird, not moving the car about in Scotland and just staying in one place. It is not what we do best, but it was well deserved, we suppose. Anyway, the Kennacraig-Islay ferry got cancelled for the whole of the day, so we would have been stuck anyway. Back at the George hotel, the burst pipes are fixed, the original wet coat dried and warmed in the hotel boiler room and we left our newly acquired jackets dripping on the still damp spot last night’s leakage had left its marks. 

We grab the laptops and a dram, type up this very text and have a nice chat with the hotel’s new barmanager Ivan, who we recognise to be a former SMWS colleague from Queenstreet in Edinburgh, before having dinner at the George. The well stocked bars (yes, plural) at the George gave us reason enough to stay indoors for the remainder of the evening and after dinner dram or two.

Up next: we go to Islay. if you have missed our social channels, here’s a sneak peek.