Day 345: Port Ban to Tarbert

Best bits: delicious food at Lulabelles, Danny smashing his goal

Worst bits: stress of tracking Danny

Distance: 16 miles

Days to the finish: 20

The day started off dry, but unfortunately the views of Jura weren’t that clear. Fiona had been wanting to go for a swim but the conditions weren’t great and there was lots of seaweed on the shore.

This little restaurant is in the Michelin guide for 2025. It looked really cute, especially with the row of little bikes outside it.

I got my first sighting of Gigha in the distance.

A flock of geese flew overhead I guess they are migrating for the winter.

The walking today was reasonably straightforward along the road. I’m making the most of all of these golden colours at the moment.

I passed another derelict farm building, however, sheep seem to have taken it over.

Fiona and I met for lunch in a layby before I started to head up the hill.

I spent more time enjoying the autumn colours of these trees.

Just before I entered Tarbert my destination for today, I came to this crossroads which indicates my next few days of walking down the side of the Mull of Kintyre. I’m going south before I start to turn north again.

A massive shout out to my amazing son Danny who smashed the 57 mile ultra marathon from Glasgow to Edinburgh today in 9 hrs 58 minutes. I spent most of the day tracking his progress. Fiona and I spent the final hour of his run constantly reloading the tracker and watching his estimated finish time and race position decrease. He was so close to breaking 10 hours our anxiety and excitement levels were really high. As he finished we let out a ‘YES!!’ and a sigh of relief. Well done my fantastic boy.

After we had recovered from this excitement, I had a shower and then Fiona and I headed into town. This wee sculpture was standing out and staring at us.

The last sunlight of today created some reflections in the harbour as the water was incredibly still.

We had booked a table at Lulabells where we had some amazing food. The wine glasses were huge. The staff were really lovely there too.

Deborah was looking at one of my cards on the table. We got chatting and it turns out that when she was a small child in 1986 she met Helen Krasner of ‘Midges, Maps and Muesli’ fame and had her photograph taken with her. Apparently, that photograph appeared in the Guinness book of records.