From our hotel in Ballachulish it was an hour drive to Oban where we caught a ferry for a 45-minute ride across the Firth of Lorn to the Isle of Mull in the Hebrides. The Mull ferry ran on a schedule. The waters were calm on a beautiful sunny clear day. We passed by an island where the MacLean clan Castle Duart was situated. We could see visitors on the island and the castle looked to be in pretty good repair as it under-went restoration after W W II.
Once
on Mull we traveled what was called a one
track road. There was virtually no traffic we only had to pull over a
couple of times to let a car heading in the opposite direction pass. The Isle
of Skye is the largest in the Inner Hebrides, but Mull at 40 X 5-6 miles is the
second largest.
Isle
of Mull, wettest island in the
chain, is wild and mountainous, with sea lochs and sandbars. Until recently
only geologists, bird watchers and an occasional fisherman or mountain climber
visited the Hebridean islands. Today the islands that make up the Inner
Hebrides are becoming more accessible to the general visitor. The area is rich in legend, folklore,
land of ghosts, monsters, wee folk, and wild life. The wild countryside was the
scene for Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Kidnapped.
The highest peak is Ben More at 3169 feet, but there are many flat areas.
Mull’s
population is 1200 and the isle has the largest concentration of golden eagles
in the world. The scenery we rode over was pretty desolate with wilderness,
peat bogs, heather, evergreen bracken covered glens and grass covered hills.
After
an hour and a half on the narrow road we reached the end of Mull and took a
passenger ferry for a five-minute ride across the Sound of Mull to the Isle of
Iona. This small ferry makes turn- around trips all day, so it is never a very
long wait for a ferry. We were told there are no cars on the small island, but
we did see a couple running supplies and occasionally people. The 1 X 3.5 mile
island of Iona is a remote low lying
green, treeless island with high cliffs and rolling meadows
In 563 AD St. Columba arrived in Iona
to convert the Celts to Christianity. He built a church, and the Isle is known
as the Cradle of Christianity. Columba’s monastery survived repeated Norse
sackings, but finally fell into disrepair about the time of the reformation.
The oldest building on the island is St. Oran, built in 1080.
It has
been said that when Edinburgh was a barren rock and Oxford but a swamp, Iona
was famous. Known as a place of
spiritual power and pilgrimage for centuries, it is the site of the first Christian
settlement in Scotland.
The
dukes of Argyll owned the island from 695 until the 12th century
when the duke was forced to sell it to pay a million in real estate taxes. Sir
Hugh Fraser, former owner of Harrods, purchased the island. Located on the island’s
most sheltered spot is Baille Mor, the only village on Iona.
In
1930 Rev. George Mcleod, a Glasgow minister, arrived in Iona to save the
residents from their decadent ways and started restoration of the decaying 13th
century gothic abbey, built over the ancient one.
We
noted street signs were in both English and Gaelic.
In
the cemetery we tried to find MacBeth’s tombstone. But all we found was very
very old stones that little lettering remained. Supposedly 43 kings and queens
are buried here but we unable to identify any of the them.
I
hate to admit this, but I didn’t know MacBeth was a real person, never mind a
king. I always thought he was the figment of Shakespeare’s imagination.
Walking
through the cloisters was so peaceful. Hanging baskets of flowers hung in each
archway all around the court. What a great place to run away to if all one wanted
was peace and quiet.
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