Whoever thought of calling this place Food From Argyll At The Pier should really think again. Okay, it does food from Argyll and it is at the pier here in Oban … but still? Oban always strikes us an odd kind of place. Sometimes we wonder if anyone actually stays here? Everyone seems to be just visiting or in transit going somewhere else. Of course, we are one of them. This is the “Gateway to the Western Isles” and we are here to catch a ferry to the Isle of Coll.

Surprise

We’re early, so with time to kill, a scone seemed like the obvious answer to while away an hour. This cafe is part of the terminal building and from here we could watch for our ferry arriving.

The cafe is a fairly utilitarian but then, you don’t really expect anything else in ferry terminals. Not being particularly hungry we chose two teas and a fruit scone to share. No cream so butter and jam would have to do. Very soon it arrived at our table along with our tea in paper cups. Surprise, surprise, the scone came fully loaded and when we say jam, we mean lots of it. We had to get extra paper cups because a single was too hot to lift.

Not ideal by any means but that’s just the way they do it here. Not the greatest scone we’ve ever had but not the worst either. Didn’t get anywhere near being a topscone. It did kill the time we had to wait, however, and before long we were being called to board the “Lord Of The Isles”.   As a varied assortment of humanity shuffled up the gangway we wondered why they are all going to Coll but, of course, they were probably wondering exactly the same about us.

Dancing ships

As we cast off, our “Lord of The Isles” seemed to get involved with a couple of others, the “Coruisk” and the “Isle of Mull” that were just arriving. However, in what seemed like an expert piece of choreography we are soon clear of the congestion and on our way. Two and a half hours and we would be on the Isle of Coll, yeah!

Voyaging

As we set off on our mini voyage we’re thinking of Australia’s entry by Voyager in Eurovision next weekend. After all the song contest may seem relatively sane after the absurdity of the Coronation. Having the tattered remnants of Take That as the headliners at the Coronation Concert last night kind of summed it all up perfectly. 

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///alarming.snapping.tomato