Kilmartin to Oban

The road to Oban

I’m having problems with getting time to do my blog, (I’ve started stitching in the evenings instead of doing my homework) and internet access. We are now in Oban at a campsite high up overlooking the sea and an island (Can’t remember its name, I’ll tell you later, but I don’t want to get out of my warm bed to look at the map just now (Kerrera), and though the dongle works it is so slow that the server keeps rejecting my picture upload attempts. There is a café in town which has wifi so we’ll go there a bit later and try to do some internet work. It’s the sort of weather this morning which makes you want to go and sit in a warm café all day drinking hot coffee and chatting, and playing on the computer, certainly not boat tripping or other adventurous outside activities. There are some indoor activities like a museum of war and peace which we will probably go to, and also a leisure centre with hot pools and free wifi amongst other water activities. I think I’ll settle for the free wifi, the thought of submerging myself in a pool, even if warm, does not appeal in the slightest!!!, whilst looking out the window at the grey and wet day.

We continued our drive from Lochgilphead north to Kilmartin where we (well especially Hilary) were keen to visit the archaeological museum which she had found a brochure for. Kilmartin is above a glen which contains a large number of Neolithic monuments, mounds, sites, still in quite good repair from as long ago as 2000BC. In the glen itself are a line of burial chambers as well as standing stones and stone circles as well as castles and other remnants of the past. We arrived at about 4pm so headed straight to the museum which was open until 5.30. Hilary and Diana went in while I elected to wander outside looking around at the church, graveyard and over the glen from the hill, and then sitting in the sunshine doing some cross stitch. They came out at about 5 I guess, very enthusiastic, saying they needed more time as there was heaps to do, they had a ticket that gave them entrance again the next day as they had run out of time. We got back into the van and drove along various roads looking for a suitable spot to stay for the night. We settled in to an area about 50 metres from the road near a partially logged forest, made dinner,  did some relaxing (the sun was streaming into the van), and then prepared for bed as the sun went below a hill.  Di and I went to sleep to the sound of owls calling, very pleasant.

Views from our campervan from our settling spot.

It was fine overnight, when I woke at 3ish and looked out the sky was clear but very light, not like daytime at all, but not dark with sparkling stars by any means. The rain started about 5, we had become overly optimistic that the weather would be better, spoilt by our previous afternoon of sun and relative warmth. Thankfully by 9 when we had finished breakfast, and securing all the movable things in the van, the weather had cleared and we could do what we had planned.

We drove back the 3 miles or so to the Kilmartin Museum. We knew it didn’t open until 1000, so we had planned a walk around the glen looking at the monuments. The Kilmartin Glen was known as the “Valley of the Ghosts” because there were so many burial mounds within it.

Looking down on the glen

On our walk we saw four burial mounds or cairns and a field with standing stones which were arranged in a line and in another field, now surrounded by trees, two circles of standing stones, one virtually complete, the other with only a few stones still standing.

Of the four burial chambers two had accessible chambers, the first with a sliding lid covering it. It was built (modern) so the lid would slide closed if not held, I presume so that the stones inside and chamber would be protected if someone forgot to close it. It was reasonably heavy so I sat on top while Di and Hilary went in, holding the trap door open. I needn’t have bothered, there was a glass skylight (like the glass cubes you get in a shower) which let in plenty of light, and the trapdoor had a handle on the inside so they couldn’t have been trapped. I went in once Di was out (a smallish space). Inside were 5 or 6 steep steps leading to a small room, maybe 3x2½ metres, with a small rectangular pit about ½m deep and ½ m wide and 1m long. There was a stone slab with carvings of axe and spear heads and cups on it. It is thought that the more carvings on the slab, the more important the person in the tomb. There were also carvings on the walls of this chamber. The entire mound was about 2m high I guess, but originally they were 4.5m high. I know some of the sites had over the many centuries been raided for building materials, but I’m not absolutely certain if they went below ground level as well. I know that many people were buried in each, and that the chamber we were in would not have held many more than 6 bodies (even small ones from those times).  I’m pretty sure that the mound had more beneath it, I know they had taken out pottery and beads and other important possessions from some of them but not sure about the bodies?? or would they have disappeared after 4000 years? I should have read a bit more in the museum shouldn’t I?

Hilary and Di went into the other accessible chamber too, it was more a tunnel which cut through the mound with a metre or so of rocks on top at the mound’s peak. You couldn’t go all the way through though as there were large rocks obstructing much of the exit.

After visiting the four mounds we walked a bit further south to a field with a line of large standing stones, and then across another field and road to two stone circles, before retracing our steps to the museum. Did I tell you it was sunny all the way?

Three photos above are of these stones, now arranged in church yard

A device for determing time with sun and moon

The first burial mound (The Glebe)

The second (with sliding trapdoor)

The third with tunnel

The third from another angle

Standing stones

Temple Wood Stone Circle

Note sun-glasses!!! outside the Glebe

At the museum I played with Hilary, grinding wheat by hand. There were two methods, one a stone is held and ground against the wheat which is in a dug out rock. Very slow and laborious, would have kept someone (or a few someones) permanently employed. Once pretty well powdered the whole lot would be sieved to remove the husks. The sieve was a round flat thing with shallow sides made from bound canes/thin shoots which were in a spiral. The flour would slip through the cracks and the husks remain behind.

The second system was much quicker but would have been a good work out. This was two large thin cylinders of rock which sat on top of each other. The bottom one had a small (about a centimetre diameter hole in it, the top one about 3cm diameter hole. The wheat was placed in the pit formed by the difference in the holes, then a wooden plug with a centimetre diameter hole in the middle placed on top. A stick which fitted into the centimetre hole snuggly was then placed in the hole to hold the two rocks in line. The top rock had indentations  worked into it to allow another stick to be held in them to enable the grinder to spin the top stone on top of the bottom one. This would grind the wheat beween the two stones, the flour would fall out the outside of the stones and the husks would remain trapped. Very ingenious, but as I said, the operator would get good arm and shoulder muscles (who needs a gym eh?)

Grinding with two stone cylinders

Sifting the flour

I also did some brass rubbings (well crayon on white paper) of some Egyptian like animals, a boar and a ……. I can’t remember and it was only two days ago!!!

We had a look around the museum (I obviously should have paid more attention), before having lunch in the van, and heading north.

Just a cool, random tombstone/thingy

We called in at Arduaine Gardens a bit further north, nice enough but  not as showy as Crarae.