Neptune's Staircase and a castle with a tale to tell

  
What a great name for this fearsome flight of eight locks or chambers, which took an hour and half to traverse. The first locking was 8am and the next wouldn’t be until about 1pm so we got up ready for the eight o’clock descent. The routine is that a crew member stays ashore and “walks" the boat through and this was what the lady lock keeper recommended. Josh wasn’t happy about this as he wanted us both to stay on the boat, however in the end after several requests from the lockkeepers he relented and I “walked” the boat through each lock. It was an overcast morning with a chilly wind so it was rather tedious and I got very cold, as there was a lot of standing around.

A lot of standing around in the cold.

 
At one point when I was walking the boat along from one chamber to the next I remarked rather flippantly to the same lady lockkeeper “It’s rather like taking the dog for a walk!” to which she replied “Yes, but a bit more stubborn”. Could she possibly have been referring to the captain, surely not! 
Once through the final lock, we went through the railway swing bridge and then headed on down the canal to the sea lock.  We had to wait to enter the sea lock while the Danish boat refuelled and then we were in the final lock of the Caledonian Canal, the Corpach sea lock. 
We had some paperwork to sort out which the lockkeeper did while we were in the lock and then the gates opened and we were in the salt waters of  Loch Linnhe and saying goodbye to the Caledonian Canal. We had a party of four other yachts who had done the descent with us: a small open motor boat, crewed by two young fit Australian lads, tender to the £250 million pound super yacht that we were told was waiting in the sea lock basin; a Danish yacht; an aluminium French yacht and another small English yacht.
The "super yacht" moored in the Corpach basin and the Danish boat.
 It remained overcast and chilly and as we said goodbye to Ben Nevis it was, as usual, shrouded in low cloud.
The wind was “on the nose” of course, so we motored on past Fort William and then the loch widened and we had a three hour trip to Linnhe Marine. This is not mentioned in any almanacs but we had picked up a brochure on our travels and it looked like a welcome stopping off point as it was half way to Oban, which was our final destination on this leg. As we got there the sun came out and it proved to be a glorious spot. They don’t want to advertise as they have a waiting list for moorings and plenty of passing trade. It is sheltered behind Shuna Island and the waters are as clear as crystal. A very friendly family run marina, father and son were both very knowledgeable and helpful and pointed us in the right direction for the pub. This was a short walk down a charming country lane bordered by wild flowers and foxgloves with the loch on one side and fields and horses on the other. In the evening sunshine it was just perfect. We came to a clearing and there in a small bay was a wonderful old castle sitting majestically on a tiny island in the middle of the bay. Just up from there was the Old Inn, 1670, haunted by the ghost of a wrongly accused and killed murderer from Jacobite times.
 I am now in the habit of sampling the local gins, this one was really nice. Due to the small batches that are made you have to come up here to sample it, it isn't available in supermarkets.
The owner of the pub also owns the castle and boat trips can be arranged with a tour by the owner. The castle is named Castle Stalker, Gaelic for hunter or falconer, and it has been restored and is one of the many “Island Castles” in this region of NW Scotland. The story goes that the clan owner gave it away to the leader of a rival clan in a drunken bet! It was also the  Castle of Arrgggh in Monty Python, see below for more details. A neighbouring castle was lost to its clan members in a game of cards and the disgruntled clan leader piled all his clan members – all 500 of them – into a boat and sailed away to Nova Scotia. So the whole clan is now settled in North America! All this discovered on a short walk to the local pub in the wilds of NW Scotland

 

From Wikipedia and the barman at the Old Inn.
Castle Stalker (Scottish Gaelic: Caisteal an Stalcaire) is a four-story tower house or keep picturesquely set on a tidal islet on Loch Laich, an inlet off Loch Linnhe. It is about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north-east of Port Appin, Argyll, Scotland, and is visible from the A828 road about midway between Oban and Glen Coe. The islet is accessible (with difficulty) from the shore at low tide. The name "Stalker" comes from the Gaelic Stalcaire, meaning "hunter" or "falconer".

In recent times, the castle was brought to fame by the Monty Python team, appearing in their film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The island castle's picturesque appearance, with its bewitching island setting against a dramatic backdrop of mountains, has made it a favourite subject for postcards and calendars, and something of a cliché image of Scottish Highland scenery. Castle Stalker is entirely authentic; it is one of the best-preserved medieval tower-houses surviving in western Scotland.[1] It forms part of the Lynn of Lorn National Scenic Area, one of forty in Scotland.[2]

History


The original castle was a small fort, built around 1320 by Clan MacDougall who were then Lords of Lorn.[3] Around 1388 the Stewarts took over the Lordship of Lorn, and it is believed that they built the castle in its present form around the 1440s. The Stewart's relative King James IV of Scotland visited the castle, and a drunken bet around 1620 resulted in the castle passing to Clan Campbell. After changing hands between these clans a couple of times the Campbells finally abandoned the castle in about 1840, when it lost its roof. In 1908 the castle was bought by Charles Stewart of Achara, who carried out basic conservation work. In 1965 Lt. Col. D. R. Stewart Allward acquired the castle and over about ten years fully restored it. Castle Stalker remains in private ownership and is open to the public at selected times during the summer.

For the 2011 census the island on which the castle stands was classified by the National Records of Scotland as an inhabited island that "had no usual residents at the time of either the 2001 or 2011 censuses."[4]

In popular culture


While most castle scenes in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) were filmed in and around Doune Castle, Castle Stalker appears in the final scene as "The Castle of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh". First the castle is seen from a distance; next, a French castle guard (John Cleese) taunts King Arthur (Graham Chapman) in a French accent from its battlements; finally, a massive attack is launched against the castle, after which police officers who were investigating the death of a historian earlier in the film arrive and are in the process of arresting Arthur and the other knights for killing him when one officer places his hand over the camera's lens cap and ends the film's visuals.

The castle also makes a brief appearance in the film Highlander: Endgame.[5]
Castle Stalker is the inspiration for "Castle Keep" in the children's book, The Boggart

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