An Islay stag weekend – day one

From the golf course

Hullo there! (Scottish accent) So after heading to bed at 9.30pm and falling asleep immediately last night, I have now recovered enough to tell you about my weekend! I am splitting it into each day otherwise it would be a long post. And you would probably be falling asleep. If you didn’t know, last weekend I visited Islay, a small Scottish island, for my friend Nick’s stag weekend.

I also have a video version of the weekend which I will hopefully be editing this weekend. Read moreabout DayOne though afterthe jump!

I arrived in Islay on Friday afternoon. A pretty uneventful trip to be honest. My flights connected in Glasgow no problem although I was annoyed that there was no BA lounge in the section of the airport my flight was leaving from. I spent 90 minutes sitting staring at a vending machine, so I think the facilities could have been better!

Small plane

The flight to Islay was on a wee propeller plane (above), and the flight only took about 20 minutes. The airport on Islay is probably about the same size as Dundee airport. However there was a sign on the door telling you to look out for adders! That sign is not at Dundee airport. Anyway, my friend Nick’s future wife-to-be Kate, ’s Mum kindly picked me up (apologies for shocking grammar there).

Adders

My first impressions of Islay were that it was a lot bigger than I had imagined. Apparently it would take around four hours to drive around it. Also there are a couple of towns on the island as well (although they’re not big).

We were staying in some lodges at a hotel called The Machrie, which was really nice. Also the staff were very friendly there. After dumping my stuff in one of the lodges, I met up with the rest of the guys who had arrived on a ferry from Scotland, and we headed out to play golf on The Machrie’s course. I don’t play, so I drove the buggy and opened beers.

The Machrie

After about 12 holes, I was completely freezing, and Martin had had enough of golfing, so we headed back to the hotel and started drinking. This was about 4.30. Then after everyone had finished golfing, we had Scottish burgers and sausages on a barbecue outside our lodge before heading to the hotel bar, where we all played a never ending game of snooker in teams. Andy and Martin won about 20 from that!

Weirdly of all the places to choose to have a stag weekend, there was one other stag trip at the same hotel, and they were from Northern Ireland. The stag from that challenged our stag to some weird sing-off kind of thing. We think it was a set-up though because he had a voice like Pavarotti.

Anyway, we headed to bed at 4.30am, and I was completely sozzled. My first day in Islay was over already!

You can see photos from the entire weekend here.

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