An amazing day…

This isn’t the best photo I took all day, I’ll put a few more in extras, a feature I’m enjoying now I’ve finally upgraded, but it serves as the headline for the day, pipping even dinner at Inver for the experience that crowned everything.  

Thank you so much @treshnish for telling us about Kilmartin museum which is so new it hasn’t even had its official opening yet, delayed once by a local landslide and then by Princess Anne ending up in hospital.  It is completely brilliant with fantastic artefacts but more than that it displays a fresh thinking about how museums think and present what they have.  It’s really the story of the valley, of the ancient kingdom of 12000 years ago and of everything since.   It rather brilliantly starts with the modern and then takes you back in time so you gradually reconnect with the past rather than being dropped into it.   It’s also very eco aware and talks about the transformations in farming and climate and as a bonus its planted all around with a lot of what I’d call curated wildflowers, a border of feverfew, a carpet of sweet smelling clover, see picture,  tall mulleins punctuated the planting.  Lots of bees! .   And through the window you can see the ancient cairn where one of the best preserved pots was discovered.  

After a good lunch in their cafe we walked down to the cairn and stood on the bridge over the river watching brown trout rise and enjoying the marsh valerian and Angelica all around.   

We then drove further down the valley of so many monuments to Temple Wood Circle, a stone circle that was originally a woodhenge but replaced with stone a couple of millennia ago.  We  passed several other cairns on the way and the circle was another beautiful spot under mature deciduous trees in the centre of this wide pastoral valley.  

And all day it was warm and sunny with only a couple of soft showers.  What a change! 

We drove on to Inver and had the most perfect dinner.  Rob and Pam weren’t there but the staff were completely brilliant as always.  And the food!  Gold star for a langoustine toasty,  mackerel with green tomatoes and the burn strawberry parfait.  All of which were about a million times more than delicious than they sound.  As we got the dog friendly bothy Woody was allowed inside tonight.  Lovely day.