Hello everyone,
well I haven’t actually had a day off today – busy at work as usual – but the weather has been lovely over the weekend on Islay. Not the temperatures experienced by the mainland, but not bad at all – the car said it was 17° on the way home this afternoon – I think that may have been a little optimistic! Several people have said to me that May is the best month on Islay, and it’s certainly looking good so far.
I went for a short explore around Bowmore at the weekend. Here was my route:
Just a gentle stroll along the beach to Eilean Mhic Ghoile and retraced my steps (green route this time). Thanks as usual to our friends at Ordnance Survey for helping me to keep the big blue wobbly bit on the correct side!
I started off by checking out the Visitor Centre at Bowmore Distillery. I hadn’t been here before, which seemed rather remiss of me since I’m living in Bowmore! Very nice it was too, a small shop with friendly staff and I noted that there is a dram bar upstairs…
Then I followed the footpath round the back of the distillery and onto the ‘Battery’…
I’ll write more about the Battery in a future post when I’ve researched its history in more depth, but it is a lovely place to sit on one of the benches and look out across Loch Indaal. As you can see, it was an absolutely stunning day.
There are quite a few swans living around Bowmore – I always find this surprising as I associate them with freshwater rather than the sea?
Then I carried on to the beach – they do a good line in strands on Islay…
I saw some amazing colours – these photos look really saturated but it’s just the quality of the light, I haven’t post-processed them…
I reached the shingle causeway which runs out to Eilean Mhic Ghoile…
…which is directly across the loch from Bruichladdich – I work in the white building on the right of the central group here.
There were lots of seals out there!
I’ll take my long lens with me next time so they aren’t just specs in the water!
Lots of beautiful flowers too… sea pinks and I’m not sure what the white flowers on top of the rocks are?
Celandines…
Not sure about these either – Lady’s Smock? I will found out and report back!
Bluebells and primroses are out now too…
…and some more exotic varieties provided by Bowmore Visitor Centre.
Having retraced my steps, it was into Bowmore’s Dram Bar with a rather fine view for a complimentary 12-year-old single malt!
:0)
Greene Island 