Thursday 1 March 2018

March's calendar slot

One of the things I'm most lucky with in my job is the opportunity to travel. The furthest points east, west and south that I've ever travelled to have been through trips to scientific meetings (Dubrovnik, Victoria and Ubatuba respectively). Often followed up with piggybacked holidays, to be fair.

Sometimes I even get to go to Scotland!

One of the major ongoing programmes I'm involved with is Changing Arctic Ocean, an interdisciplinary (aren't they all?) affair to study the ecosystems of the Arctic. In any case, two of its projects shared Oban for their kickoff meetings, so I duly travelled to the Motherland.

I have a bit of mixed history with Oban. Although it can be beautiful when the weather's nice, on one of my first holidays as a child, we stayed in a caravan there and endured a whole week of rain. Fortunately, this past May was balanced at the sunnier end, and I was able to enjoy a couple of nice days in between the town and the neighbouring village of Dunbeg where my meeting was taking place.

The photographs from March are all from my last morning in the area, when I walked the coastal path from Dunbeg (where I was staying) to Oban. While prominently labelled up as "3 miles", my phone's GPS exposed that particular untruth (see below). However, it was a really nice jaunt, taking in woodland, the shoreline, and great views over to Mull and Lismore. And, before the rain finally did settle in, I was even able to pop up through the town to take in McCaig's Tower, a fabulous hilltop folly with great views over the town.