A really great course and accommodation (but truly diabolical catering* – just one star for that I’m afraid). I’d love to revisit but would look into self-catering if I did.
Phillip Cowie’s pace and blend of sessions is excellent for this technical beginners level course. Excellent equipment, research boat, microscopes, library and very short distances to study sites – remarkably, all within walking distance!
It’s quite intense for Phillip – I’d suggest he got someone to help him out for some of the time – we had an excellent PhD student along on one of the days we were out.
We were blessed with good weather – but there’s lots of options for lab time if the weather is bad so I think they can cope with it well.
If anything, I’d suggest cutting each day by an hour to give people chance to ‘decompress’ and tour this little island. (I needed the time to go back over to Largs (20-30mins each way depending on bus/ferry times to and buy fresh food). The shops on the island keep odd hours so best to stock up in Largs (big co-op near ferry terminal).
I’d recommend linking it with a visit to Arran if you can – it looked awesome across the water from Millport.
Seriously though, worst quality of food I’ve had anywhere for 20 years…bring supplies.
*beef for sunday dinner, monday packed lunch, monday dinner, tuesday dinner – had me fleeing the island for groceries/vitamins… but then! the promise of a veg curry (turned out to be chopped spuds and cauli or maybe broccoli? in tinned tomatoes). Rice was nice though. Heavy fug of cooking oil lingered from breakfast to evening too – even when there didn’t seem to be anything fried? A theme that continues round the many chippys of Largs (saw my first slice of deep-fried pizza – they exist).