A wild and wonderful trip to Saddell Castle

A wild few days in the remote wilds of Scotland – a few good pals and myself spent a seriously relaxing break in Saddell Castle on the Mull of Kintyre – a really special place – very little phone reception no wifi no television, not many other people and very peaceful.  we had every kind of weather - sun, wind howling down the chimney, snow, hail, rain and then more sun!!!

Saddell Castle is a fabulous originally 16 century building, well appointed overlooking the sea across to the Isle of Aran. Five floors of castle type rooms joined by a wonderful spiral staircase and topped by castle ramparts giving amazing 360 views of the surrounding countryside.  Inside the rooms boast painted heraldic ceilings – massive alcoves, secret rooms behind paneling, a dungeon, but all nicely done out (maybe not the dungeon) with very comfortable furniture and cosy log burner, a well provided kitchen and plenty of space to hang out to read books do jigsaws, play table tennis even have an organ recital if the mood so took!!

We all arrived after fairly mammoth journeys from various points across the north of the British isles. We explored the castle chose our rooms and then celebrated living in a castle with a belated Burns night supper – Cullen skink, Haggis, neeps and tatties – excellent food – we stood out on the battlements to survey the landscape by moonlight and then most of us retired early so we could make the most of a decent nights sleep and the best of the day to come. 

The intention was just to hang out and enjoy being in a castle – no pressure to do anything but drink tea and eat cake and maybe the odd glass of something stronger and hopefully taste the local whisky. 

And that’s pretty much what we did for four days, there was a mission to complete a set of four castle jigsaws three of which had been muddled up so it became a serious task  - one completed in hours but the remaining three started to become a chore but there was a steely determination!!!

Day one saw us wandering on the beach, down to the bothy which would be a lovely place for a picnic on a less blustery day.  It’s a lovely sweep of beach, sandy, pebbly and quite rocky in places.  It was fresh and blowy so we retired back to the castle for tea and cake.  We went down to Campbeltown for a  wander and more tea and cake.  I think Campbeltown might improve with a bit of sunshine, it looked a little worse for wear and not the most welcoming of places, but we found a decent enough café for our first experience of tea and cake....  

On our return to Saddell we waited for the tide to subside and went to inspect up close and personal the Antony Gormley statue standing looking out to sea, a lovely piece of sculpture, rusted iron with a fabulous textured patina finish from the elements and sea water  – the weather was fresh but sunny and the sea was lively.  

An evening of jigsaws, conversation, more excellent food – (the most enormous fish pie), more jigsaws and some planning about how to do very little the following day!

Day two it hailed and snowed, and we were inclined to find another extremely nice cake shop in Carradale, we did mean to earn the cake by going for a walk but only managed a five-minute boggy walk (when I fell flat on my face in a puddle, didn’t hurt myself and no real dignity left to lose just got very wet).

The weather worsened though the afternoon, so the jigsaw mission was doubled and the fire lit and it was all rather splendid siting in our castle being almost royal.  More tea and cake!

The evening brought many delights, a Tudor noble man, a furry DJ, another grand feast – we do eat very well on these trips, an excellent summary (by said Tudor chappie) of the history of the castle and then a rave in the cellar with DJ Yuri Cosmos (aka Dr Fred) in the castle, laser lights, disco balls, loud tunes, lots of dancing – all interspersed with a bit of jigsaw unmuddling…..  wine beer and whisky were imbibed.

The wind blew the worst of the weather away and we watched the blue moon rising over the sea from the castle battlements- the light on the water was stunning. (and very cold). 

There is so much to do an see in this area  that out plan to do do nothing fell a bit by the wayside, and we all went off and did various outings Dr Fred led an expedition of two to the lighthouse (wild windy, fairly inaccessible)- the girls plus one went to the bird sanctuary (wild windy, accessible but closed) other stayed and flew kites on the beach and then had a dip in the sea... (wild windy inaccessible and cold!!)

Out final evening was a less strenuous evening, but as it progressed we had to concede the jigsaws were beyond finishing... the  3 muddled individual pictures were challenging and while we managed an epic sort out and identified the four different pictures and complete three of them but the fourth defeated us!!! we just didn't have time to finish the Edinburgh castle! but we kindly left the pieces divided in bags for the next tenants to pursue at their leisure.