Skye-lite?

After our wonderful third visit to Skye, we took a ferry north to the island of Harris and Lewis, which I will report on later. For now, I will give you an account of our next stop, the Isle of Mull.

I sometimes consult traveler blogs, Facebook posts, and tourism websites when planning trips, and Mull kept coming up. "As lovely as Skye without the crowds!" some said. It's the 4th-largest Scottish island and seemed very well-regarded, so we added it to our road trip this summer. Neither Robin nor I had ever been there before.

The verdict? We thought Mull was perfectly nice and we enjoyed our five days there in a comfortable holiday cottage, BUT we thought it was like a "lite" version of Skye. The scenery was not as dramatic and there weren't anywhere near the number of interesting places to see. It's a smaller place with narrower roads and fewer restaurants, noteworthy hikes, etc. But it's still Scotland and certainly beautiful!

The one compelling reason I'd tell you to go to Mull is that from there, you can take a boat trip from the main town of Tobermory to the tiny island of Lunga. This is one of the best places in the world to see Atlantic puffins.

And puffins we saw, in the hundreds! (Sources say this little island is actually home to over 10,000 puffins during breeding season.) You can get really close to the puffins here, within a few feet. They apparently like having humans around as we scare off their predators such as skuas and eagles. I could have watched these adorable birds all day, and our two hours on the island flew by.

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  Hello Puffin!

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  holes in the ground are all burrows/nests

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  Step carefully!

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  they always find their own burrow!

Note the black dots in the water behind the puffin in the first photo above -- those are all puffins hanging out and fishing in the sea! And somehow, of the many thousands of burrows, each parent can find their way back to their own. We learned that once puffin chicks leave their nests in August, they do not touch land again for 4-5 years (until they are ready to breed). They live entirely at sea! While some puffin colonies have been declining due to global warming and food scarcity, the Lunga colony is thriving, and the human visitors don't seem to bother them. I was so grateful to experience it.

Our late July tour was towards the end of the puffin season on Lunga. By the time you read this, they will mostly have left and gone to sea. I wished I had timed our excursion earlier in the summer, as some photos shared by others depict a scene even more crowded with birds! I hope one day to go back.

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  photo courtesy of BBC Countryfile

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  photo courtesy of RovingJo.com

Beware: the boat trips to Lunga also include a stop on the tiny island of Staffa, known for its strange, hexagonal basalt formations and an inlet known as "Fingal's Cave." The composer Felix Mendelssohn visited in 1829 and was apparently inspired by the sound of the waves in the cave to write his Hebrides Overture. Classical musician Robin considered it a must-see. However we found the rocky path so precarious that neither of us dared to venture inside the cave! But, I added a photo looking into the cave from Wikipedia, and we saw it from the boat also.

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  handrail was small comfort

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  offshore formation

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  dark inside cave

Now allow me to share a few other photos of our visit to Mull, including the colorful harbor town of Tobermory. You can see why it's much-photographed. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at Cafe Fish, and gave Tobermory Chocolates a high rating.

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  Tobermory

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  Boarding the boat to Lunga

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  Another view of Tobermory Harbor

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  Outstanding!

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  Perfect Stone Bass & potatoes

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  self-explanatory!

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  Left: Mint; Right: Raspberry cream

On another day we took a hike up to an ancient hilltop fort (said to be Iron Age, so 2500-3000 years old) overlooking the Sound of Mull. Unfortunately the path was overgrown and I did not apply bug spray soon enough. The darned midges got me, and boy do those bites itch! However, being outdoors with those views made me forgive all.

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  "Start your walk across from the ruined boats...."

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  Easier path once out of the ferns

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  Destination: Iron Age hill fort

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  Ling heather

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  wildflowers galore

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  heath-spotted orchid again!

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  Atop "Cnoc na Sroine"

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  And some Highland Coos!

I actually did this Cnoc na Sroine hike twice as we didn't make it to the top of the hill on our first attempt, so I went back the next day with Sophie. We did not encounter anyone else either day, and Sophie loved her time off-leash.

Next: my report on Harris/Lewis, and a castle-filled journey back to London.

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