N 55.99074°, W 05.64924°
Last night's camp was silent apart from the rain and hail which sheeted across us sporadically through the night.
The day dawned bright though and mist rose from the forest as we set off for today's pootle. First stop was a beach so Stu could have a cracker... and cracker he did.
The drive off Kintyre was pleasant with spirit-lifting views of Islay and Jura over a clear and sparkling sea.
We hit the Knapdale peninsula around lunchtime and stopped for a really long lunch that included a run for Emma and a bike session for me.
Knapdale peninsula is every bit as pretty as Kintyre but probably even less touristed. Towards the north is the Crinan canal which I've always had half an eye on visiting since I worked for BW. It was once a really important commercial route with its mouth right on the Irish Sea but now hosts pleasure craft almost exclusively.
We're currently at the location shown which is a national nature reserve. Getting here was hard involving a narrow dirt track, a drop-off into a lock, and bashing through a ton of vegetation. There are supposed to be otters here but the best sighting so far has been red-breasted merganser. The reserve is renowned for being an oak dominated cloud forest with massive communities of lichens, ferns and bryophytes as specialities.
On the peninsula generally we've seen some pretty whacky plants. I've no clue what the lily family member in the pic is, it may be an escape. It's certainly not in my flora 'bible'. [Edit - bog arum, it seems]
The fungus pictured was unfeasibly bright in real life.
It's sometimes easy to forget were only a few hours from home and not on another continent.
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