Travels with Eddie & Pete: Day 22 - Aberton to Fort William

It had been quite wet overnight, and the weather forcast wasn't that good, so we decided we should get going once we'd been to visit the New Lanark World Heritage Site. All we knew about it was from a sign we saw driving off the motorway and talking to the receptionist the night before. She lives nearby and takes her daughter for walks along the Clyde River. There are waterfalls along the way.

When we got there, we found an amazing historical site with mills, houses, a school, visitor centre and it is in a very picturesque location! We decided to have a look thru, although that meant we couldn't walk up the River Clyde as by the time we had seen the bits we wanted, we were running rather late!

To quote the brochure...

The impressive cotton mill village of New Lanark was founded in 1785. New Lanark quickly became known all over the world under the enlightened management of social pioneer, Robert Owen. He provided decent homes, fair wages, fre health care, a new education system for villagers and the first workplace nursery school in the world! It is an amazing site. Another thing I'd recommend if you like historical things. Robert Owen sounds a interesting person. We visited Mill No 3 which houses the visitor centre and the Annie McLeod Experience ride, cafe, shop - I had to buy some wool... And a roof garden which gives a nice high up view of the site. Then we visited the school and then a millworker's house - ie one room! One set in 1820s and the other in the 1930s.

Apparently the mill turned to wool milling in the 1960s which it still continues, and the wool used in the Harry Potter films for costumes came from New Lanark. People have been living on the site continuously which is why it remained in some sort of order, tho I think quite a bit has had to restored as far as the mills go. Of course, people are now living in homes bigger than one room. Ad although the site is world heritage listed, they can change the insides so long as the outside remains the same.

The forcast had been horrible and lots of rain forcast, including up to 75mm in places. The woman at the visitor centre told us that the A83 was closed because of a landslip. So we weren't sure what to expect and headed off to Fort William via Glasgow, where we stopped at a shopping place a bit like a Harbour Town DFO, and had lunch at Starbucks, because there wasn't much choice, my wrap was very tasty and toasted!

Then we headed off, and apart from one misunderstanding with GPS lady and the signage... If you read Erskine Bridge only to the right and Erskine to the left, and the sign comes up very quickly, there is only one lane of traffic to each direction... Which way would you go???? It took us about 20 mins to get back on track!

The A82 goes up the western shore of Loch Lomond, so I suppose you must be able to see Ben Lommond on a good day! It was a bit overcast, and had started to rain by now. Even tho' we were so close to the Loch, there were very few places to stop, and because all the traffic was being diverted to the A82 we didn't want to get off it unless we had to. We ended up at a strange little cafe toilet stop place at the top of the Loch with about 5 buses and other assorted people! In the rain!

I have fallen I love with the Scottish landscape! It really is beautiful and the mountains are really dramatic. Some of the early artists in Van Dieman's Land painted the Tasmanian scenery as if it were Scottish I think!

We stopped at Glencoe to take a few photos, but it was too late for the visitors centre, so we will visit there on the way back to Edinburgh. It is amazingly beautiful around there. I hadn't realised it is near the water.