Mull and Iona (phone images only)

An impromptu booking made at the first sight of a really good spell of weather, booked on a Friday travelled on the Monday.  We headed first to Oban for the ferry to Craignure on Mull and then on to Fionnphort.

Tuesday morning was breezy with cold air but gloriously sunny as we got the ferry across to Iona.  Unless you are a resident it's foot-only travel.  We disembarked the ferry and walked down to Columba's Bay, the place where Columba first landed from Ireland in the 6th century:

Then back to the ferry jetty and a litte further on the nunnery built in 1205 and demolished in the reformation.  The nuns' refectory had a Sheela na Gig carved into the stonework, a fascinating image given the place, the time and our current views of the world seen through a very puritan biased lens.

Outside the Abbey, also 1205, stands a celtic cross that has stood in the same spot since the eighth century:

Inside the Abbey the cloisters showed some remarkable recent carving detail.  We joined a Historic Scotland tour and learned more about the ancient place:

Just beyond the Abbey the last remains of some long-forgotten building stood:

Iona proved a fascinating place to visit and being there in mid-April a lot less busy than it clearly gets as the season improves.

On the Wednesday we drove to Knockvologan, walked through a farm that was more of a working dumpyard and down to cross the tidal sands and walk-up the Isle of Erraid.  

Time for a stupid selfie with view behind us of the lone munro back on Mull:

From there we drove to a parking spot ahead of a farm house at Scoor and then walked 3 rough miles to the 'abandoned' village of Shiaba.  This was once home to 350 people but the Duke or Argyll knew he would make more money raising sheep so the people were evicted, many to end up in a poorhouse subsequently built in Tobermory to take in many of the victims of the clearances.

It's an eerie and sad place; this is the most substantial remaining structure, the former Schoolmaster's house:

We got home exhausted but happy, in fact delighted, to find out that the water had been reconnected, the mains having burst while i was mid-shower the previous evening!

Thursday morning we had to head back, our schedule had allowed only three nights away but we'd made the most of the first gloriously sunny week of the year.  We waved goodbye to the local lawnmower as we set of for home: