The Spirit of White Tails and More of Mull
The Isle of Mull is often just used as a stepping stone from Scottish mainland to the Isle of Iona, but the island, one of the Inner Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland, has unique wildlife and dramatic landscapes well worth a visit of its own.
After a train from Glasgow or Edinburgh, you arrive on the 40-minute ferry from Oban to Craignure on Mull’s east coast, where most people either board a bus heading west to Fionnphort and the Iona ferry, about a 75-minute ride on a single track road, or north along the east coast to Tobermory, the largest town (see more below). The buses and ferries are well synchronized.
We had rented a cottage for a month on Iona and planned a four-day stay at the Tiroran House Hotel, located in the Tiroran Forest on the Ardmeanach peninsula, which has a volcanic landscape and 200-million-year-old fossils at its western end. To get there, we had to take bus all the way across Mull, from Fionnphort to Craignure to rent a car and then drive back to the west for about 30 minutes. But once we reached the hotel with our gracious hosts Laurence and Katie MacKay, which is tucked down a long drive, far away on this sparsely populated island, we soon learned it was a wise choice.
The first day we headed into the forest to look for white tailed sea eagles, Europe’s largest bird of prey. One of 30 pairs on the island have a nest near the hotel, but the two chicks had died over the summer so there was little activity around the nest, and we were not lucky enough to see any. But after walking several miles in the forest and around the loch, we returned to the hotel to enjoy a glass of the hotel’s branded White Tail Gin. Guests gathered for a glass (powerful but smooth, like the bird) before a wonderful dinner in the hotel dining room.
On Day Two we drove to the northern part of peninsula where we headed east along Loch Scridain, with some breathtaking scenery on the narrow single-track road, and then turned north at Salen to Tobermory.
Tobermory is a picturesque little port town, Mull’s largest, with everything you want: a distillery where we bought an 18-year-old Ledaig (pronounced Lay-chek) finished in a sherry cask, great shops and restaurants. We started with chocolate, then oysters for lunch and finished with ice cream, and as a bonus found the Tackle and Books shop, where I purchased a book by Scottish writer Robin Jenkins, most famous for his 1955 novel, The Cone Gatherers. It was back to a casual dinner at the White Tail coffee shop with the MacKays and some new friends from London.
The weather was spotty the entire trip but Day Three was the rainiest so we headed west to Bunessan to visit Ardalanish Weavers, where you can see the Hebridean sheep, whose black and brown wool they weave, grazing on the hillocks around the building. From the main (single track) road, it’s a drive up a hill on a road that seems impossibly narrow. The weavers were at work on looms from the 1920s and 1950s, and we fed the shop, leaving with fabric and a wrap, drove back to our hotel, which had filled up, making dinner even more lively.
The next morning, we left early, driving slowly and taking in the peaceful morning, which is easy to do on Mull. We were the only ones on the narrow road, except for some Highland Cattle who did not want to move and held us up long enough that we barely made the bus back to Fionnphort. Dropping off the rental car involved leaving the keys on the seat, the door unlocked and car in a parking lot.
