Oban – should I move there?

I’m not sure that Oban even has the former.

Yeah, in my experience a place can be too much in the wilderness. MTBing really needs a certain amount of development somewhere in the middle.

That’s the issue, not to have a pop at you in anyway but this is only going to get worse for locals. My mate works as a secretary in one of the local property offices, practically every house is sold before going to market as they have so many buyers from outside the area wanting a holiday house etc.

Fortunately thats not what we did. We bought a building plot that has been empty for nearly 10 years, of course, in the year before it is finished we are renting, so reducing the available houses for locals by one. But, we’re locals now, and we’re certainly not well off, indeed, we’re struggling for money, and I’m likely to be working until I’m 70 (I do like my job though).
And this is in a village that is home to the living dead (mainly pensioners), or so i was told! There’s houses here been on the market for 2+ years, and had no interest. A very nice 3 bed semi down the road from us did sell after 6 months with a guide price of £150k. The village pub / hotel has been up for sale at £230k (up for more but will take £230k) for the last 2 years with no interest, it has around 13 rooms. It’d be a great business if someone had the money and energy to get it working.
Hotel for sale

Thanks everyone, lots of good info here, especially re rain and midges. A couple of people seemed to take it a little more seriously than intended, but it’s pretty much confirmed what we felt by the end of the holiday – great to visit, but not for us.

At the moment we have turned our attention to Alnwick …so, should I move there?  🙂

Alnwick? Wrong side of the border mate. Water tastes right funny down there. Nah you don’t wanna do that.

Many moons ago I worked a season at mctavish’s kitchen in Oban. All I can remember of the place(Oban) were there were a hell of a lot of pubs.

Seemed every second shop was a pub. So great if you’re an alcoholic i suppose.

Other than that the scenery is very nice 🙂

I went on a “night out” in Oban  many years ago during the mod . Came out of a pub as the shops were opening, went  to cross the road but did’nt . Someone had to point out to my pal that a car had run over his toes.

We live near Glasgow and have been in Oban regularly for decades, I used to sail there a fair bit (West Highland Week memories..) and my folks kept their yacht at Kerrera for a few years laterally before selling it 7 or 8 years back.   Have also had a lot of more recent family holidays in the area and have a lot of great memories of the place.

We also holiday in Northumberland at least once a year, in fact back to our usual haunt in Lucker in 10 days time, great with kids, dog and gravel bike 🙂

Given the choice of moving to Oban or Alnwick, Northumberland would win every time for us

Many moons ago I worked a season at mctavish’s kitchen in Oban.

The tarten extravaganza that was Mactavish’s kitchen was our favourite for a chip roll at school lunchtime as a mates mum worked there so loadsa chips, then onto the arcade at airds crescent or Stevenson st (can’t quite remember?) to play centipede/pinball or defender, and perhaps bunking off for the afternoon and heading up to McCaigs folly. This is 1984 to 1988.

“Many moons ago I worked a season at mctavish’s kitchen in Oban”

That name rings a bell, where was it? When I was in Oban in that period, my usual food was chips from the portable kiosk near the entrance to the old station, in a similar position as the current fish and chip van there, but at a non-tourist price in the 80’s.

Mctavish’s kitchen was on the A85 main road sea front in centre of town, a large restaurant with a glass frontage if I remember correctly

Yes, i think its still an eating place, the one with the glass windows upstairs looking over the bay. I’ve just googled it, I think that site is now the posh eating place now, where you , mostly, have to book each night.

I haven’t been to Oban since moving from Dalavich back down to kirkcudbright with my parents in 1988, I imagine it’s changed a fair bit in the passing 36 years.

Has McCaigs folly been finished yet?, 😉

I was in whatever Mactavish’s is now called last summer to see Darren McGarvey. The start of the show was delayed because everyone including the man himself was watching the sunset over the bay which was very spectacular
Edit Mactavish’s is now called The View

I worked in the kitchen, and those were set up with huge industrial sized appliances, They were cooking on a huge scale for the tourist industry. Very busy place.

Food was pretty good as it goes.

somafunkFull Member

Has McCaigs folly been finished yet?, 😉

Nope. The hydropathic sanatorium isn’t finished either, and they started building that before the folly.

Just don’t call it a folly.

At the moment we have turned our attention to Alnwick …so, should I move there?  🙂

You should probably start a new thread. This one’s turned into a weird, nostalgic reminiscences of Oban thing – ‘I flew over it once, it looked nice from the air / I overdosed on heroin there and the hospital was nice / it’s okay if you own your own helicopter sort of thing’.

Fwiw, my fly-by experiences of Northumberland are that it’s sparsely populated, the mountain biking isn’t great, it has awesome beaches and puffins. For me it’s nice for a holiday, particularly the coast, but I’m not sure I’d want to live there.

I’d be listing my location priorities rather than sticking virtual pins in maps and doing some careful thinking. On the face of it, for example, I could live in Keswick, but the summer tourist invasion would drive me nuts, it rains a lot and it’s very expensive.

Anyway, I once drove through Oban and it seemed okay… 🙂