Back in October we took a long day trip out to the Scottish west coast islands of Mull, Iona and Staffa. It was a fairly epic adventure starting at 4 in the morning, and we didnt get back until about 9 at night.
We started out by catching the Loch Friosa, a car ferry from the mainland port of Oban, for the one hour trip over to Mull.
The ferry landed us at Craignure on the East side of Mull. We drove all the way to Fionnport at the very West of Mull in the dark - passing the group of sheep above just before dawn. These sheep are quite used to traffic, so the cars dont bother them much.
After a short sleep in the car, we were able to catch sunrise in Fionnport.
We were there to catch a tour boat out to the Isle of Staffa. I had enough time to quickly explore the shoreline before we got picked up.
This huge split rock sits down on the beach and is quite a feature.
The coloured lichens on the rocks were quite impressive too. In the background there you can see the ferry that runs between Mull and Iona. Thats Iona you can see in the background (they are only separated by about half a kilometer or so).
A fast tour boat took us on the hour long trip out to Staff. The sea was choppy enough to make the trip enjoyable, but not choppy enough to make anyone seasick - so just perfect in my book. Thats the isle of Iona in the background again (above).
Staffa was our main destination that day, as we had never made it out there before and we wanted to see the amazing Fingal's Cave. You can see the full post I did on Staff here.
Staffa has these amazing volcanic rock formations that are world famous.
The highlight being Fingal's Cave which you can walk right into - it was absolutely stunning.
We had an hour to explore Staff before the tour boat picked us up and took us back.
We were getting treated to amazing views all day long - we were really lucky with the weather, because it can be quite driech in October (thats a Scottish word for poor weather - windy, rainy, cloudy, grey, etc, etc).
The tour boat dropped us of at the isle of Iona on the way back where we went to visit Iona Abbey, which was where Christianity was established in Scotland back in 563 AD ! You can see the full post I did on the Abbey here.
Iona and the Western Isles are famous for these beautiful stone crosses. The best examples that I've ever seen are there on Iona.
It was great to visit the abbey and its stunning cloister with its beautiful stone carvings.
The view above was taken outside the Abbey looking back over to the Isle of Mull - the views were really stunning.
From the Abbey we made our way down past the Nunnery (above).
And then on down to the Pier where we saw this fantastic dragon headed beauty !
After grabbing the ferry back to Mull from Iona, we left Fionnport to make our way to Tobermory, the largest town on Mull. As we left Fionnport, the hairy highland coo (cow) above came to say cheerio to us.
We drove up the back road on the west side of Mull to Tobermory. Again we were treated to awesome views. This is actually a sea loch (Loch Na Keal), but it was so calm and sheltered that you would hardly think it was the sea.
We got to Tobermory at around 4pm just before sunset. Its a beautiful town famous for its very colourful seafront.
We had a nice wander around Tobermory (full post here) checking out the shops.
Its such a stunning wee town, and I was glad we had enough time to fit it in before having to make our way back to Craignure to catch the ferry back to the mainland.
We had enough time to stop at Salen on the way back to take a few pics of these old abandoned boats, which are right beside the road.
Everyone stops here to take pics of them - they are quite incredible looking. The weather here has done a fine job of making them look about as rustic as you can get !
We then continued our drive to Craignure, but had to pull over at the side of the road to capture this stunning sunset close to Fishnish.
The colours really were quite incredible.
As we got to Criagnure, we had enough time for one last photo stop down by the old pier. We managed to find this total beast of a boat ! I think its seen better days - but what a beauty. And look at that name ! Leathal Weapon !!!
We were still able to catch some of the beautiful sunset colours at Craignure, shortly before the ferry came to take us back to the mainland.
We had an awesome day trip, and packed in loads as you can see. It was quite dark by the time we got back to Oban on the mainland. The lights of Oban were out including the beautiful McCaig's Tower which was lit up in pink, up on the hill (top right by the funnel of the ferry).
We were shattered by the end of it - but what a day !!! We all absolutely loved it, and were delighted that we had such a great day considering it was so late in the tourist season.
Although I have previously done some posts about the places we had seen this day - I have been wanting to cram the full days itinerary into one post - and this is it !