The weather was with us. And in Scotland, that's really everything.
Crazy Americans that we are, we decided to do the all-in-one-day approach. So we sailed from Oban on the 7:30 am ferry to the Isle of Mull. Hoping to make the ferry to Iona before 10 am, we drive straight across Mull to Fiannphort, which was a bit of a shame. The clouds were clearing as we drove, and Mull looked amazing: lush, green, with ferns, hills, waterfalls and lakes everywhere. We kept saying, "Wow, that's amazing!" and occasionally pulling over to the side of the (one lane...single track, they call it here) road to snap a picture, or twelve.
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| Mull, the Land Before Time, with ferns |
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| Gorgeous lakes and clouds on Mull |
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It took us an hour and twenty minutes to cross Mull, and we pulled into Fionnphort about 10 minutes ahead of the ferry departure. By now the weather was totally clear, giving us a fabulous view across to the Isle of Iona.
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| Small ferry to Iona. You can take a car on this one with special reservations, but it's mostly passengers. |
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| Iona ahead! |
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Once we got to Iona we walked on the white sand beach for a few minutes before heading up the hill to the nunnery, abbey, and Iona community.
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| The Nunnery on Iona |
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| Iona abbey altar with sun |
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| St. Martin's Cross, Iona Abbey grounds |
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| Iona Abbey from the Hill of the Abbot, possible site of St. Columba's writing hut |
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| View, Sheep, Remnants of the Bishop's House |
We wandered around the grounds of the abbey for quite a while with our audio guides, and Paul even tried to take a tour (while juggling Claire, who wanted to go with him). Audrey preferred to read gravestones in the graveyard, so we went off to do that, listening to audio about history and the local environment along the way. After a while we wandered back down the hill and ate lunch on the beach, and got ready to board the boat for Staffa. What we didn't know when we boarded was that Staffa was a 50-minute boat ride away, most of it across open ocean.
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| The boat to Staffa |
It was a nice, calm day. Really, couldn't ask for better. But a tiny boat on the open ocean still meant a very rough ride. The girls kept saying, "It's like a teeter-totter!" And it was.
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| Staffa, the basalt island with caves |
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| On top of Staffa |
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| Inside Fingal's Cave, Staffa |
Staffa was quite cool, made of basalt, like the better-known Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. We spent about an hour exploring it, then got back on the tiny boat. Fun as the Staffa trip was, we can't say we were sorry to get back to the much larger Isle of Mull, and to drive back onto the much larger Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) ferry that took us back to Oban, 14 hours after we'd begun our adventure that morning. I don't think we'll be going back to Staffa (at least on a tiny boat!) but we'd go back to beautiful Oban, Mull and Iona anytime!
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| CalMac ferry, opening up for cars and buses (this was a BIG ferry) |
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