Last night another guest burst my bubble by informing me that the ferry that goes to the Isle of Mull was completely booked out weeks in advance. Rats! Fortunately my host John had an alternate plan that involved driving a little out of the way and taking two short ferry rides only known to locals. Perfecto!
Getting to the first ferry was a piece of cake, and the 10 minute crossing was completely painless. Unfortunately the way to the second ferry, 30 miles away, was poorly signaled and I made a wrong turn that took me in one of the wildest rides I have had in an adventurous life. The road was incredibly narrow, and hung on the side of a cliff that rose straight up from the North Sea. But these are two-way roads, which means that an anytime you might find a tractor coming the other way, at which point you might need to back a couple hundred yards until you find a slightly wider spot where two vehicles can barely make it pass each other.
I finally reached the second ferry, having gone 30 miles in a bit more than an hour. I have to acknowledge that I arrived a bit stressed, but the short wait for the ferry gave me time to collect myself. And what better way to decompress than by admiring a beautiful woman walking by. Tall, slim, with an aquiline nose, raven dark hair, and golden almond complexion. Later I found that this is a common set of features among the natives of Mull. The common explanation for this departure from paper-white red-headed Scotts goes back to 1588, when Sir Francis Drake scattered the Spanish Armada and three of the ships wrecked on the shores of Mull. The bonnie lasses of the island, fed up with their white, short, dumpy local red heads, looked with adoration at the tall swarthy strangers and promptly opened their … hearts to them to start the line of brunettes that now inhabit the island.
Mull is a beautiful island, from the tree covered shores to the high moors covered with bracken, every part of it is irrigated by hundreds of creeks. This is why it is a prime destination for holiday makers, who drive their caravans along the narrow roads to remote holiday parks, or inhabit the many B&Bs spread throughout the island. As I drove through this drizzle-drenched paradise, I reflected about what I knew of the geology of the Isle of Mull. Many years ago I saw a map of the island that showed hundreds of cone sheet dikes (arcuate fractures filled with magma) similar to the complex I mapped in Gran Canaria 40 years ago. But how did they map them? Everything here is either covered by vegetation of drops abruptly to the shore. All the rocks I see look black, wet, and are covered with moss. Squinting an eye and using my imagination I thought I could identify some ridges that could have a dike at depth. I am beginning to have the feeling those old geologists had very active Victorian imaginations.
Did I already tell you about the narrow roads? Well, they
are all over the place, so to go around half of the island took me something
like three hours, and by the time I went back to the ferries I was completely
exhausted. I still had a long way to go to the south end of Loch Lomond, but I
was trying not to speed through the caldera of Glen Coe, or the magnificent
glaciated peaks of the Loch Lomond National Park. I finally reached my hotel
for the night around 6:30 pm, and with a grateful heart unfolded out of my tiny
Fiat, had a beer at the pub, ate a Steak Pie with Chips, and am finally putting
the last touches to this email before seeking a well deserved sleep.
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