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Another chapter in the adventures of our windswept and intrepid traveller.

The Isle of Mull

Nickjenkins
2003-11-20 12:21:40

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Friday, 26 Feb 1999 08:10:22

[Pics from Glencoe and Western Scotland]

Another chapter in the adventures of our windswept and intrepid traveller.

I take back every nasty thing I said about the weather, the people, the squalor and the general dreariness of this country. They're all still true but now I understand why it happens, they're paying for having Scotland on the northern border.

I spent a couple of days on Mull (the island not the substance), clambering around in the hills. Mull is in the inner Hebrides about three hours North of Glasgow, or two if you have a Fiat Bravo and a ferry to catch :-).

My friend Andrew came over from Perth to stay with his parents who have a cottage on Mull and he invited me to come up for the weekend.

For £61 return I flew up Friday night on an Easyjet plane and rented a car for a similar sum. I navigated out of the airport onto the M8 freeway West of Glasgow and North across the Erskine bridge. Going North I tuned into BBC1, got some thumping good music on the radio and followed the A82 up Loch Lomond towards Crianlarich.

At this time of the year the sun sets at about 11pm in these latitudes and so I had a gentle afternoon sun streaming in the windows as I drove up through what must be the most beautiful scenery in the world. Traffic was light and I had the loch mostly to myself, except of course for the odd wild deer, leaping salmon and the like.

About half way up the Loch at Tarbet you turn left into the gently rolling green hills and head towards Inverary. The road becomes a little more twisty and the loch's smaller but no less breathtaking.

At Inverary I stopped for a coffee and a quick pee and then went North towards Lochawe and the road to Oban. The country around Inverary is slightly less scenic until you ...