Tuesday 6 March 2007

A While in Bute...

Isle of Bute, Argyllshire

We travelled on down from Ballachulish towards the Isle of Bute. We had intended to visit Julie’s uncle Alan and his wife Alison who live in Rothesay, the main town on the island, but they must have been away for the week as we never managed to reach them at their home or mobile phones. We stopped off at a lay-by near Tighnabruich overlooking the Kyles of Bute. The following day we headed back round the coast and crossed over to Bute on the ferry at Colintraive. We bought a ‘Hopscotch’ ticket that permitted us to cross back again from Rothesay to Wemyss Bay thus cutting out a long journey all the way round via Glasgow.

We camped at Ettrick Bay the first night and Peter fished from the bay when the tide was coming in until it was too dark to continue!



I can’t find any other pictures from our time on Bute… I think we kept forgetting to take the camera with us each time we went for a walk. We went round the island visiting the chambered cairns at Kilmichael where I got a few twisted Honeysuckle sticks to make into Runestaffs. We camped at Kilchattan Bay for a couple of nights. I was delighted to find a wonderful source of sea glass and ceramics at an old midden there where people would have dumped their old and damaged glass and stoneware bottles and jars and crockery. The tumbling of the waves on this material on the shore rounds and smooths off rough edges and frosts the glass. I had built up a small collection of these materials when we stayed for a while at various places along the top North Eastern coast – Findochty, Fraserburgh, Portnockie etc for a week when we came back from Skye.

I have ideas for making jewellery, buttons and closures for knitwear clothes and bags using these along with glass beads and semi-precious stones.

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