Cowal Highland Gathering Cowal Highland Gathering The Cowal Highland Gathering (also known as the Cowal Games) is an annual Highland games held in the Scottish town of Dunoon, on the Cowal peninsula in Argyll and Bute, over the final weekend in August. The first record of an organised Highland games in the town is in 1871, the same year as the Argyllshire Gathering in Oban started. In subsequent years games were held at New Year. The organisation of the Cowal events and other games around Scotland was due to a wide interest in Highland sports, partly stemming from Queen Victoria's love of Scotland.
MV Cowal spent her last five years. From 1974 to 1977, she assisted with a contract to service McAlpine's oil platform construction yard at Ardyne. After this ended, she retired from the Rothesay service on 20 May 1977 and was laid up at Greenock's East India Harbour from early June 1977. MV Cowal MV "Cowal" was a hoist-loading vehicle ferry introduced by Caledonian Steam Packet Company in 1954. She spent the whole of her 24 years with Calmac on the Upper Clyde crossings. MV "Cowal" was the second of a trio of vehicle vessels ordered in 1951 to modernise the Clyde fleet.