and then we were four

still on the Isle of Mull back in April . . .  (I'm writing this with the Glastonbury coverage on the radio in the background - glad they've had such a fabulously sunny weekend and the Stones did themselves proud last night, even if they did look bizarrely ancient!!) OK, back to Mull . . . .

Wednesday 1 May

Sunny, warm and windy and two or our intrepid team decided to go and hike one of the most arduous walks on Mull to the famous Fossil Tree.  We all joined in with the packing of their butties and off they went . . .

Thank you - http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/mull/fossil-tree.shtml

so that left the fabulous four - and it was back to Erraid, after our wonderful discovery last year that it really was Treasure Island!

Spotted a beautiful hare just posing for a photo but it was still too far away for this little camera!

Next off we drove down to the little croft at Kintra for a great coffee and cake.  Charming hosts, honesty box in the little shop/cafe, beautiful cottage garden at the edge of the sea and even a hobbit house!

 Quick peek at the tiny old port of Kintra itself

then, after spotting some golden eagles and more hares, it was lunch on our cottage patio, then a walk from the cottage in search of Market Bay.  Beautiful track with boardwalks over the marshy bits and not another soul

though down at the old port of Camas there were signs of habitation - the outward bound centre for Iona - we thought this colourful washing line deserved a pic!

 Backtrack, and ah-ha, a sign!!

But it turned out to be way too far to trek to before dinner, so back to Ardfin and Ardlea for a hasty change and dash down to Ardness House.

But what of our hardy hikers and the Fossil Tree quest?   Well - 7 hours after take off, mission achieved, faces glowing and starving, the plucky pair turned up in the nick of time for Gillian's mega meal.  It as a glorious meal of triumphant tales from the Fossil tree, fresh mussels from the loch, Mull lamb, tender and scrumptious and lots of great banter.

And that fabulous view from Ardness House as evening set in:

Ahhh bliss!!



And if you are still eager for more - read on for our ghost town hike


of if you're new to this blog and want to start right at the beginning of our Mull holiday, then please click here

invaded

Pic courtesy of biography.com

oh no - someone has discovered our Treasure Island and has created a Robert Louis Stevenson wilderness walk starting in Erraid - read all about it

 but we were there first, honest . . .. for proof read here

or if you want to read our whole Mull adventure from the beginning, then start here

Long John Silver eat your heart out

FRIDAY - Six find treasure

What a WONDERFUL finale today turned out to be.

Last breakfast round the huge table, all so sad to be at the end of this amazing week and wondering how to spend this final day of sunshine.


Then Gillian suddenly dropped in the golden ticket suggestion - we might like Erraid.  An island on the tip of the Ross of Mull accessible over the sands at low tide.  We could park in her mate John's field and very few people go there . . . . .


So, it was over to the Fionnphort ferry cafe for more butties from Teresa then off along the single track road over beautiful open moorland with the Sound of Iona blue on one side and hills gently rolling on the other.  Past the sandy inlet where we'd seen the mountain hares with Bryan and onward and upward to the end of the farm track at Fidden.


Then it was just a hop, skip and a jump (for joy) onto the most amazing incredible fantastic beach ever!

lunar patterns in the sand 

And is if that wasn't enough, it turned out the whole island was ours for the day.

Didn't see another living soul.

Wondered far and wide across the granite strewn landscape with absolutely no footpaths.  Huge erratically dumped white boulders, steep drops high above rocky bays, incredible views across the deeper blues of the Atlantic and white beaches below bordered with basalt columns.

Sang at the top of our voices as we marched along - got lost loads, squelched in peaty bogs, scrunched through heather, clambered up rocks and got blown to bits by gusty sea breezes.

Even found ancient hut circles.

And all around the horizon loads of little islands dotted out to America.  Absolute bliss

 After a couple of hours we headed back to the bay we'd arrived at but it took some finding

and found this incredible rocky cove on the virgin sand to have our picnic.

Paradise . . . that was until the tide came in around us and we had to up-butties and hop to safety


past the amazing shipwreck

And that was when we spied the gigantic burrows . . .

Here is Miss Marple investigating

and footprints too

and then, walking back up to the farm, our first sign that humans had ventured here before us 

or was he the guy from the giant burrow . . . he retained his right to remain silent so we shall never know - but he was cute!  The jury is currently still out on the footprints, but we're voting for either otters or mountain hare.  Votes in the comments box at the bottom please.


We joked as we drove back that we'd found our own Treasure Island - a Robert Louis Stevenson / Enid Blyton / Famous Five / Secret Seven sort of a day.

but wait to hear this . . . .


Later, back at Ardness House, it was a quick google to bring up the amazing discovery that it really was Treasure Island!!!!!  Robert Louis Stevenson's father was a lighthouse builder and he was building the Dubh Artach lighthouse off Erraid between 1867 and 1872 when our Robert was just a young lad.  So of course, Robert spent visits with his family on Erraid, loving the landscape and the huge granite rocks and wandering around the island fervently wishing he could be a writer and not a builder of lighthouses, so the story goes.

He subsequently used Erraid as a backdrop to part of his novel Kidnapped, where the hero, David Balfour is shipwrecked on the Torran Rocks and washed ashore and in Treasure Island, Jack Hawkin's chart bears a resemblance to Erraid. 

So basically, when he wrote Treasure Island and Kidnapped he based chunks of them in Erraid.  Isn't that just incredible.


I'm probably boring you rigid with this - cos I kept on reading I was so amazed.  But to keep it short I'll just put in some webpages you can click and read if you feel the urge:

more about Erraid  more about Treasure Island - - - and even more

and if you really want a detailed piece of research on the history or Erraid, try here.


And Andrew Motion has just published his sequel to Treasure Island (read reveiw here) 

http://www.kellscraft.com/maptreasisle.JPG

So that was our most wonderful final day on Mull and, for our last supper, more amazing fresh mussels, copious wine, lots of laughs and final hugs from Gillian, who was off to the market at 5am the next morning selling calves in Oban.

There'll be a final report on our journey home tomorrow if you have the energy to read more then click here

oh and yes, as Colombo would say, just one more thing . . .

this is going to sound so soft and corny - but we did find real treasure.  It was in each other's wonderful company and friendship in one amazing week in May.