(New) IslayBlog.com, a blog about the Isle of Islay, Scotland
Cask Strength since 2006
With Islay obviously being an island there are only two ways to get to it: Across the water or through the air. Coming by air unless you arrive by helicopter the only place to arrive is Islay International Airport. Found a nice video with a great introduction and overview of it:
For more visit the Islay International Airport page on the HIAL website.
To move on from the AI nonsense I started the year 2024 with let us change to something more wholesome and real. How about a video by Purple Heather Scottish Tours of driving around Islay and spotting various wildlife and farm life? Here you go:
And the bird at the end according to a Google Lens search is probably a Helmeted Guineafowl or something related. Not native to Islay….
Following on from yesterday’s AI Happy Islay New Year I played a bit more with Microsoft’s Copilot / DALL·E 3 from OpenAI. The prompt was fairly vague and not much really reminded me of Islay. So I thought, let’s try to be a bit more specific and ask it to “Create a picture of Laphroaig distillery on Islay with fireworks above during a clear night with the Milky Way above”. Assuming the AI has been trained on some pictures of the real thing it should be able to create something that at least remotely resembles the real thing. Well…..
I don’t know what the AI has been trained on, but I assume it doesn’t know an awful lot how Laphroaig really looks. Some of the representations of the Milky Way look a bit odd as well. Some of the distillery buildings it created look more like a factory with up to six chimneys (but lacking any pagodas). At least all the results place it at the shore, although the lighthouses some versions get are rather odd.
Somehow I had expected a bit more, but then again I heard you have to be very specific with the wording you use. I might read up on it and try again some other time.
Happy New Year 2024! Time for resolutions (including blogging here more again) and those kind of things. For various reasons I’m deviating from my usual New Year’s Day schedule today. Went for my morning walk (which I extended to a total of just over 7.5 miles) fairly late and so listened to the New Year’s Concert from Vienna using headphones while I was walking. So now over a late brunch I’m playing with some AI image generator (one of the resolutions, learn more about AI…) trying to generate some Islay themed New Year’s pictures. The text is written by me still, not an AI. Click on the pictures to view them in a full size gallery:
Some interesting results in the AI generated pictures (using Microsoft’s Copilot / DALL·E 3 from OpenAI). I asked for an Islay New Year’s day with Islay whisky, beaches, white cottages, lighthouse, Golden Eagles, whisky distillery, lighthouse and Barnacle Geese (in a few combinations). None of it really looks like Islay. The Golden Eagles look mostly like Bald Eagles. The Barnacle Geese look mostly like Canada Geese. The distillery looks weird. The whisky is generic, but that’s OK. In other words, not that much improvement to my earlier attempt.
On that note I hope you had and are having a good New Year and will be having a great 2024. Time for a New Year’s Day dram soon, I think.
Regular readers will remember an earlier post about Islay Drone Photography. Earlier today I came across a new video by him I really liked. It’s only a short clip, but it brilliantly shows some of the impressive tidal currents at The Kettle just off Orsay with the Rhinns of Islay lighthouse:
I’m not sure what (if anything) came of it, but that illustrates why there was talk a while back of potentially creating tidal power generation off the south and west of Islay (in addition to the ones long planned in the Sound of Islay). There certainly is a lot of power out there!
After over 4 years of only speaking over the internet (Skype, Signal) due to Covid and various other reasons my sister is visiting me from Germany for the first time in a very long time. I decided that warranted opening a special bottle of Islay single malt which had been sitting on my Islay shelf for many years. As my sister doesn’t drink but still enjoys the smell of good whisky we share: She gets to nose the dram, then I get to drink it. Which one is it? This one:
It’s a Bruichladdich Port Charlotte PC12 bottle I must have bought many many many Moons ago. Unopened on the left, opened on the right. Enjoyed two very very very lovely large drams before it returned into the safety and darkness of it’s tin again.
As the title says, some nice calming Islay inspired music today, only released a few days ago. The work is by Hania Rani in collaboration with Islay’s Bowmore distillery. The video shows many scenes on Islay, in particular around Saligo Bay (the poor piano carriers must have had their work cut out…). Lean back and enjoy:
I hope you enjoyed the music and the video, you can read more about the collaboration on Two Sensorial Spirits.
The attribute “stunning” I often feel is overused and through that sadly devalued. But when I watched Donny Wilcox’s videos from Islay, Jura and Colonsay this evening I couldn’t think of anything else but “stunning” several times. Some really amazing views and different perspectives, views I’ve never seen that way before. Let’s start with Islay and Colonsay:
Now let’s rewind to Donny’s arrival on Jura, his base for his time in the area:
And to close some more of Donny’s time on Jura, exploring Loch Tarbert:
I hope you enjoyed Donny’s videos as much as I did, the great views from the air, the sea and the land. Many thanks to Donny for sharing your adventures!
Back in May I shared some videos from a visit to Islay with a Royal Enfield Meteor 350. This time it’s a rented DL650 for a fairly short visit. Brent rode from Coupar (where he rented the bike) to Tarbert, which is where the interesting part of his videos from his motorbike tour around Scotland begins:
Day 3 sees him leaving Islay and he also rides past a mishap on the “Tarbert Bypass” (be careful on that road if you use it) while travelling north:
I hope you enjoyed Brent’s videos, let’s see what else I’ll find over the coming weeks as people share their summer holiday videos.
Unless you’ve only ever flown to Islay you will almost certainly have driven the A83 and with it the drive up to the Rest and Be Thankful. A very scenic drive, but also a drive regular users know with a lot of problems. Problems in the form of landslides. A couple of years ago I missed (or did it miss me?) a landslide only by a couple of hours. Roadworks. detours and more have been going on for many years now. But maybe maybe this will finally be resolved now.
Earlier today I spotted a report on the BBC website, Rest and Be Thankful: £470m tunnel to protect vehicles from landslips. In a nutshell: Transport Scotland has developed plans to build a just under a mile long open-sided shelter/ tunnel to protect the road from being blocked by landslides. For more details there is a virtual exhibition of the A83 tunnel plans. And for some eye candy there is a (virtual) fly through of the preferred solution:
Some will probably say, “Oh, I’ve been saying that for years!!”. Either way, I hope this moves forward quickly now and work starts soon. In any case I suspect it will take a few years to complete a project like that.