Highlands Journey – Mull in the rain
The guide book recommends “before you leave your hotel be sure to pack your rain jacket, sunglasses, sunblock, thermals, gloves, snow shoes and may be an ice axe”… A good summary of what was to come on our 7 night campervan tour in the highlands of the Scotish west coast.
Picking up ‘Nessi’ our campervan for the week, we head off into a grey ominous mist which quickly turns into a solid rain. ‘Nessi’ turned out to be a comfortable little home with all the mod cons including TV, shower, toilet, kitchen, beds for 5 and a generator to run the 132 other appliances and lights onboard.
Our first destination was Oban on the west coast for a night before catching an early morning ferry to the Isle of Mull. With the rain turning into a torrential down-pour we slowly trundled along little lanes just wide enough for ‘Nessi’ to negotiate.
The advantage of driving something large enough to consume the road is that ‘size does matter’. Most times when we met oncoming cars it was a simple matter of them reversing the half mile for a spot for us to pass. ‘Nessi’ only lost one battle against the renowned ‘Butch the tractor’.
Despite the rain settling into a miserable drizzle, we donned raincoats and walked the mile to the Macquarie Mausoleum, the uninspiring resting place of the early Governor General of NSW. A site on very few tourist brochures, I can now see why, but we did our pilgrimage with honour.
From here we continued on to Tobormory. Not only is it a very pretty fishing village, it is also the film location to the children’s show ‘Balamory’, so the kids had fun looking at Miss Hoolies house and searching for PC Plum in the street.
With the rain now an annoying torrent it was no surprise that the guide book dedicated a whole page to “Things to do on Mull when it is wet”. And so we took their first option and went to the pub. With another early morning ferry, we set ‘Nessi’ up in the local school ground and just hoped that there was no early morning classes. As we drifted off to sleep the light patter of rain (or was that a policeman at the door) continued through the night.
1 comment:
My god Kathy, you drove that Nessie beast?? What a fantastic journey you have had and isn't Scotland just magnificent. Hope you did the Glencoe trip - those roads would have tested you. Fantastic photos again James look forward to more episodes.
Parra won, Swans in preliminary final Sat. against Collingwood. Thanks for email Kath, will ring soon.
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