Wandering through the Isle of Mull

So much of my travels have been about the journey and taking the road less travelled.... and today was no exception.

My destination was Tobermory and when I chatted to my hosts at the B&B this morning about going to Tobermory, Janace (my host) said "Och, about one and a half hours". Then I said I was thinking of going up the west coast it was immediately revised to 5 hours!!! Hmmm... bit of a difference. She suggested that it was up and down and around about like a roller coaster, but when I assured her I had just completed the  North Coast 500, she thought I would have no problems, but it would take a fair amount of time. And she was correct. I also asked about coffee and loos and that was a bit more problematic!

Today's journey

So I set out....

The first problem was the roadworks...
I had asked about getting petrol and they recommended a little service station 2 miles out of town, where the gentleman would even serve you with the petrol. Nice....!!!
But I didn't even make it that far because of the roadworks......
I was second in the queue so I can't have missed it by that long, but the guy in front of me came up to me and said "You might as well turn your engine off, as this will be at least 30 mins!!!"
They are re-surfacing these one lane roads, and nobody can go through while they do it....
It was a good 40 minutes before we moved!

At least I was not in an urgent hurry, so it didn't matter too much.

Luckily I found the petrol station almost immediately after the roadworks....  Now when I say petrol station, it was a couple of browsers and a shed!!! No loos!  But fortunately there was a public loo in the town not much further on. And lucky I made use of it because the next one was not for quite a while. That can be an issue on the road less travelled!!!!

The drive was just lovely.... but it was as Janace suggested... up and down and round about. The road surface wasn't too bad for a change, but there were lots of blind summits and blind corners, so I was travelling at an average of about 25 mph.

Here's some pics from the first part of the journey..

On the road

On the road

On the road

Janace had suggested I could stop for lunch at a little place called the island of Ulva which required short a ferry crossing. I was humming and haaa-ing about whether I would stick to the coast road or cut inland, but I followed Janace's direction to the crossing to Ulva and was fortunate to find a loo there! However I just missed the ferry, so I thought I would just keep going.

Still on the journey

Still on the journey

Still on the journey

One place she suggested I might get a cuppa was the Hen House...
Nearly passed it before I realised this was the place she was talking about!!!

The hen house

The scenery was just lovely and even though the driving was quite a challenge it was all worth it. I don't know what I'll do when I reach another dual carriageway highway!!! It will be so boring!

Lovely scenery

Lovely scenery

More lovely scenery

The road less travelled

I went past a lovely bay called Calgary Bay. The people who were staying at my B&B in Fionnphort had rented a place there for a week.... looked like a lovely place to stay..

Calgary Bay

Calgary Bay

The road leading in to it was really hairy, with very narrow roads, and sheer drops down the cliffs... my speed average went down considerably going through those parts. But people on the road were really good and often would reverse to the nearest passing place to let you through.

Eventually I arrived at Tobermory, and what a picturesque place it is..

Tobermory

Tobermory Harbour

Tobermory

So that was the story of today's journey. It was not without its challenges, but the beautiful scenery more than made up for it.

And just to top off a good day, there was a public laundromat down by the harbour, so once again my washing is up to date!!!

The wifi is only available in the bar, so I was forced to have a half pint of Tennets as I type this!

Apparently there is live music tonight in this pub, and it's a Gaelic duo, so that could be interesting.

All in all... an excellent day!