Destination................Isle of Mull

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It was another grey, overcast morning but still not threat of rain and it looked like we would get another days driving in with dry road conditions.

On paper in the atlas the drive today to the Isle of Mull didn’t look that long but we weren’t naive enough to think that our target just short of Tobermory on Mull could be made at an easy pace. As we wanted to take a circuitous route for the scenery we needed to ensure we kept to a bit of a timetable as we also a short boat ride across Loch Aline to be factored in as well and there was a timetable for the car ferry to think about as well.

We met the young women from last night at breakfast again and carried on our conversations again as we ate breakfast. They too had places to go so eventually once we had all finished eating it was time to go our separate ways.

Driving north on the A82 we stopped in at Morrison’s supermarket to buy prepared dinners for tonight and also to fill the car with petrol as we imagined that fuel would be more expensive if we left the tank half full and then regretted it once we got to the island.

From Fort William we had two routes as options. One was fairly direct to the car ferry at Lochaline on the A861 down the other side of Loch Linnhe and then onto the A884 or head further west after Fort William on the A830 until we got to the Sound of Arisaig and then join the A861 to the A884.The second route was much longer but we felt would be more scenic and varied.

It was just as well we chose the second route as it turned up an opportunity for train spotting that we would have missed out on had we not taken this route.

As we were passing through the outskirts of Fort William we had noticed what appeared to look like steam rising in the distance above trees that were surrounding a timber mill. Dismissing it as steam from some sort of machinery at work in the mill we carried on our way until we got just past Glenfinnan, later realising that we really should have stopped there to get what might have been some spectacular steam train video. Because at Glenfinnan is the railway viaduct that was used in

The Harry Potter movie for those dramatic train scenes.

However, at the time of passing Glenfinnan we hadn’t put two and two together to work out that the steam a short distance back came from the Jacobite steam engine doing its tourist run to Mallaig on the west coast.

Anyway we didn’t miss out altogether for as we drove on we noticed a few people gathered on a road over bridge with cameras at the ready. Now the penny dropped and it was a quick turn on the narrow road and back to get a position for what we were almost sure was the arrival of a steam train.

Parking the car in a short road just off the main road we were in position on a lawn of a house just below the railway line when we could hear the chuff, chuff, chuff of a steam train and then into view came the Jacobite steam engine slowly climbing a fairly steep section of railway towing what must have been at least a dozen carriages with faces looking at us and waving their hands.

Realising that the engine was working hard to get the carriages up the hill we jumped back into the car thinking that we might get another chance to photograph and video the train a little further on the line if we could get ahead of it. The day was now turning into one of train chasing and or thoughts went to our very good friends Ruth and Owen, and in particular Owen who has a great passion of trains and how they would both have enjoyed the chase!

We did actually get another two opportunities to stop by the rail line where the road was close and take more photos and video as the train steamed by. Then the train went right and the road we needed to take went left and so we gave up the chase but it had been good fun.

We were now on the western and coastal side of the A861 and like many roads that follow the seaside this one too twisted and turned and always giving lovely views of the offshore islands.

The road by now had become ‘one track’ as it is referred to in this part of the world. Don’t get the impression that the road isn’t sealed it is just that for most of the time there is just room for one vehicle except where there are small passing bays which are signposted by a tall black and white marker. We have heard the roads being talked about as ‘noddy roads ‘where the driver of a car that was going to give way to an opposing car would nod their head to indicate the right of way was for the other car. We only saw that a couple of times and assumed they were locals as most of the time there was a wave of the right hand or a flash of the lights that told you if you had the right of way. And it all works perfectly! Of course it was almost impossible to travel at much more than 60kph and much of the time we were in the 40’s or 50’s simply because there weren’t a lot of long straight stretches of road.

We had lunch in the car on the top of a hill as we joined the A884 heading directly now for the ferry at Lochaline. For 15 minutes or so we could have been the only people left in the world as before was farmland and hills with not a sign of human life until just before we started to leave another car came past us. Such can be the solitude of the Scottish Highlands.

We had 20 minutes to wait for the car ferry across to Mull and then we joined half a dozen other vehicles and their passengers on the short 20 minute trip across the Sound of Mull to Fishnish where there was nothing except the concrete ramp the ferry gently edged onto so we could drive off and the unattended office of the shipping company that runs almost all of the inter island ferries on the west coast.

It was just a short drive up to our lodge accommodation which overlooked the sound we had just crossed from Lochaline. It was a view that was ever changing as the clouds rolled across the sky making shadows on the hills while on the water there was the occasional small yacht or ship either ferry or small freighter.

We had driven a fair distance today but hadn’t had a lot of exercise so before we cooked our dinner we headed down towards the shore of the sound with the idea of following the shoreline for a while. However we didn’t have the right footwear for the rocks we needed to clamber over so instead went back to the lodge and then up the hill behind for more expansive views of the sound and out to sea.

Tomorrow we take the pilgrimage to the Isle of Iona on the south-western end of Mull.

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