Spring Newsletter: Our Active Travel exhibition, team updates, film nights…
This is the Spring ‘26 edition of a newsletter that everyone on the Adventure Oban mailing list receives at the start of every month. Fill in the very simple form at this link to sign up to get Adventure Oban news, updates and future plans straight to your inbox!
Despite the cold, we’ve still been out and about this winter and through into the early weeks of spring, from frosty swims to repair workshops and street ceilidhs! As we wait for the final installment of winter hoolies to pass, we want to share what we’ve been up to, AND what’s to come, to get you inspired for more adventures!
Wheel on the Wild Side!
Spring Festival with The Rockfield Centre
Over the past year, Adventure Oban has been working with primary schools around Oban and Lorn to share the joy of active travel, but also to understand some of the barriers pupils face in choosing active travel in our local neighbourhoods. We brought together our findings - which includes over 100 kids’ drawings - together in an exhibition, currently on display at the Rockfield Centre. Get involved with interactive exhibits and have your say about what you’d like to see going forward. This exhibition will be open to visit until the 29th April on Wednesdays-Mondays (subject to room bookings).
The grand opening of this exhibition was part of the Wheel on the Wild Side Spring Festival Event: a festival in collaboration with the Rockfield Centre, Oban Community Skatepark and North Argyll Cycle Club, encouraging us to make our journeys around town by foot or wheel!
Throughout the day, there was the opportunity to try skateboarding, get crafting or spray painting AND play retro video games. The skatepark committee were also on hand to chat about progress being made on building a permanent pump track and skatepark facility in Oban. More on this to follow!
Kendal Mountain Film Festival
The film night and community meal was a wonderful chance to bring together our outdoor community and celebrate what an amazing place we live in.
Thanks to the Rockfield Centre for hosting us and to our volunteers who whipped up a tasty dinner!
International Winter Swimming Champs
Despite a driech day, smiles were abound all around! Swimmers from around the globe bravely took on the chilly waters of Oban bay in both individual and relay events. Credit to Jo and team at Wild Bathing who led on organising the event and were on hand to support racers with a cosy sauna after their chilling laps and our volunteers got stuck into marshalling and cheerleading the steely participants.
Winter Bike Fix
In the colder darker months, it’s the perfect time to get your kit repaired and maintained, ready for the adventures to come in brighter times! Our active travel team hosted a Winter Bike Fix, including a smoothie bike station to get your five a day while riding, a wheelie bike stand to practice adding a little air to a ride, and ‘watt’ exercise bikes to see who could generate the most power.
A wee shoutout to our star power generators:
Amanda (age 12) 622W
Finn (age 10) 493W
Murray (age 9) 492W
MASSIVE Strip the Willow
A merry wee winter time was had round the back of Oban distillery, with over 100 participants in our Adventure Oban big strip the willow as part of the Oban Winter Festival – this saw a line coming out the arch onto Stafford street! We saw some folk take on their very first ceilidh with joy, warming up Oban’s wintery streets with some serious swings and skips!
A huge thank you to the rocking band of Ross Christie, Owen Stevenson, Dawud Duncan and Phil de Iongh and to MacQueen brothers + Richard Dale for the rocking sound system and trailer!
Team Updates
We’ve got some new and familiar faces at Adventure Oban this year!
We’re so excited to welcome Hannah Shaw back into the fold – our first Community Development Coordinator who organised some of our epic events including Big Bike Weekend and the Sutherland’s Grove 10k, established the North Argyll Trail Association and was a pivotal force in our dig days!
As Hannah is now living in the Cairngorms, she’ll be supporting Adventure Oban remotely with communications and bigger events. She’ll also be showing the ropes to our new Community Development Officer, Renuka Ramanujam!
Renuka has previously worked with Adventure Oban, often knee deep in the crafts tent! She is a designer with extensive experience in community arts, having been a trustee and workshop facilitator at the Rockfield Centre and also having worked with Atlantis during the winter warmer programme. She grew up snorkelling and swimming in South East Asia, and loves being in (warmer) water, but has grown to love colder Scottish waters! Since moving to Oban she’s been blown away by the access to outdoors and is really motivated to continue improving this within her role.
Renuka is really passionate about protecting our environment and is working on developing a new sustainable packaging material from onion skins! She’s excited to bring her project coordination skills and fundraising experience to the role at Adventure Oban, and keen to create some really exciting experiences in the water going forward!
Aidan will still be around to help with delivery of outdoor activities such as archery, sailing or biking events so get in touch if you would like to organise something together.
Upcoming Events
OWL Club Events
Saturday 9th May: Oban Wildflower Walk!
We are delighted to be joined by Trevor Dines, botanist and author of 'Urban Plants', for a walk around Oban checking out our urban wildflowers, ferns and conifers. Drawing on his award-winning book Urban Plants, Trevor will take us on a botanical safari around the streets of Oban, telling the fascinating and often unexpected stories of the plants that grow in the cracks in the concrete and in between the bricks.
From ferns and mosses to exotic garden escapes, native and introduced species come together to create unique communities, and only by understanding this harshest of habitats can we appreciate the impact we’re having on the wider environment.
Tickets by donation - Suggested donation £5
Sunday 17th May: Rainforest Ramble
Explore Dunollie Woods with us, taking in the trees, bluebells and everything in between! More details to come via our social media - keep an eye out!
Clipper Returns to Oban!
Clipper is coming back to Oban from 10th-19th July 2026!
After the excitement and success of 2024, we’re thrilled to have Clipper back and ready to celebrate all things sailing and sea!
In January, we kicked things off with a Clipper Community Fun Day in partnership with Atlantis Leisure, RNLI, Oban Sailing Club and Oban Canoe Club. Ruby and Isla were on hand representing the Oban Wildlife Club with a touchpool full of beautiful sea beasties including a grey sea slug! Young ones had the chance to tackle a sailing themed obstacle course relays- including a bouncy castle, whilst Phil and Tasha were getting folks cycling and rowing on exercise bikes and machines as part of an SSE challenge to collectively run, walk, cycle or row 6500km – the distance of the Atlantic leg that brings Clipper to Oban.
Adventure Oban will be working to support initiatives and fringe events like these in the run up to Clipper’s visit in 2026, including the ongoing 6500km challenge – more to come on this soon!
What’s Next?
As always, there are more projects building up in the pipeline that we can’t wait to share in the coming months. Keep an eye on our socials and if you have any suggestions, get in touch!
- Renuka, Phil, Tasha, Aidan, Hannah, Ben, Christina, Dave, Emily, Isla, Iwan, Laura, and Neil
The Adventure Oban Team
