Scotland Summer 2004 - Hillwalking on The Oa

	Our second full day on Islay, time for some more walking. Again I decided to partly repeat a walk we had completed during the Islay Walking Week 2004, this time the walk on The Oa. Instead of parking at Kinnabus we parked at the RSPB car park near Upper Killeyan and then started our walk. We followed the track to Upper Killeyan Farm and then walked over to the cliffs overlooking Port nan Gallan. The weather wasn't perfect, it was quite cloudy and hazy, but we still had nice views over the cliffs and to Kintyre. We could even make out Ireland in the distance, something that wasn't possible earlier in the year. Turning west we continued along the impressive cliffs, looking out for seals which sometimes can be seen at the bottom of the cliffs. We weren't very lucky this time and only saw one (at least we think so). Instead we saw some other inhabitants of The Oa...

	Somewhere along the way we saw some of the wild goats living on The Oa and even managed to take a few pictures before they ran away. By lunchtime we arrived at the American Monument, a memorial for the dead of the sinking of HMS Tuscania in 1918. Here we stopped for lunch before continuing along the west coast of The Oa.

	Walking along the cliffs on the west of The Oa we enjoyed a few more great views. The sun was coming out more and more now, unfortunately it stayed quite hazy though and we couldn't see very much of the Rhinns on the other side of Loch Indaal. When we arrived at Lower Killeyan we left the coast and walked back to the car park following the road. By now it was mid afternoon, as we still had some time left we stopped at Kilnaughton Bay to enjoy the view over to Port Ellen and the lighthouse at Carraig Fhada. The panorama below is also available as QuickTime VR panorama of Kilnaughton Bay (4.8MB download, fast connection or a lot of time recommended).

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