how to get there

Most visitors to Mull arrive via the Caledonian MacBrayne Oban-Craignure ferry, although there are ferries from Morvern (Lochaline to Fishnish) and Ardnamurchan (Kilchoan to Tobermory).

The nearest airports are Glasgow, Prestwick and Edinburgh. The major car hire firms have rental offices at these airports. You don't positively need a car on Mull but the distances are bigger than you imagine.

You can get a train from Glasgow (Queen Street) to Oban which arrives right beside the ferry terminal.

Oban is about 2 hours (60 miles) drive from Glasgow. The quickest route is up Loch Lomondside. Allow much longer if you haven't been to Scotland before because it's very beautiful and if you're like my mum you'll go "coo" and take a lot of photos (and she's a Glaswegian!). You can detour via Rannoch Moor and Glencoe if you want to make a day of it, even take in Ben Nevis and Fort William, in which case you might prefer to cross Loch Linnhe on the Corran Ferry and cross to Mull via the Lochaline route.

Ferries should be booked at peak periods. There is a 50% concession for certain people with disabilities but you must have the right paperwork with you..

The alternative equally scenic route to Oban from the Glasgow area and the South is across the Clyde at Gourock to Dunoon and then via Inverary (Duke of Argyll's seat) and Loch Fyne (kippers). Other possibilities worth considering (at least I think so) are to take in Rennie MacIntosh's Hill House at Helensburgh, the submarine base at Faslane on the Holy Loch (demos), the Rest and Be Thankful pass and the Crinan Canal (haunt of Para Handy and the Puffers).

Or you can head to Stirling (Castle, Wallace Monument, Bannockburn and Braveheart) and zoom past Blairdrummond Safari Park to Callander (Tannochbrae and Dr Finlay), the Falls of Leny, the Falls of Dochart and via Crianlarich near the head of Loch Lomond to Oban.

We usually arrive at Oban in time to do a big shop at Tescos which has a greater choice and is cheaper than the small island stores. You'll find everything there from passionfruit to printer ink.

The ro-ro ferry takes less than an hour from Oban. It's invariably calm and usually there are spectacular views. There are canteen facilities on board.

If one chooses to come without a car, one can get a bus the 32 miles from Craignure to Bunessan - many local people go shopping in Oban for the day; or one could bicycle, walk or hitch. 

The road runs through some woodland, skirts a sheltered sealoch and rushes out into the hills via a patch of forested land and a series of cattle grids. Thence it's extraordinarily desolate until one runs down to Loch Scridain on the other side when the water sings the tones of the sky and the horizon sweeps wider to encompass the isles. 

Your local keyholder and contact

You will be met on arrival by our local keyholder Alison Fisher who will show you what's what, agree meter readings etc.  She lives in the village and works as a care assistant with the Argyll & Bute Social Work Department.  She and her husband farm up at Scoor and she may be able to provide fresh eggs.  

 

shopping 

There are 3 shops in the village of Bunessan, a gift shop, a general store and a general store cum post office.  The latter stores are arch rivals who sell food primarily and despite being dead small not just basics:  they pander to modern urban tastes.  For example, you can find parmesan and fresh baby sweetcorn in Glen and Jessie's and pistachios and decaffeinated ground coffee in Trevor and Mary's.  They also sell stuff like camera batteries and alarm clocks, postcards,  newspapers and sweeties.

Down in Fionnphort Sandy & Jane run a shop that's bigger because it encompasses besides the newspapers, postcards, spades and pails (what the English call buckets and spades), groceries (everything from cakes and pies from the Mull Bakery to avocados and vegetarian pesto), a bookshop selling a surprising number of Scottish books and also novels, childrens books and stationery,  a gift shop with pottery,  Scottish music tapes, tea towels, jumpers, Scottish honey, walking sticks, etc, and a sizeable hardware store full of tools, paint and stuff holidaymakers shouldn't need and  a good range of lightbulbs inter alia.  They are also a Post Office and do cashback on Switch and act as a Bureau de Change.

Explore and make up your own mind. They're all nice, the people who run them. One can also shop at Tescos by the internet and the Coop delivers.

Brenda's tearoom sells a range of antiques and has awfully nice toilets. The Argyll Arms pub has awfully nice views, serves meals and sometimes has a table tennis table set up.

 

Oban (pop 7,476)

ferry

 

the way things are in Mull and Scotland

The neighbouring houses are a couple of hundred yards away on either side. The builder lives at the end of the road. Next door is a farmer Freena, her daughter and her granddaughter. Both these families have been in the locality forever. However, there's been quite a lot of migration into Mull in the last couple of decades and there's a surprising vitality about. It may be remote but it's not technologically behind the times like it used to be. For example people will fax for motor parts and they can be sent over for the next day, locals have satellite tv, shop via the internet.

Although a lot of people know the Gaelic, they haven't been encouraged to use it and some people are very embasrrassed about speaking it. I think it's now actively encouraged amongst the young but it doesn't present a language barrier for visiters and it's more likely to be Scots that foxes one.

Scotland is its own place. It's got its own legal system, education system, banks, press, language, history and now its own Parliament too. Most Scots are Scots first and British or European second. You must never ever ever think of Scotland as part of England because it isn't and it gives offence.

Scotland has its own licensing laws and Sunday opening hours and no law of trespass. Scots love the freedom to roam the hills but they also respect their land and their climate.

Don't expect Mull to be hot - there are hot spells in summer when the temperature is in the 70s but it's very changeable. The Ross sticks out into the Warm North Atlantic Drift so winters are milder than one might expect and rather extreme - extremely windy or extremely calm mild and sunny. Frost and snow aren't common.

Summers are cool and it would be surprising if one spent a week on Mull when it didn't rain, though having said that, the Ross where Eorabus Lodge is is drier than most parts of Scotland as the rain isn't dropped by the prevailing winds which blow in from the ocean until after it hits the mountain massif in Eastern Mull, and the Ben Nevis & Cruachan areas on the mainland. (Fort William is the wettest place in Britain, Tiree (only about 50 miles west of Fort William) one of the driest and sunniest.)

Jeans and a shirt are the sort of sensible things to wear with a jumper and a kagool in one's day bag, and a pair of shorts for warmer days and to ensure paddling at the ocean's edge or in the burns is as pleasurable as may be. It is decidedly not clever to go hillwalking without sensible footwear and an awareness of how rapidly the weather can change - and telling someone where one's going.

Scotland is really rather safe in comparison to most other places - there aren't nasty diseases to catch or rampaging wild animals or venomous spiders etc (one not very commonly seen, rather sluggish small and not very dangerous poisonous snake). One doesn't need lots of innoculations. But there are midges, wee nasty horrid biting insect things that gang up in vicious hoards in calm summer air especially in early evening. Eorabus is not midgey in our experience as the air is stirred by the sea and the undergrowth in the garden is not dense, but out on the moors one can be bitten to bits, particularly in August.

There is no crime to speak of in Mull and locals don't bother to lock their doors, but do take care on the roads. People who know the roads drive fast even though they are single track. The convention is to signal your intention to give way and enter a passing place and to wave or acknowledge every other driver or road user. One must stop to allow cars behind by and one must not park in passing places. One must give way to sheep and cows, taking special care when lambs are small as they tend to scurry across to reach their mums at the last possible moment. In winter one must be seriously aware of the dangers of huge deer leaping into one's path. Sheep quite often sleep on the road at night.

 

Ferry times from Oban to Craignure

with Caledonian MacBrayne

(valid through till 30 Sept 02)

M :7, 10 , 12, 2, 4, 6

T,W,T: 7.45, 10, 12, 2, 4, 6

F: 7.45, 10, 12, 2, 4, 11.15

S: 8.30, 10.30, 12.30, 3.15, 5.15, 7.15

S: 10, 12, 2, 4, 6

 

Craignure to Oban

M: 8, 11, 1, 3, 5, 7

T, W, T: 8.45, 11, 1, 3, 5, 7

F: 8.45, 11, 1, 3, 5

S: 7.30, 9.30, 11.30, 2.15, 4.15, 6.15

S: 9, 11, 1, 3, 5, 7