Third Wednesday Date Day and we headed to Dunoon. I told my colleague, Sai, our plan and she grinned and raised her eyebrows and said 'really?' I know what she was thinking - Dunoon is a little down at heel place, having lost all its industry in boat building and sail making over the years, so that a lot of people have moved away and investment in the area is not what it was. But we were willing to give it a go and see if we could learn a bit about our local area. We have recently finished reading the very excellent The Cruel Sea, which we hoovered up hungrily together as it was exciting, tragic and funny in equal measure. It featured a fair bit about Greenock and Dunoon and the water in between, where the ship convoys collected during the war for sailing across to America, and around, under the protection of military ships, so we knew there was interesting history to be had.
Liz's car, her XKR, was going for a second opinion at a different MOT station having failed at the first one we tried, so we decided to make a day of it. Cut to the chase, the car failed even more spectacularly second time round and, with issues front and rear, it's going to cost a lot of £££ to fix so we have now decided to sell it on without an MOT for someone with more time / skill to have some fun with.
Anyhow, this gave us an incentive to have a look at another part of the world up here that we haven't seen much of. First on the list was puffin rock. A bit of a landmark in Dunoon, it sits just at the shoreline and is a lovely, colourful addition to an otherwise less attractive bit of coastline. The other rocks on the beach just there are gorgeous as they undulate in smooth but irregular waves of stripy white and grey.
Next was the castle grounds and museum, which was actually pretty good - for a small museum it was packed with information. The town and surrounding area have a massive history, both long ago (like invasion by folks from Ireland and neolithic artefacts all over the place) and more recently (like the USA naval base in Dunoon during the Cold War and testing of bouncing bombs during WW2). Some of this is still visible today either still in use (NATO Naval fuel dump on Loch Striven) or derelict like remnants of piers from times long ago.
In the grounds of the museum are the castle ruins, marked now by a flag on top of the hill (I think), and the statue of Mary Campbell - erected to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Robert Burns' death. She was born in Dunoon in 1763 and became Burns' lover for a few weeks before her death in 1786. He dedicatd several poems and a song to her, including Highland Mary. They even took part in the traditional Scottish betrothal ritual of exchanging bibles over a burn. As long as the burn continued to flow and the words of the bible remained true, then the love would remain strong - something I learnt in the museum!
Standing by the statue I noticed something we had driven past many times without spotting - a slightly sad looking crazy golf course! We will save this for another time...
Next was lunch at the Local Hero Cafe. Wow - what amazing burgers and nice service too from the jovial American guy and Scottish lady (aged about 60 and rocking a number of tattoos and piercings). I really wanted to order the pickle tickle wrap because I liked the name, but I went for the buffalo chicken burger and it was fab. John went for the fun named animal burger with fries.Highly recommended if you're ever in Dunoon for lunch. The photo shows the place empty at 11.55am, but just 10 minutes later every table was full!
I (Liz) then faniced calling into the weekly craft group at the library just to check it out, so we got there at 1pm which was the advertised start time. I asked the friendly librarian about it and it turned out to be a few friends who brought their own knitting and sat and knitted and chatted in the library. So, that was the end of that. But the library was nice and in the same building is the council run gym and a small cafe, a soft play and rooftop terrace.
So, instead, we had time to go south 15 minutes to Toward Castle (pronounced like Howard but with a T). It used to be open for summer camps and weddings etc, but is now closed to the public, except for a walkers' path to something advertised as the Chinese Lakes (about 100 yards in and a bit of an anticlimax as John didn't even notice them seeing as they were so overgrown), and of course the castle ruin itself (there is a huge newer house built in the grounds). It was a very pleasant walk which we had all to ourselves, the sun was popping out between clouds, the air temperature was just right and there was a slight breeze. As we wandered we listened to the insects buzzing and the odd screech of the oyster catchers from the nearby beach. A perfect afternoon.
The last thing of the day was to do a quick drive by of Toward lighthouse and foghorn house. What a gorgeous little spot!
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