Погода: Обан, май

Early May is about the last of Fort William's midge-free window - they do not normally get going until late May or June and the blanket hatches wait for summer, though regulars note they have been starting earlier year on year. Ben Nevis is a separate problem. In May most of the path is clear but there are still snowfields on the summit and ice in the sheltered places, and reports describe a sunny start turning, three-quarters of the way up, into poor visibility, real cold and deep snow. Midges do not like height, so the hill is the one place you are safe from them whatever the month. The record: 15.6C days that feel like 14C, 7C nights, 14.6 precipitation days carrying 104.2mm, 9.6 hours of sun and a 16.5-hour day.

Forum posters describe December in Oban and the wider Scottish Highlands as cold, damp and short on daylight - on a cloudy, rainy day it can feel like it barely gets light at all. Posters are direct that this isn't the tourist season, with a number of B&Bs and smaller businesses closing for the winter while their owners take their own holiday. Posters visiting nearby islands warn that up to 16 hours of darkness calls for real wet-weather gear, patience for cold and wet conditions, and something to keep you entertained indoors. Posters do note Oban itself holds up better than more remote spots thanks to its shops, bars and restaurants offering somewhere to spend the long evening hours. Posters generally rate December as genuinely challenging weather-wise for Oban, workable as a town base even if outlying island day trips become more of a gamble.

Forum posters call May-June the best window for this part of Scotland: long daylight hours, before peak season crowds, and often the best weather odds of the year, even if the classic 'four seasons in a day' pattern (locals joke it's sometimes three in June alone) still applies. One poster recalled a June with 'wall to wall sunshine' breaking local heat records, though that's treated as a lucky outlier rather than the norm. June is also singled out as prime timing for the boat trips out to Mull, Iona and Staffa, since smaller seasonal ferry services are still running at full schedule before they wind down later in the year.