Three Isle Tour

April 30 

Our first night at Oban went well and we all slept a bit better than at our previous place. The duvets were not quite as hot and they provided a much lighter alternate cover to use. The living room was another story. We did some much needed laundry after arriving including a pair of thick pants Rob wanted to wash. It seems that dryers are not used in this country. Every place seems to have a washer but no dryer. It is customary to hang the clothes on racks in the house to dry. In places like our last apartment where it stays cool inside it would be hard to dry clothes. This place actually has heat and so this was our chance to do laundry. Rob was hoping to have his pants dry by morning so before bed he turned the temperature up to 79 degrees. By morning is was basically a sauna in the room. Unfortunately the pants still didn’t make it dry but about everything else was crispy and crunchy dry.

Today we were taking an all-day tour to visit three nearby islands, Mull, Iona and Staffa. The tour didn’t actually begin until we got to the Island of Mull and we were supposed to get there by the local ferry. As we depart the ferry the tour busses are supposed to be waiting there to pick us up.

We arrived at the ferry port at 9:30, right on time. Fortunately our apartment is literally right next to the ferry port so it was easy to find. Unfortunately we didn’t have tickets for the ferry. We assumed they would be included in the tour cost. We bought the tour in advance and had the emails with the confirmation information and the instructions on when and where to meet. What we didn’t seem to notice was the big bold text near to top that told us to visit the tour office, in a different location, to pick up ferry tickets before arriving at the ferry port. We tried to board the ferry and we were sent to the ferry ticket office. We weren’t the first people to do that obviously and they lady collected out tour information and issued us tickets anyways, after a gentle scolding and a reminder that it would be good to actually read the information we were provided. At least we were back on track and headed to Mull.

The ferry was a 45 minute ride passing all sorts of other islands, boats, lighthouses and a castle but we ended up at the restaurant on the ferry and had Scottish pancakes with maple syrup. Well, all but Jason. I’m not exactly sure what made the pancakes Scottish besides being made in Scotland but the syrup was nothing like we’ve had before. They must have some really interesting maple trees because the syrup tasted and looked more like honey than it did syrup. In retrospect, they were out of the first three things we tried to order so maybe it was some kind of honey. Anyhow, it’s not important enough to take up space saying all this in the blog so I’ll skip it. Back to the trip…

The tour busses were waiting as we arrived at the port in Craignure and we went right up to the top of the double decker one. It was a 90-minute drive across the Island and the bus driver was non-stop telling about the island. The Isle of Mull is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye) and lies off the west coast of Scotland. Covering 338 sq miles, Mull is the fourth-largest island in Great Britain and has a population of about 3000. It has the eighth largest Island population in Scotland. Mull is host to numerous sports competitions, notably the Highland Games competition, held annually in July.

The terrain was beautiful and changed repeatedly from forests, to empty plains, to marshes, to mountains. We passed numerous lakes and rivers and saw various wildlife including red deer which has a population of more than double that of the people on the Island. We passed a house that used to belong to the singer Phil Collins, one of many well known people that have lived on Mull. We passed a sign indicating “Weak road”. The driver explained that the Pete moss here is so deep in places that the road crews never reached down to firm land and roads are known to sink or move. And while I'm mentioning all the things we passed, we were one of them. All the roads around the island are only a single very narrow lane and have traffic going both directions. Every so often there were small pull-offs. When vehicles came head-to-head the first one to reach a pull-off would do so and allow the other vehicle to pass. Sometimes that required a vehicle to backup on the single lane until the next pull-off, and sometimes that was us in the large double decker bus.

Many movies have been shot here going as far back to black and white films. A more recent one used many locals as extras and our bus driver has a small part in it as a thug. He was hoping for a more friendly role but at least he’s now listed on IMDB.

We arrived at a small sea port of Fionnphort where we transferred to a small maybe 50 passenger boat and headed out to our next stop, the Island of Staffa. The Vikings gave it this name as its columnar basalt, which made up most of the island, reminded them of their houses, which were built from vertically placed tree-logs. Staffa lies about 6 miles west of the Isle of Mull; its area is 82 acres and the highest point is 138 feet above sea level.

The island came to prominence in the late 18th century after a visit by Sir Joseph Banks. He and his fellow travelers extolled the natural beauty of the basalt columns in general and of the island's main sea cavern, which Banks renamed 'Fingal's Cave'. Their visit was followed by those of many other prominent personalities throughout the next two centuries, including Queen Victoria and Felix Mendelssohn. The latter's Hebrides Overture brought further fame to the island, which was by then uninhabited. I was really hoping that I was going to be the first to discover some new area of the island, but it appears that the area was well explored already. Still I held out hope.

Exiting the boat we followed the group around the outside edge of the island toward Fingal’s cave. The area was all made of basalt columns and looked like something out of a video game. Fortunately there was a rail to hang onto as we maneuvered up and across the tops and sides of the columns. The walkway went about 50 feet into the cave. The rest could only be navigated by watercraft, but the waves were such that I wouldn’t try it, it looked more like a blender at the moment. Still the experience was exhilarating. The crashing of the waves echoed through the cave and stirred up thoughts of pirates and adventure.

We only had an hour on the island and spent most of it at the cave, it was so unique it was hard to leave. But I had to see the puffins. Our last attempt to see them failed and this island is known for its puffin colonies. The puffins were on the other end of the island and we only had 15 minutes left. I was the only one of us four that attempted it since I had to run all the way. I arrived at the area huffing and puffing like I was going to die and had faint recollection of the importance of exercise which I promptly forgot again as I spotted the first puffin. The little thing popped right out of hole just in front of me. Then another and another. What are they all doing in that hole and how many are down there, I wondered. Other people were scattered around the area each with their own little group of puffins. They were everywhere, popping in and out and posing for the visitors. They had no fear whatsoever of people and had no worries standing within arm’s reach. I spent a whole 5 minutes taking pictures and videos before having to hurry back to the boat. Again I was reminded of the exercise thing, but it was well worth it to finally catch those funny little birds in real life.

We boarded the boat and headed to our final stop, Iona. Iona is a small island mainly known for Iona Abbey, though there are other buildings on the island. Iona Abbey was a center of Gaelic monasticism for three centuries and is today known for its relative tranquility and natural environment which today is a prime tourist destination and a place for spiritual retreats.

In 2019, the island's estimated population was 120. Iona has been referred to as the birthplace of Celtic Christianity in Scotland, and notes that “St Columba came here in the year 563 to establish the Abbey, which still stands". The ancient burial ground contains a number of medieval grave monuments and is said to contain the graves of many early Scottish Kings, as well as Norse kings from Ireland and Norway, including Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, king of Scotland, who was the "Macbeth" of Shakespeare fame.

This was one small island and wouldn't take long to explore so our first stop was a café where we had a really nice afternoon snack of cheese and tomato pies and a few other things. I got some mincemeat square and Rob and Jason split some kind of weird sausage thing. And they had ice cream, which Rob tried. I’m guessing they don’t sell much of that since the outside  temperatures are near freezing so much of the time, but Rob was determined and asked for a flavor of something that looked like vanilla but had some other name to it. The workers were young girls that looked high school age. They had a list of all 50 U.S. States and they asked every American where they were from and marked it off the list. We were the first from Arkansas that they could remember. I stood smiling proudly, I didn’t make any new discoveries on the Islands but in a way this was the same feeling of satisfaction. One of the girls started to scoop the ice cream which proved to be quite a challenge. She fought for quite some time to get Rob a small bowl of it. She looked at me afterwards and pleaded, please don’t ask me to get you some too. 

After lunch we visited the ruins of an old convent, which Jason said was actually an old nunnery. I didn’t see any nuns around but that was probably because the place has been in ruins for a few hundred years. We checked out the burial grounds looking for some bones to sneak home and then briefly looked at the Abby as we ran by since our time was short and we spend too much time waiting for the little girl to scoop the ice cream.

We boarded a small ferry back to Mull and then boarded another bus for the 90-minute ride back to the main ferry port to take us back to Oban. We arrived back there at 7:30 and went straight to a restaurant for more fish and chips. The day was fun but exhausting and we were glad to get back. 

Rob was having a hard time hanging onto things. On the first small boat ride a lady approached him and retuned his tour tickets he dropped. Another lady at another point returned his wallet that he dropped, and yet another lady returned a glove he dropped in another location. We really don’t know if he lost anything else yet but we were certainly happy all these women were watching out for him since obviously we weren’t doing a very good job keeping up with him.