The next day (Halloween, incidentally) I caught the 8am ferry to Craignure, on the island of Mull. Mull is one of the larger Scottish islands, and is shaped somewhat like a W on its left side. It's very mountainous, and is the location of the only Munro not on the Scottish mainland. After arriving in Craignure after the 45-minute ride from Oban, I boarded a bus to Tobermory.
Tobermory is a town on the northernmost stroke of the sideways W that is Mull, and is known for its colorful waterfront buildings:
I spent a pleasant day there, looking around in the shops, buying some local whisky from the distillery, and going for a walk in the woods. I also got some fried scallops from the local fish-and-chips cart at lunchtime, and they were AMAZING, with the roe still on. At about 3:30pm, I got the bus back to Craignure for the 5pm ferry back to Oban. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my roommate in the twin room I was assigned at my hostel had left, so I effectively had a hotel room for the next three nights, for the price of a hostel! Can't beat that!
On 1 November, I caught the same ferry back to Craignure, and got on the bus to Fionnphort, at the tip of the southernmost of Mull's westward peninsulas. This drive was incredibly picturesque. Mull is very orange and red, or at least it looked that way as the sun rose on this autumn day. We went by Ben More, and saw a doe by a stream. If I ever manage to get back to Mull, I'll have to rent a car, because there were some areas I saw on this bus ride that I definitely want to explore further.
In Fionnphort, I caught the ferry to Iona, a 10-minute ride. The weather got iffy at this point, but basically held off to the north for the time being. As I disembarked from the ferry, a rainbow appeared over Iona Abbey.
There has been a religious building on this site since AD 563, starting with a monastery founded by St. Columba. This was Christianity's first main foothold in Scotland, and several ancient Scottish kings are meant to be buried here. Plus, it's featured in Tori Amos's song "Twinkle" ("Last time I knew, she worked at an abbey, in Iona...").
Before I checked out the abbey, I decided to scamper up Dun I, which at 331 feet is Iona's highest point. It is apparently a hill fort dating from the Iron Age, and in spite of not being very high, it is freaking steep, with a disturbing mixture of rocks and bogs. There's only one safe path up, and it's not terribly well-marked, and I had to step very, very gingerly because I hadn't had the foresight to wear waterproofs and didn't fancy wearing muddy jeans all the way back to Oban if I slipped and fell, but I did eventually make it to the top.
I ate a sausage roll (procured at the local Spar), huddled in the wind-shadow of the summit cairn, and watched the weather front off to the north get slowly closer. Then I very carefully descended the hill. I had to butt-surf on some wet rocks near the bottom, but ultimately made it down, having only gotten a little muddy. Then it was off to the abbey.
I had Iona Abbey mostly to myself, which was partly my design in climbing Dun I first. The abbey wasn't what I was expecting. The present building is only a little over 100 years old, older buildings having been destroyed by at least two Viking raids, and later by the Reformation. It's something new, trying to masquerade as something old, and I'm not quite sure it works. Nevertheless, there's a certain atmosphere to it, especially in the older parts of the grounds. It's quiet and pastoral, not ornate and ostentatiously impressive like other religious buildings I've seen. Think a shepherd herding his flock, rather than a Pentecostal preacher overawing his congregation.
The bad weather finally hit while I was exploring the abbey, and my fellow day-trippers and I were obliged to stand shivering on the quay in the wind and sleet, waiting for the ferry. Luckily it came on time, and after an exciting ride back to Fionnphort, we warmed up a bit in the waiting room before the bus ride back to Craignure in the driving rain. After arriving back in Oban, I got chips with curry from the chippy and watched South Park.
I was undecided about what to do on my last day. I had thought I might hang out in the area immediately around Craignure, but I was a but disenchanted with the 8am ferry departures every day. I seriously considered going to Lismore, which had a slightly shorter and cheaper ferry ride, which left an hour later. But upon researching it, there didn't seem to be much to do there. In the end, I ended up just staying in Oban for the day on 2 November. The slight hint of a sore throat which had been following me around for a week finally blossomed into a full-blown cough (thanks no doubt to the horrendous weather on Iona the previous afternoon), so I had a nice lie-in and took it easy on this day. The very kind lady at the gift shop on Iona had given me a bunch of paracetamol the previous day, when I'd mentioned to her that my throat was hurting, and it definitely helped.
The next day, I returned to Edinburgh, extremely satisfied to have finally gone on this trip, which I've been trying to go on for the past year! Victory is mine!
One last parting shot: moonset over Kerrera and Mull, just before dawn on Halloween:
Cheers, y'all.
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