Beauty and adventure on Glasgow's doorstep (Cowal and Bute)

You don’t have to go to the Hebrides for a Scottish ferry-hopping holiday, as Ian R Mitchell explains. Cowal and Bute have castles, stately homes, churches and grand walks nearer to hand

As the crow flies the Cowal peninsula and its neighbouring island of Bute are the closest parts of the Southern Highlands to the central belt of Scotland.

Yet, probably since it is a long, circuitous and slow road journey of 80 miles from Glasgow via Loch Lomond to Cowal, this is one of the lesserfrequented tourist destinations. However, think Caledonian Macbraynes, and think Gourock – reached by the M8 motorway from Glasgow in three quarters of an hour – and you are a short ferry ride from Dunoon, gateway to Cowal.

The modest extra expense of the ferry is recompensed by the saving of time, petrol and hassle of going by road, and ferry-hopping allows you to vary the return route, and see the best of both Cowal and Bute.

Also to realise why, in the days before the motor car, taking the boat “Doon the Watter” to Cowal was such an obvious holiday option. From the late 19th century until the 1960s Cowal and Bute was the destination of tens of thousands of summer holidaymakers from industrial Clydeside.

Dunoon was host to the US Polaris fleet for 40 years, and has a strong US influence still. A good place to start and get your bearings is the Castle Museum, which has an interesting display of local history, including Clyde steamermodels from the glory days of “Doon the Watter”, and information on such celebrities as the comic Harry Lauder and Burns’ Highland Mary, who had Cowal connections.

As well as its world-famous Cowal Highland games, Dunoon also hosts a Jazz Festival in.....

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By Ian Mitchell

Section : Regional Focus

Page number : 36