The Slate Islands ....

...... Seil, Luing, Easdale, Balnahua.

I took Hermione for a spin today. She hasn't had much experience of driving in Scotland, but the few occasions she has, she's been known to say 'What a Lark!, ' in comparison to the driving in the south where she was born and raised.

It was exciting, wild and windy, glorious sunshine interspersed with torrential but short-lived downpours. And ........ we crossed the Atlantic.

For those of you not in the know, there is a bridge from the mainland to Seil Island [about 10 miles south of Oban, where Princess Diana's mum used to live] called The Bridge Over the Atlantic. It crosses the Clachan Sound - and the Atlantic ocean - and was built in the late 1700s at a cost of £450.

Before the bridge's existence, so the story goes, there was a rather strong local woman who used to carry travellers across piggy-back style, for a few pence. Her story is in the museum at Easdale.

Next to the bridge is the Tigh an Truish Inn - the House of the Trousers. Back in the day after the Jacobite rebellion, the Government forbade the wearing of the tartan as well as the use of Gaelic. The Inn was a convenient place for the islanders from Easdale and Seil to change into acceptable wear on the way to work on the mainland. Today it's a fab little place with a HUGE stock of whisky.

Once on Seil Island, you notice the landscape starts to change due to the intensive mining of slate on these islands in the 1800's. Each island was home to between 200 and 600 people working in an industry which is said to have roofed the whole country. Iona Abbey is roofed with slate from the Slate Islands.

A little digression. Did you know that roofing slates have rather fanciful names? Princess, Duchess, Countess, Ladies right down to Undersized, according to their measurement and thickness. One of the best qualities of slate is that it can be cleaved very finely.

So heading on from Seil and after doing battle with builder's lorries and bin lorries on single track roads, we finally arrived at Ellenabeich, the last little settlement before you take the ferry to Easdale Island where there is the most amazing café, and a great little museum of the slate industry. It has a lovely community feeling even though only a fraction of its former population now live there.

The last slate was brought out in 1911 after almost 3 centuries of being the centre of the slate industry, leaving a landscape full of deep chasms. It has a certain charm with many of the old miners cottages now renovated, and the views are spectacular.

The photo is the little settlement of Ellenabeich with its rows of tiny miners cottages. You might see them better by their chimney pots in large.

Hermione was delighted with the outing, the first time my little Ka visited Ellenabeich.