The problem with travel plans...

As a general rule, we do not plan any trips that we make. Being in Scotland you can't always guarantee nice weather, so sometimes you decide where to go on the day rather than days, weeks or months in advance! However, sometimes you have to make plans, but even the best laid plans can go wrong...
In the summer of 2005 we were planning 2 weeks in Argyll and visiting some of the islands! The first week was to spent near Cambeltown and included a visit to Islay and Jura, while the second was to be spent further north - near Oban, with a possible visit to Mull and Iona (depending on the weather)! Other smaller islands were to be included, but the travel to those was either going to be quite cheap - or free - so we didn't make any plans for them! The only real plan we had was for the start of the holiday...

The main ferry company, CalMac, offer an island hopper service that not only saves some money, but also give you a 16-day period from your first day of travel to use them! They also offered us an ideal start to the holiday - to travel via Arran, spend a day on Kintyre and then 2 over on Islay with an extra trip to Jura! So we booked our tickets for the island hopper that included:

Ardrossan (Ayrshire) - Brodick (Arran)

Lochranza (Arran) - Claonaig (Kintyre)

Kennacraig (Kintyre) - Port Ellen (Islay)

Port Ellen - Kennacraig

The trip from Port Askaig on Islay to Jura would be a separate ferry company and not bookable in advance!

So plans made we set off and spent a day on Arran (which I have already written about here) and then went over to Kintyre with the intention of taking the trip to Islay 2 days later! So far so good...

Then, on the night that we are settling down early for our early start to head for Islay, the phone rings (wow a mobile connection at Machrihanish, but that is beside the point)... it was CalMac! It turns out that our presence on the ferry to Islay that morning was missed! Confusion reigned! However, it was all my fault. When I originally booked the tickets (online) I had specified the wrong dates for travelling! Once I realised my mistake I altered the booking - again online - and as I had a confirmation I assumed it was fine! That was my first mistake!

So now confusion becomes panic! I explain all this to the woman from CalMac who gives us the "I'll see what I can do" that usually means "I understand what you are saying, but it looks like you screwed up and you'll be on standby for the ferry tomorrow so its unlikely you'll be travelling when you want!" However, she did see what she could do and our trip to Islay went ahead as planned... maybe the online system didn't cancel the original booking... who knows?

So now that was the end of the planned part of the trip... after another day spent in Kintyre we headed north! This second week as I said we planned to head over to Mull, and once we decided when we headed to book our tickets - in person! We were told if we travelled at a certain time we would pay less than if we travelled earlier! However, we decided we would pay the extra to give us more time on Mull as we wanted to visit Iona as well! So tickets purchased we headed back to where we were staying for an early night safe in the knowledge we were going to Mull next day...

But were we? We got to the ferry with plenty of time to spare, but we were NOT on the list for the early sailing! How could this be? We had specifically said we wanted to pay the extra for that, but... it turns out we had been booked on the later sailing and I hadn't realised we'd been charged the lower amount (it went on the card and the receipt went in the wallet!)

So we headed into the ticket office to sort this out! All we got was "you booked the cheaper later sailing" no matter how much we said we asked for the dearer earlier sailing! However, eventually we were offered that if we paid the extra we could go on standby for the sailing... and luckily we were back in the queue in time! However, as more and more cars lined up in the guaranteed sailing ranks we began to wonder if/when we would be going!

Sure enough we made it onto the ferry (its amazing how many cars, vans, buses, lorries these things carry) and had a nice trip over to Mull - although it looked like the weather wasn't on our side! However, when we went to Iona the skies cleared nicely... all in all it was a pleasant trip, and one we will do again but with more time to spend there! The return to Oban was quite pleasant as well with no ferry troubles!

As I said, we did spend time on other islands -

Davaar, near Campbeltown, but you walk there!

Seil, which you drive over the Atlantic Bridge to!

Luing and Easdale, just short ferry trips from Seil (in fact the latter is a small boat!)

Overall the holiday went quite well... despite the hitches with the planning!