Saturday 26 May 2012 – Islay

We discovered the Islay Whisky Festival was in progress for the whole of the coming week – a different distillery has an open day each day of the week. There seem to be a lot of visiting whisky enthusiasts from abroad.  We visited the open day at Lagavulin distillery, by bike, where we found a long queue to buy the Festival Bottles.  These must be very special as there is a limited bottling of about 800, they cost £85 and sell out about lunchtime!   All the tours were already booked so we looked round the sideshows and had a brief taste of 16 year old and Distillers Edition (or something like that which is kept in 2 types of casks). These were provided with the correct tiny nibbles of cheese and shortbread.

We cycled along to take a look at ruined Kidalton church which has a fine Celtic cross, and then continued almost to the end of the road for a late picnic by the beach at Claggain Bay.  After lunch we cycled back and stopped again at Lagavulin, where they were in the middle of the prize draw.  So we made our way to the tea and cake counter for refreshments.  Later we found another room which was supplying whisky to taste (free this time), so of course we tried it.

More washing with instant drying in dry wind.

Went for a swim in the only handyy place which is the beach at the ned of the harbour.  This turned out to be only knee deep, except for a tiny pool by the rocks where we could swim a few strokes. Refreshing in the heat but not too cold.  We were told that a lot of the grassy land at the top of the beach had eroded in the last 5 years.  I wonder if there is any connection with the marina being dredged out of the lower part of the beach!

Lagavulin Open day

Celtic Cross at Kidalton

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Old grave slab inside the ruined church