Oban, Scotland - May 26th to 29th, 2025

Oban was our first stop in Scotland. Oban sits on a protected bay, on the west coast of Scotland, with access to the Atlantic Ocean. It is a great jumping off point for exploring the nearby islands. After enjoying all of the unexpected days of sunshine in Ireland, the rain caught up with us in Scotland. We didn’t mind too much. It just meant we got to use our umbrellas and rain gear that we had been lugging around with us.

Monday was a long driving day, from Keswick in England to Oban in Scotland. It was about a four and a half hour drive according to Google Maps, so we left Keswick around 9 am. We were on a motorway most of the way, until we got past Glasgow. We normally don’t like traveling on expressways, but after all of the narrow, stressful roads we had been driving lately, we welcomed the easier driving. It rained for most of our drive, but we would rather drive in the rain than be out walking or hiking in it.

We stopped at a couple of service plazas along the motorway, one when we first jointed the motorway, and the other when we were about to leave the motorway. They seemed rather typical of the service plazas along toll interstate highways in the States. At the first one, there were several options of food and other goods, such as Burger King, KFC, Starbucks, Waitrose (an express grocery store), and another store. However, at both plazas we stopped at, in addition to a gas station, there was also a Days Inn. We’ve never been to service plaza in the States with a hotel.

Since the first one seemed nice enough, we decided to stop at the second one for lunch. However, this one was not as nice. It wasn’t as clean or as well-maintained as the first one. And the options for food were just cold sandwiches at Costa coffee shop or McDonald’s. We can’t believe we chose McDonald’s. We normally don’t even eat at one in the States and didn’t come all this way to Europe to buy McDonald’s, but that’s exactly what we did.

What we found interesting, though, was that there was an extra charge for ordering a regular Coke vs. ordering one of the diet versions of soft drinks. It turns out there is a sugar tax in the UK. It is a tax on sugary drinks started in 2018 for public health reasons. So Ann paid an extra 13 pence for her medium drink. We hadn’t noticed it before, but McDonald’s explicitly states it is an upgrade when you order it.

After Glasgow, we drove alongside Loch Lomond. It is a large, long lake, but we only had views of it every now and then. What we did notice was all of the holiday traffic. It was Monday, the Spring Bank holiday, so everyone was traveling home from a long weekend. Apparently, there was a traffic accident ahead of us on the winding, narrow highway along the lake. The traffic came to a halt and we sat there for about 20 minutes or so before we started slowly moving again. Several people gave up and turned around. However, we didn’t see a good alternate route, so we took our chances and waited. The delay probably added an hour to our trip, but that just meant that we arrived in Oban right at check-in time.

After checking in and freshening up a little bit, we walked to dinner. The main drag through town, Dunollie Road, was a short walk down the hill from Hawthornbank Guest House. It was cold and started to rain again, so we didn’t waste a lot of time picking out a restaurant. It did give us the chance to use the umbrellas we bought back in Kilkenny, Ireland (Kilkenny, Ireland - April 22nd to 25th, 2025).

We chose the China Restaurant for something different and perhaps a little healthier than what we had been eating lately. Ann was craving vegetables. We both started out with hot and sour soup to warm up. Ann had the version with mixed vegetables. Then Keith ordered the schezuan chicken with boiled rice (white rice) while Ann had the mixed vegetables with cashews and fried rice. It was not the best Chinese food we’ve ever had, but it was tasty and satisfied Ann’s vegetable craving.

Tuesday, the rain let up. The weather alternated all day between sunshine and rain showers, sometimes in intervals of 15 minutes. Again, we made use of our umbrellas and rain jackets. We were glad our umbrellas were small enough to fit into the pockets of our rain jackets, making it convenient to store and carry when it wasn’t raining.

We started out by walking down to the Railroad Pier to make sure we knew where it was. We had an all day tour booked the following day that started with a ferry ride from the Railroad Pier. Since the tour involved several operators and the instructions had changed over time, we wanted to make sure that the one bar code we had was good for all legs of the trip. The staff at the ferry ticket counter confirmed that.

From there, we walked up to McCaig’s Tower up on Battery Hill. The tower, which is really just a circular wall, was built from 1897 to 1902. It was a folly of a wealthy banker, John Stuart McCaig, with plans for much more, but construction halted with McCaig’s sudden death. The tower is a prominent structure above the town and there are nice views out over the bay from there.

After coming back down to town from the tower, we went into the Oban Fish & Chip Shop for lunch. On the window out front, they advertised that they were the National Geographic third best fish & chips place in the UK. It was from a 2022 National Geographic travel article by Neil Davey. Number six was Enochs in Conwy, where we ate when we were in Conwy (Conwy, Wales - April 15th to 16th and May 18th to 19th, 2025).

Keith had the haddock, while Ann ordered the cod. We wanted to compare the difference in taste. We must not have a very sophisticated palate, because they tasted pretty similar to us. The fish was nicely breaded, with a nice crispy edge, and not too greasy. It was not too different to the fish and chips at Enochs.

To work off some of those calories, we walked over to Dunollie Castle. It was a lovely stroll along the bay, taking about 30 minutes. When the sun would peek out, it felt warm, as long as you were protected from the wind. But there was a strong, cold breeze coming off the bay that kept us bundled up.

The ruins of Dunollie Castle and the nearby house are privately owned by the MacDougalls. The house is the seat of the MacDougall Clan. The Dunollie Castle was built in the 12th or 13th century by the third chief of the MacDougall Clan. The house was initially built in 1746. The MacDougalls sill own the castle ruins and house.

For 11 pounds per adult or 9 pounds per concession (students, seniors, disabled, unemployed), you can stroll around the castle ruins, the garden, and the museum inside the house. For an additional 5 pounds, you can take a guided tour, which is what we did. The day we were there, there were two guided tours. We arrived just in time for the 2 pm tour.

We would recommend the guided tour. There isn’t much to see and the guided tour adds so much more meaning to what you are looking at, pointing out details that you might not otherwise notice or understand. However, there are nice views out over the bay from the castle ruins.

For dinner, we went to the Olive Garden. It has no relationship with the Olive Garden chain of restaurants in the States. Ann ordered two courses from the early dinner special menu, spinach and ricotta tortellini in a tomato sauce along with lemon cake. Keith ordered three courses from the special menu, starting with tomato soup, followed by salmon and lemon cake. The lemon cake was served with mixed berry preservers and clotted cream. It was a tasty meal.

We went to bed early, before the sun set, because we needed to get up early the following day. Before the sun set sounds like it is really early, but, due to how far north we were, sun set was not until 9:53 pm.

Wednesday was a long, but rewarding day. We set our alarms for 5:30 am. It didn’t seem very early as the sun had already risen, at 4:45 am. By 6:15 am, we were leaving the B&B and heading for the Railroad Pier to catch our ferry. Since we were skipping breakfast, the wonderful owners of Hawthornbank Guest House had packed a box lunch for us to take with us. Thank you so much!

Our tour was the Tobermory, Treshnish & Staffa Tour by West Coast Tours. The tour was a package that allowed us to purchase one ticket which included three different operators. The first leg of the journey was from Oban to Craignure on the Isle of Mull on the ferry run by Caledonian MacBrayne. From Craignure, we hopped on a West Coast Motors bus (parent company of West Coast Tours) to Tobermory. At Tobermory, we boarded a boat run by Staffa Tours for our trip to Staffa Island and Lunga Island, part of the Treshnish islands. Upon returning to Tobermory, we retraced our steps to return to Oban.

The ferry departed Oban at 7:10 am. There were comfortable seats inside and a little shop for purchasing drinks and snacks. Keith got a cappuccino while Ann bought a hot chocolate. Then we opened up our box lunch to see what was inside. There were two packaged muffins, two sandwiches, and two juice boxes. We opted to have the muffins on our one hour ferry ride and save the rest for later.

Of course, it decided to rain while we transferred from the ferry to the bus, which was waiting for us at the ferry dock. There were two West Coast Motors buses there, so we had to make sure we got on the right one. The bus to Tobermory was like a local bus. It made stops along the way if someone on board requested it or there was someone waiting at a bus stop. The road was a single track, with quite a bit of traffic, but there were plenty of nicely spaced pullouts so the vehicles could get by one another.

The bus ride was about an hour long. The road ran along the shore line, so there were views out across the water. The rain stopped during the ride, but returned just as we were transferring from the bus to the Staffa Tours boat in Tobermory. However, that was the last of the rain. It wasn’t long before the sun came out and the rest of the day was beautiful blue and sunny skies.

There was also no wind. Unlike the day before, there were no white caps in the bay. The water was smooth as glass. In some areas, the water was a little choppy, but there were no sea swells. It was pretty calm seas. Keith was thankful, as he sometimes suffers from motion sickness. Although he had dramamine and ginger chews with him, he didn’t need to use any of it.

It was about an hour and a half to two hours before we reached Staffa Island. The original tour was supposed to give us about an hour on Staffa Island, but improvement work on the jetty was taking longer than originally plan. So no landings would be allowed until some time in June. Staffa is an uninhabited island, known for its sea bird wildlife, especially puffins, and its basalt rock formations. Instead of landing on Staffa, we circled the island, getting some good views of Fingal’s Cave. The cave is a sea cave surrounded by hexagonal basaltic columns.

It was about a half an hour from Staffa to Lunga, which we passed earlier on the way to Staffa. Lunga is the largest island of the Treshnish Isles. Like Staffa, it is also a nature reserve with sea birds, including puffins. So Ann was happy that we didn’t miss the puffins. On the way from Staffa to Lunga, we had our sandwiches and juice from our box lunch. One sandwich was ham and butter on white bread while the other was cheese and sweet pickle on brown bread. We rounded out our lunch with a couple of cereal bars we had in our daypacks.

We arrived at Lunga at noon. Because we didn’t land on Staffa, we had more time on Lunga, two and a half hours instead of the original two hours. There is no permanent dock on the island, so our boat maneuvered a floating ramp up to the rocky shore. Once we stepped off the ramp, we had to negotiate the rocky shore to reach the main trail on the island. After a short ascent up the trail, you start seeing all the puffins.

Puffins burrow into the ground to make their nests. The babies don’t come out of the burrows until fall, so we didn’t see any babies, if any were born yet. However, there were plenty of adults to see. Ropes on the ground ran alongside the main trail. We were asked not to cross the ropes, to prevent us from stepping on top of the puffin burrows and collapsing them. However, you are so close to the puffins that there is no reason to cross the rope.

As Ann was taking some photos of the puffins, a hawk or eagle flew overhead. Instantly, the puffins all disappeared, either flying off or ducking into their burrows. We continued down the main path, stopping to take many pictures and videos of the puffins. There were also razorbill birds mixed among the puffins. The razorbill is similar in shape to a puffin, but not as colorful. Their black and white markings include a white stripe across their face and across their bill.

It took us about an hour to reach the end of the main trail. The trail was narrow and rocky in places. If you’re afraid of heights, you may not want to continue through some of the areas. However, we do recommend taking the trail to the end. At the end is a huge colony of guillemots, thousands of them, nested on dramatic cliffs, being quite noisy. As you sit in the grassy area perched up on top of the cliff, all kinds of birds swoop low over your head. We sat there, observing all the birds for about 15 to 20 minutes before starting our walk back.

When we reached the last area of nesting puffins, we still had some time left, so we sat down again and just watched the puffins. By this time, we had taken our fill of pictures and videos, so it was nice to just sit and observe their behaviors. We would giggle every time we saw a puffin fly in and make a clumsy landing.

As we sailed away from Lunga, we passed by a colony of gray seals. Unfortunately, that was the last wildlife sighting during our boat ride. We were hoping to see dolphins or whales, which are seen quite often in the area, but we had no such luck that day. However, the up-close experience with the puffins was worth the long day to get there.

When we returned to Tobermory, we had about two hours before catching the bus back to Craignure. That gave us plenty of time to eat dinner. We went in the first place we saw, MacGochens. First we ordered a pint of Aspall cider for Ann and a Gobhar Odhar from Ardgour Ales in Fort William Scotland.

For dinner, Ann had the Ragin’ Cajun burger while Keith had the Sgriob-Ruadh Ranch burger. The Ragin’ Cajun was a grilled chicken sandwich with melted cheddar. The Sgriob-Ruadh (Scottish Gaelic meaning Red Scribble) Ranch was a pork and apple burger with goat cheese. Both of the tasty burgers came with chips and coleslaw.

For dessert, Ann ordered the chocolate brownie sundae while Keith had the vanilla crème brûlée. Ann is happy to report that the brownie was a good, proper American brownie, dense and chewy, unlike others she’s had in Europe so far. The sundae really satisfied her chocolate craving.

After dinner, we still had enough time to stroll along the street of shops in Tobermory. The town is basically a strip of colorful shops, pubs, restaurants, and hotels which face the small bay. The glassy water and sunny skies that day made the scene really picturesque.

On the drive back to Craignure, we spotted a Highland Coo (or heilan coo). They are the rustic cows of the Scottish Highlands. They have long horns and a long, shaggy coat. We caught a glimpse of a handful of them as we were driving to Oban a couple of days before. It’s on Ann’s list of things to get a picture of before we leave Scotland. We’ll keep on the lookout for them over the next few weeks.

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When we returned to Oban on the ferry around 8:45 pm, the Oban High School Band was performing near the clock tower. We arrived just in time to listen to the last couple of songs. The band, dressed in kilts, consisted of Scottish bagpipe players and drummers. The drummers would twirl their mallets in a choreographed routine as they played. Watching their performance was an unexpected treat and a lovely way to end the day.

Since Wednesday was such a long and tiring day, we took it pretty easy on Thursday, spending most of the day hanging out in our room. It was windy and rainy in the morning, but the sun peeked out a little in the afternoon.

For lunch, we walked over to Taste of Argyll Kitchen. Ann had the Hairy Coo burger while Keith had the Hot Hen burger (chicken sandwich). The meat was pan fried and was just OK. However, what we did like was that our burgers were served with a nice side salad along with a small coleslaw instead of the normal chips (fries). We were getting a little tired of chips by this point.

After lunch, we went on the 1:30 pm Oban Distillery tour. We reserved a spot back on Monday when we initially arrived in Oban. At that time, the tours were all sold out for Tuesday, with just a few spots left on Thursday. So if you want to go, plan on booking a tour several days in advance.

The tour lasted a little over an hour. We learned the difference between Scotch whisky and Irish whiskey. The first difference is that the Scots spell it whisky, while the Irish spell it whiskey (with an “e”). Another difference is that Scottish whisky is only distilled twice, while Irish whiskey is distilled three times.

The Oban Distillery is in the oldest building in Oban, built in 1794. It is a small distillery, producing only about 2 million bottles per year, while many other distilleries produce that amount per month. The building is historic, so they are not allowed to make major changes to it. So their fermenting tanks are made out of wood instead of stainless steel, because they can’t get a stainless steel tank into the building. The wooden tanks were assembled inside the distillery.

On the way back to the guest house from the distillery, we stopped into the Farmfoods grocery store. We needed some hiking food for the next several days. We picked up an assortment of Flapjacks to try.

For dinner, we made reservations at Ee-Usk. It was one of the restaurants that the owners of Hawthornbank Guest House recommended. They wanted to make sure we tried the local scallops, since they are known to be fresher and sweeter tasting than scallops from elsewhere.

Keith ordered the scallops while Ann had the salmon. The only main course option on the menu besides fish and seafood was the steak. The salmon was good, but Ann is not much of a fish or seafood eater, so she kind of regretted not getting the steak. Keith liked the scallops. He noticed that they were served with the foot attached, something he hasn’t seen with scallops served in the States.

For dessert, we both had the meringue with berries and clotted cream. Light and delicious.

Our introduction to Scotland went well. Ann was happy with our close encounters with the puffins, in sunshine nonetheless. Keith was grateful that he survived the boat tour with no sea sickness. We were both looking forward to what else was in store for us in Scotland.

Check out our related video: Oban, Scotland

(Ann)