5 July – Kilmartin Museum & Glen Plus Fort Dunadd

Another sunny day! We drove down to Kilmartin Glen to revisit (saw this in 2008) the very nice museum, café, and walk in the footsteps of ancient ancestors in the glen. Kilmartin Glen is famous for the numerous Neolithic and Bronze Age artifacts and prehistoric sites. Besides all that, on a sunny day it’s a beautiful place to be!

After a long visit to the museum (so much information about those ancient people and communities!) we sat outside to eat (FIRST TIME!) at the café. Good food! Good ale! Good company!

After the meal we drove a mile to the parking area for the standing stones and cairns. We’d visited these before as well, so Kathy stayed at the car while Dan walked and took photos. Besides the huge standing stones, there is the “Temple Wood”(so named in 19th century), a ritual and burial site that was in use from 3000 BC to about 1000 BC. 5000 years ago people stood where I was standing!!!

Two circles for ritual and burial

The spiral inscribed on stone, meaning uncertain, but like spirals found in Irish grave carvings.

Burial cairn in center of circle

The standing stones and burial cairns are part of a vast pre-historic and neolithic assortment of monuments... 350 of them within a six mile radius of Kilmartin. The valley is called a "linear cemetery" because cairns and stones are in a line about 3-4 miles long. There are now five burial cairns visible, with crop markings showing there may have been more. This standing stone is alone in a farmed field.

Then we went on a wild goose chase to find a beach we’d read about… in the Crinan area. Crinan is known because it is at one end of the Crinan Canal, called “Britain’s most beautiful shortcut!” It is a very pretty setting and is very well kept. Has a nice walking path all along the canal, and at the Crinan end, there are picnic tables and coffee shop and lots of sailboats and other boats to see. It boggles the mind that the huge vessels can go through the locks!

But we never found the beach. We were directed to Crinan Ferry area, (across the River Add), and found not the the “picturesque settlement of Crinan Ferry, this sheltered bay boasts wonderful views of Duntrune Castle” but a single house, broken down pier area, and what Dan called “mud-flats”. Either the description is malarkey or we missed it altogether (to be fair, Google Map’s satellite view doesn’t show much there either). It was a fun drive, however, on what was signed as a “Weak Road”… single lane with zero traffic.

On our way back out of Crinan Ferry we continued on the” weak road” towards Fort Dunadd, another place we had visited in 2008. It is such a monument to the strength and persistence of Celtic peoples back in the 6^th-10^th centuries A.D. The “ruins” comprise a huge mound 175 feet high with rocks and some remains of wall. Dunadd was where the Scotti coming from Ireland established their Dalraida Kingdom, absorbed the Picts, and ruled “Scotland” for 500 years until the arrival of the Vikings. Dunadd was also where the kings reigned and were anointed. One can see for miles, which is why the site was chosen and built upon. As in 2008, Dan climbed to the very top… a good climb with fantastic views, but leading to a painful (knees) descent.