Being spoilt at Ardna Mushrooms!

When you move around so much and you leave just when you get to know people, everything feels so brief, without continuity almost. The thing about wwoofing is that you get thrown into the unknown pretty much every couple of weeks. And you learn to adapt. But the most beautiful part of it is that you get the chance to collect so many precious experiences to remember for life.

And that's definitely what our experience at Ardna Mushrooms was to us. For almost 2 weeks, we lived with the quirky & coolest Dunn family (though they will argue that they are not that cool lol) in the most amazing spot on this island so far - the west coast of Scotland. We've been quite spoilt as well, coz we were only allowed to work 4 hours a day! Not a minute more. Sweet eh? So most afternoons we just tinkered around here and there, go for a walk with Marmite (the Dunns black labrador), cycle up and down the loch etc...

Robert and Justine almost live the good life, so to speak (I say almost because we would have pigs not just hens, which they used to but not recently). They have a beautiful house which they restored themselves in a remote beautiful part of scotand, and bringing up 4 children the best possible way they can. From the moment they said that when the children all grow up and leave the house, they want to start becoming more fuller time activists and their passion lie in non-violence protesting. And would happily go to jail in pursuit of justice and equality. It was then, we knew that these 2 nutters and us probably had quite a few things in common :)

Here are some excerpts of our time in Strontian... its so excruciatingly beautiful, with people in the village, equally lovely, we'd definitely go back there again in a heartbeat.

Bjorn harvesting Shitake from 'loafs' of 'logs'. A daily task we do every morning! The aroma of the shitakes is just incredible!

Dinner time with the Dunns! From left... (after bjorn and me) Sam, James, Angus, Justine and Robert - the 'crazy mushroom man'.

Our cozy little caravan.

Having a cuppa at with local compost community club members. We said we'd post this photo online so here it is! From left to right (hope i get this right)... Robert, Johnathan, Robert, Bill, Bjorn.

Taking Marmite for a walk just at the back of the house. Amazing views only 10 min walk away.

Robert showing us how he makes biodiesel from used vegetable oil which comes up to only 12p a litre!

Henry the barman, ex-wwoofer and guitar player entertaining us at the local hotel/pub - Ben View Hotel. We had really nice memories there as well as we visited it quite a few times during our stay!