Day 30-17th June. Ardfern-Kilmartin (by road)

The met office web site was showing strong wind warnings around the whole of the country again. It looked like the Jura area was going to get off lightly with only force 7s and heavy rain!.It didn't take a lot of thinking to decide not to set off from here.The view out of the window by mid morning confirmed I'd made the right decision. Friday is the usual change over day in Tony's yacht chartering business and I felt sorry for those arriving today.

Carol and I decided we'd go to Kilmartin Museum.The Kilmartin Glen runs northwards from Crinan and contains one of the richest areas of prehistoric remains in Britain.Its got hill forts, cairns, hut circles, standing stones and everything else. What is also got though, is good examples of rock art.This isn't something I've come across before, but it is found in other areas of Scotland, Ireland and Northern England.There is regional variation in the style of stone carvings, but one of the things about those in Kilmartin is the tails leading from the centre of the cup and ring motifs.None of the stuff I read attempted to give any meaning to these images. However, it must surely compare favourably with the cave paintings at Lascaux.

I hadn't appreciated that the Dalriada Festival that was going to take place in Glenarm takes its name from an ancient  kingdom which spanned Ireland and this part of Scotland. There was  a huge investment recently, known as the Dalriada project, which has signposted its significance within the region.

The museum has been put together with a lot of vision and craftsmanship. It has an hypnotic audio-visual presentation, which is full of visuals and sound with very little speaking. The cafe serves great food and is an interesting space. There is good art over the walls and I particularly liked Louise Oppenheimer's weaving "embers in starlight".

The drive to Kilmartin involved passing all the tree,s which had suffered in the storm that ran through here about a month ago. The severe gale force winds blew up the loch and carried salt covered spray deep inland. This burnt all the trees and as a result it looks more like autumn.The trees will recover, but it must affect the local wildlife. there will be no berries or nuts this autumn or leaf eating caterpillars this summer. So there will be no food for birds and mammals.

The storm killed 3 people in the region and caused enormous damage to boats and moorings. It got no coverage in the national news. It was impossible to walk on the pontoons at Ardfern and the masts of boats on one side were clashing with ones on the other.