	look out for swathes of wild flowers: misty blue hillsides in early May, yellow flags (iris) at Whit and pink carpets of thrift alongside Loch Scridain, the purple heather in August, and the blood red rowan berries in October, the brown bare bracken hillsides tumbling with waterfalls and black rock through the winter and the skeleton skliftered with snow the shellsand beaches and the machair grasslands, the peat bogs and the stooks of oats, teddy bear coos and blackface sheep pink granite and yellow lichen, limpets finding their way home as the tide recedes, golden gentle ocean ripples made for paddling feet, silver luminous greys of quiet tranquility on the sealochs, torrenting burns toppling out of the skies dropping white and thunderous fall after fall after rain, barren rock in weirdly geometric shape, hexagon butted against hexagon extruded into an offshore island on the intensely blue ocean, winter gales blowing bracingly urban cobwebs far away fearless seals sitting tight on the rocks almost within one's reach, curious heads bobbing around one, a mink scurrying away, a couple of otters playing and fishing their way along the shore beside the road, heavy antlered stags standing looking at me as I look at them golden eagles passing overhead, buzzards seemingly on every telegraph pole as common as muck and as bold as brass, herons stalking the water's edge, curlew song bubbling, ubiquitous oystercatchers, the lark ascending, stonechat and chaffinch, hoodies where they ought to be and skeins of grey lag geese wheeling past * Where to Go Duart Castle Torosay Castle Moy Castle Tobermory little train little theatre Iona Abbey Fingal's Cave, Staffa fossil tree Loch na Keal beaches silversmith handmade chocolate factory pottery weavers bookshop distillery * More Things To Do picnics whale-watching boat hire Iona and Tiree ferries visiting the Treshnish Isles pony trekking walking wildlife expeditions / safaris gift shops heritage centres restaurants staying in and enjoying our hoose and garden * Yet More The Isle of Mull rally each year in October a mile from Craignure is a nine-hole golf course with an honesty box for visitors' fees there's also a firm at Craignure that does canoeing, abseiling, archery and painting activities you can hire a bike at Salen fishing is a popular "sport" I disapprove of, being a vegetarian there's an Angora rabbit farm near Bunessan where you can cuddle and watch clipping and spinning In Bunessan, 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. *
For the most part roads are unfenced in South Mull. If you're not used to the Highlands & Islands you may not realise just how easy it is to find a spot to pull the car off the road and settle into a picnic and a deck chair while the kids dabble in the loch / burn /sea bringing Alfie and Annie Rose and Katie Morag to life in front of your eyes. You don't have to be a walker to enjoy the great outdoors - the less mobile such as chair-using me and the weary-boned age-challenged can find beauty and tranquility at every turn. Walkers can walk and walk and walk. Munro-baggers can "do" Ben More. Sky-dreamers can drift as the mood and the restless overarching weathers float ever-changing blue after grey after blue. As the ferry sails one into Craignure, Duart Castle ruggedly glowers history at one, of highland chieftains and invasion and sunken galleons of the Spanish Armada. Torosay Castle is cloaked in garden and woodland where wends a short stretch of miniature railway and a weaving workshop. But Castle Moy is my favourite, a ruin on a flat rich shore spooky with sculptural skeleton bones and a tree lined brook fanning out and speaking not of winter gales but of clemency. Sheltered glens grow jungles dank and dark where one slips in and out of surreality - a massive sheet of waterfall tucked in a pleat in the vegetation dwarfs a giant blood red fuschia and drowns out all speech in the stand-alone public phone box. O incredulity and incongruity muster up some magic here. There is of course a little theatre at Dervaig but persuading Sophia to sing unaccompanied Gaelic myths is more my bag, and there are ceillidhs in the local community centre and hostelries when the local builder and mechanic and shop keeper wear other hats and play accordian, drum, fiddle... The sloshing of the turquoise waters within the fabulous Fingal's Cave turned within Mendelsohn into a Hebridean Overture. There are firms running boat trips out across the sea to plonk one down on the black rock there for an hour or so. Staffa's columnar basalt was an early honey-pot for tourists, many illustrious such as Turner the painter, Wordsworth the poet and Victoria the Queen and Sovereign of the British Empire. When Samuel Johnson and his sidekick Boswell toured here not long after Culloden it was an un-reeconstructed Iona Abbey that they walked around. This is where St Columba brought Christianity from Ireland into Scotland, a celtic brand of faith with Byzantine tendencies unlike the stern stuff of John Knox we associate nowadays with Scots. The real unfictional Duncan and MacBeth lie buried here. The 20th century saw the red granite rising stone upon stone back into a thriving centre of faith and pilgimage. In consequence in summer time one can drink veggie soup in a do-gooding cafe, watch potters pot, select books from a surprisingly vast array, have flights of white doves alight on one, and await the ferry (pedestrians only) in an unpretentious commercial outfit with views as below. One year we forgot about ferries and missed the last boat back from Iona to Mull and discovered Mark, The Alternative Boatman whose blue two masted, dull red sailed wooden boat can be hired to sail the seas and see the seals or just to clamber the moonbeams homewards. the must-do UK tour From The Window BBC Video Nation other links	One falls over geology students in kagools and muddy boots because it is apparently a good wee paradise for them: slow-cooled granite which has been exported even to America, fast-cooled basalt (all that polygonal stuff at Staffa but also just on down the road from Eorabus Lodge), yellow sandstone for the Abbey lintels from the south coast, leaf beds of gingko a short stride away from our wee home, and over by the waterfalls at the end of the Burg a massive 40 foot (12 metre) fossilised tree approached at low tide via a ladder and a hike. While Mull is a young volcanic island merely 60 million years old which had its own icecap during the Ice Age, Iona is an ancient gneiss with green marble 600 million years old. Uisken Beach piles up storms of winter seaweed and gives views to Jura. The North Beach on Iona rolls noisily Atlantic. Sweet home for me is Fidden shore where gentle golden ripples warm the silver sand and soaring singing spirits wing high. This is where I canoe around headlands and islands in the lee of Iona with clear sandy bottoms and seals parked on the rocks staring back at me in front of my nose. I recorded my first canoeing trip there for BBC Video Nation Shorts and they've now made it available on the web. The horizon expands in Scotland and the sky vaults vast above one. From the Ross one stares across 50 miles to Colonsay, Islay, Jura, or Tiree, Coll and beyond. The Treshnish Isles float weirdly on the horizon and are the best place to see cliffy seabirds (eg puffin) in summer. From Ulva and Tobermory you can go whale-watching (minkes, dolphins, basking shark). You can day-trip to Tiree from Fionnephort and Coll from Tobermory. In Tobermory there's The Tobermory Chocolate Company, Mull Pottery, An Tobar Arts Centre and the distillery to visit. The B road to Tobermory (turn left at the head of Loch Scridain and head for Ben More - there's often a herd of Highland cows near the junction) is nothing to rush and especially after rain one must watch out for falling rocks along a short stretch where one skirts round the cliffs. But don't stay in on a wet day: go watch the tumbling burns and mooch round the silver sealochs, listen through the mist to the clacking ravens and spy the textures of zero monoculture underfoot. The woods at the end of Loch Na Keal have spotted fallow deer and amazing carpets of moss in winter. One emerges at Salen onto a two lane highway that removes the mysticism of southern Mull and restores a sense of 21st century. 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.

look out for

swathes of wild flowers: misty blue hillsides in early May, yellow flags (iris) at Whit and pink carpets of thrift alongside Loch Scridain, the purple heather in August, and the blood red rowan berries in October, the brown bare bracken hillsides tumbling with waterfalls and black rock through the winter and the skeleton skliftered with snow

the shellsand beaches and the machair grasslands, the peat bogs and the stooks of oats, teddy bear coos and blackface sheep

pink granite and yellow lichen, limpets finding their way home as the tide recedes, golden gentle ocean ripples made for paddling feet, silver luminous greys of quiet tranquility on the sealochs, torrenting burns toppling out of the skies dropping white and thunderous fall after fall after rain, barren rock in weirdly geometric shape, hexagon butted against hexagon extruded into an offshore island on the intensely blue ocean, winter gales blowing bracingly urban cobwebs far away

fearless seals sitting tight on the rocks almost within one's reach, curious heads bobbing around one, a mink scurrying away, a couple of otters playing and fishing their way along the shore beside the road, heavy antlered stags standing looking at me as I look at them

golden eagles passing overhead, buzzards seemingly on every telegraph pole as common as muck and as bold as brass, herons stalking the water's edge, curlew song bubbling, ubiquitous oystercatchers, the lark ascending, stonechat and chaffinch, hoodies where they ought to be and skeins of grey lag geese wheeling past

Where to Go

Duart Castle

Torosay Castle

Moy Castle

Tobermory

little train

little theatre

Iona Abbey

Fingal's Cave, Staffa

fossil tree

Loch na Keal

beaches

silversmith

handmade chocolate factory

pottery

weavers

bookshop

distillery

More Things To Do

picnics

whale-watching

boat hire

Iona and Tiree ferries

visiting the Treshnish Isles

pony trekking

walking

wildlife expeditions / safaris

gift shops

heritage centres

restaurants

staying in and enjoying our hoose and garden

Yet More

The Isle of Mull rally each year in October

a mile from Craignure is a nine-hole golf course with an honesty box for visitors' fees

there's also a firm at Craignure that does canoeing, abseiling, archery and painting activities

you can hire a bike at Salen

fishing is a popular "sport" I disapprove of, being a vegetarian

there's an Angora rabbit farm near Bunessan where you can cuddle and watch clipping and spinning

In Bunessan, 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.

For the most part roads are unfenced in South Mull. If you're not used to the Highlands & Islands you may not realise just how easy it is to find a spot to pull the car off the road and settle into a picnic and a deck chair while the kids dabble in the loch / burn /sea bringing Alfie and Annie Rose and Katie Morag to life in front of your eyes.

You don't have to be a walker to enjoy the great outdoors - the less mobile such as chair-using me and the weary-boned age-challenged can find beauty and tranquility at every turn.

Walkers can walk and walk and walk. Munro-baggers can "do" Ben More. Sky-dreamers can drift as the mood and the restless overarching weathers float ever-changing blue after grey after blue.

As the ferry sails one into Craignure, Duart Castle ruggedly glowers history at one, of highland chieftains and invasion and sunken galleons of the Spanish Armada. Torosay Castle is cloaked in garden and woodland where wends a short stretch of miniature railway and a weaving workshop. But Castle Moy is my favourite, a ruin on a flat rich shore spooky with sculptural skeleton bones and a tree lined brook fanning out and speaking not of winter gales but of clemency.

Sheltered glens grow jungles dank and dark where one slips in and out of surreality - a massive sheet of waterfall tucked in a pleat in the vegetation dwarfs a giant blood red fuschia and drowns out all speech in the stand-alone public phone box. O incredulity and incongruity muster up some magic here.

There is of course a little theatre at Dervaig but persuading Sophia to sing unaccompanied Gaelic myths is more my bag, and there are ceillidhs in the local community centre and hostelries when the local builder and mechanic and shop keeper wear other hats and play accordian, drum, fiddle...

The sloshing of the turquoise waters within the fabulous Fingal's Cave turned within Mendelsohn into a Hebridean Overture. There are firms running boat trips out across the sea to plonk one down on the black rock there for an hour or so. Staffa's columnar basalt was an early honey-pot for tourists, many illustrious such as Turner the painter, Wordsworth the poet and Victoria the Queen and Sovereign of the British Empire.

When Samuel Johnson and his sidekick Boswell toured here not long after Culloden it was an un-reeconstructed Iona Abbey that they walked around. This is where St Columba brought Christianity from Ireland into Scotland, a celtic brand of faith with Byzantine tendencies unlike the stern stuff of John Knox we associate nowadays with Scots. The real unfictional Duncan and MacBeth lie buried here.

The 20th century saw the red granite rising stone upon stone back into a thriving centre of faith and pilgimage. In consequence in summer time one can drink veggie soup in a do-gooding cafe, watch potters pot, select books from a surprisingly vast array, have flights of white doves alight on one, and await the ferry (pedestrians only) in an unpretentious commercial outfit with views as below.

One year we forgot about ferries and missed the last boat back from Iona to Mull and discovered Mark, The Alternative Boatman whose blue two masted, dull red sailed wooden boat can be hired to sail the seas and see the seals or just to clamber the moonbeams homewards.

the must-do UK tour

From The Window

BBC Video Nation

other links

One falls over geology students in kagools and muddy boots because it is apparently a good wee paradise for them: slow-cooled granite which has been exported even to America, fast-cooled basalt (all that polygonal stuff at Staffa but also just on down the road from Eorabus Lodge), yellow sandstone for the Abbey lintels from the south coast, leaf beds of gingko a short stride away from our wee home, and over by the waterfalls at the end of the Burg a massive 40 foot (12 metre) fossilised tree approached at low tide via a ladder and a hike. While Mull is a young volcanic island merely 60 million years old which had its own icecap during the Ice Age, Iona is an ancient gneiss with green marble 600 million years old.

Uisken Beach piles up storms of winter seaweed and gives views to Jura. The North Beach on Iona rolls noisily Atlantic. Sweet home for me is Fidden shore where gentle golden ripples warm the silver sand and soaring singing spirits wing high. This is where I canoe around headlands and islands in the lee of Iona with clear sandy bottoms and seals parked on the rocks staring back at me in front of my nose. I recorded my first canoeing trip there for BBC Video Nation Shorts and they've now made it available on the web.

The horizon expands in Scotland and the sky vaults vast above one. From the Ross one stares across 50 miles to Colonsay, Islay, Jura, or Tiree, Coll and beyond. The Treshnish Isles float weirdly on the horizon and are the best place to see cliffy seabirds (eg puffin) in summer. From Ulva and Tobermory you can go whale-watching (minkes, dolphins, basking shark). You can day-trip to Tiree from Fionnephort and Coll from Tobermory.

In Tobermory there's The Tobermory Chocolate Company, Mull Pottery, An Tobar Arts Centre and the distillery to visit.

The B road to Tobermory (turn left at the head of Loch Scridain and head for Ben More - there's often a herd of Highland cows near the junction) is nothing to rush and especially after rain one must watch out for falling rocks along a short stretch where one skirts round the cliffs.

But don't stay in on a wet day: go watch the tumbling burns and mooch round the silver sealochs, listen through the mist to the clacking ravens and spy the textures of zero monoculture underfoot. The woods at the end of Loch Na Keal have spotted fallow deer and amazing carpets of moss in winter. One emerges at Salen onto a two lane highway that removes the mysticism of southern Mull and restores a sense of 21st century.

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.