Day 2: 13th July 2006

Lacking vital software, we sought a broadband connection to replace the miserable 1bit per second phone modem at the house. Thankfully e found broadband at the community Centre in Lochgilphead. With full GPS, we then drove to Loch Gair to Loch Glashan, the site of the rowing boat and fishing scenes in the book. We filmed from the dam onto a very blustery lake.

Lunch at Loch Gair Hotel was highlighted by the huge collection of single malts in the whiskey room-but none of us indulged.

On the way back we frilmed Fergus / Fiona "accident" site at Achnaba, where we nearly ran ourselves off the road in a frenzy of alarming realism.

Then to on to the Dunnad, a truly magical place. Ascending by a narrow sheep track which twists and turns around the mound, one passes though a huge cleft in the outer walls -which form a natural barrier of rock reinforced by stones. Then on up to the grassy summit with its few remaining foundations and a magnificent view across the ancient Kingdom of Dalraida. Here is the incised footprint where the early kings of the Scots came to be crowned and connected to the land. It is set beside the rock-cut bowl for , presumably, their annointing. It is easy to imagine that prosperous kingdom of sea traders looking towards Ulster and the isles-but sophisticated to be trading with the Phoenicians and the Romans.

Then the Henge at Temple Ring and met Scot , a local storyteller and guide whose soft brogue suggested him as an ideal narrator for the piece. At Dun Chraigaig we scanned the entrance grave and stone alignments interspersed with nervous pregnant sheep.

Then on to Kilmartin Church and its beautiful carved gravestones
We passed up the valley to Carnassorie Castle, which was we suspected the model for the Urvil lCastle in its early ruinous incarnation. The place is accurately described by Banks and we began to understand just how plastic these actual places become in the imagination of the novellst. Like a surgeon reconstructing and transplanting whole elements to make a final and seamless surface.

Late walk to the beach at Barnlongart by Loch Caolisport. Still twilight at 11.30 pm with an incongruously lit red phone box surrounded by flowers. The edge of the narrow channel between us and Jura was lined with a white sand littered with giant oyster shells and clams on the machair.