We timed our 15 mile ride to Craignure perfectly, arriving just fifteen minutes before the 11:05 departure. The sign said check in closed but vehicles were still coming off the boat so we tried our luck at the ticket office and bought our tickets back to the mainland. On landing, we rode directly to Oban Cycles, not far from the pier, and left my bike with them to sort out.
We then had a full afternoon spare, so made two pedestrian ascents, first to Pulpit Hill, close to our b&b of a fortnight ago, a fine vantage point over the harbour and railway station. A sprinter unit was waiting in the platform for its next turn of duty, kept idle in the meantime by the engineering work which will also keep us in Oban until Monday.
We returned to the town centre and up again, this time McCaig’s tower. The structure was commissioned at a cost of £5,000 sterling (equivalent to £690,000 in 2023). John Stuart McCaig designed the tower himself, it was erected between 1897 and his death, aged 78 in June 1902. His plans allowed for a museum and art gallery with a central tower to be incorporated. Inside the central tower he planned to commission statues of himself, his siblings and their parents. His death brought an end to construction, with only the outer walls completed. Although his will included £1,000 per year for maintenance, the will was disputed by his heirs, who successfully appealed.
Our next stop was Tesco, for evening food shopping, after which I collected my bike and we proceeded to the hostel to shower and cook. Both the town and the hostel were very busy.