Tag Archives: Scotland

Shetland: The spectacular islands in summer

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A two week holiday in Shetland had just about everything I could ask for from a trip within the British Isles: spectacular wildlife on the ground, in the air and out at sea, distant views over stunning scenery, and human history around every corner. Having a longing to spend time on islands, a liking for ferries and a fasciation for abandoned villages, as well as a constant struggle to keep my mind from wandering to nature, Shetland, could just have been the perfect holiday location for me.

I’ve long been wanting to visit Shetland. Ever since starting an odyssey of Scottish Islands 16 years ago, this most northerly archipelago has been calling to me. After having travelled to so many of the Inner and Outer Hebrides as well as it’s southern neighbours in Orkney, Shetland was the last of the major groups of Scottish islands I had to visit. So, after planning the trip for well over a year, and trying to contain my excitement for just as long, we travelled up to these most northerly of the British Isles for a mid-summer holiday in June 2025.

I have to say, it’s not the easiest of places to get to, or, at least, not the quickest, especially if travelling by car; but all good things come to those who wait (or travel far). To be honest, a love a good long road trip, so the drive to Shetland was never going to be an issue. As we made our way up from the East Midlands, we had an overnight stay in Cumbria before a leisurely drive up and across to Aberdeen to catch the overnight ferry to Lerwick, Shetland’s capital. The Northlink ferry identical twins, Hjaltland and Hrossey, are comfortable ships for the 12-hour crossing, particularly if you pay for a cabin. We spent a good while up on deck watching the Scottish land mass disappear and looking out for seabirds and marine life. While waiting for the ferry, we had earlier seen a large pod of dolphins hunting in mouth of Aberdeen Harbour, but sadly didn’t see them again from the ship.

By the time dinner had been eaten and we had a final look out over the sea, it very quickly reached bed time. The cabins are quite a cosy places to spend the night and, fortunately, the blinds in our cabin were good enough to black out most of the very light night sky, as it tends to be in June. It is also a very quick get up in the morning; with the ship docking at 7:00am, there is time for a fast breakfast and a wander up on deck as the ship passes the southern tip at Sumburgh and travels up the long, thin southern spine of the Shetland Mainland. Unfortunately, we didn’t get good views on the way into the port at Lerwick as low cloud shrouded the islands and we had only brief glimpses of the landscapes we were to become very familiar with. As we left the ferry behind us, in good hobbit-style we had second breakfast at a very good cafe (Fjarå) towards the southern end of Lerwick before heading off to our first base for our holiday.

The holiday really began as we boarded the ship but our Shetland experience started properly as we drove out of Lerwick in search of our cottage out on the western side of Mainland. For the first five nights we stayed at a fantastic modern cottage the far side of Walls. Westshore is very smart, clean, comfortable and well-equipped rental property with a contemporary style and great big windows giving wide panoramic views over a wide sweep of sea lochs and low rolling pastureland. The cottage is accessed by a rocky and slightly winding track between two gates, often dotted with dozing ewes and their lambs. The mixture of landscape, sea, wildlife and those sheep, gave a constantly shifting world outside the windows of the cottage which I could have happily sat and watched for hours on end.

After being welcomed by the owner, we unloaded our heavily-laden car and unpacked, looked at the scenery for a little while and then headed the 35 minutes back to Lerwick for a wander and to purchase provisions. 

Our first couple of journeys highlighted two things which we were to remark on throughout our stay. Firstly, just how good the roads are; so much of the islands are covered by fast single carriageway (i.e. a lane in each direction) and there’s barely a pothole to be found. As you get to some of the further reaches of the islands, where roads provide access to a few smaller communities, they do narrow down to single track roads (one lane with passing places), but even in summer (we travelled just before the schools finished), there isn’t much traffic to meet on these roads. 

The second thing we noted was that the weather can change from one part of the islands to another. As we travelled between our first accommodation and Lerwick, one side of the Mainland was bright and sunny while the other was under dark, dampening skies. It is around 15 miles between where we were staying at Walls and Lerwick, as the crow flies, but more like 25 miles by road. This is not far off the widest part of Mainland, which gives a good distance for the weather to change its mind. Heading between the two places, the roads meet two pronounced moorland-covered ridges, with the valley of Weisdale between (more on Weisdale later). This change in height may contribute to the differences in weather with these ridges being some of the first hills that the wind from the Atlantic meets, creating cloud as the air rises; we certainly saw this happening when we were further down to the south of Mainland. This increase in height also provides opportunities to see great distances (when the weather allows() down the spine of Shetland: at good spots on these ridges you can park at the side of the road and see the islands laid out in front of you towards the south.

Our wander around Lerwick took us through the old town, including coming across the Shetland Pride march, and down to the harbour, where a German sail training ship had docked and was attracting significant attention. Also docked were two cruise ships of different scales, the like of which we would see a few of with our subsequent stops in the capital. Despite some of the cruise ships being enormous, we didn’t come across too many of their passengers, especially away from Lerwick itself, and they never impacted on our holiday.

That afternoon, we also went to the Shetland Museum, located a little way to the north of the town centre; it’s great and gave us a very good introduction to culture and history of the islands, which we were to explore more of over the course of the next two weeks. Readers of my blog may have seen previous posts about visiting villages that had been emptied of their communities as a result of the Highland Clearances. The museum provided some detailed context to the longer history both before and after that period but also details of what life would have been like for communities during that particularly harsh period in the islands’ history. What we saw in the museum was brought to life in our travels around many parts of the islands and in particular by the ancient standing stones, the viking remains and the almost unbelievable number of abandoned houses and communities that we came across. Over the course of the trip we also visited smaller museums at Eshaness and on Unst and Fetlar; while not as polished as their larger, Lerwick counterpart, these were well worth a visit to learn more about Shetland’s past.

As we eventually drove back west for our first night in the cottage, we started to become familiar with the landscapes we would travel through over the next two weeks. There is no ‘typical’ landscape in the islands around Scotland but Shetland has similarities to many of those I have visited before, particularly its nearest large neighbour, Orkney. They share a landscape of low rolling coastal pastureland, dotted with crofts and smaller clusters of homes in hamlets and larger villages. Shetland, however, has far more of the rugged upland moor, with large areas of Mainland, Yell and Unst given over to this sparser populated, more hilly landscape. The deeply indented coastline provides both rocky high cliffs and lower rolling fields reaching down to the sea, with some stunning sandy beaches, pebbly shorelines and a small harbour almost around each corner. The variation means that the landscape seems to constantly change and in a few minutes you can have gone from the sometimes bleak and stark upland, with its dancing carpets of cotton grass,  to the softer, lush green pasture along the coasts.

The first few days were spent travelling around Mainland, visiting the islands of Noss to the east and Papa Stour to the west, taking a trip down to the road-linked islands of Trondra, West Burra and East Burra, to the south of Scalloway, and a long day out to the north west of Mainland including wandering around the spectacular area of Eshaness.

The only real disappointments of the entire trip came in the first two days. Both of our pre-booked boat trips were cancelled due to poor weather. The first was a trip to the sea below the towering seabird cliffs of Noss, an island beyond Bressay to the east of Lerwick, and the second was a night-time trip to Mousa, an island to the south east of Mainland, during which we hoped to see storm petrels coming into the famous broch. Not only were the planned trips cancelled but so too were both of the rearranged trips. We didn’t let the disappointment of the cancelled boat trips dampen our spirits and on the first full day on Shetland we took a trip to walk around Noss instead, and it was perhaps the best day of the entire holiday: more of which I’ll cover in a specific blog post. 

The day on Papa Stour was a particular highlight. We left the car at the quayside and took the 40 minute ferry from West Burafirth to the island. On arrival, we set off on foot along the only road, serving the few scattered homes, turned north and crossed the airstrip, and then made our way on a winding route along the west coast. The route is spectacular; like so much of the Shetland coast, this part of Papa Stour is dotted with geos (a narrow, steep-sided inlet), islets, stacks and rock arches. The walk is quite winding as you head in and out of headlands created by the geos and in the strong wind we were careful not to get too close to the edge of the coast. As we reached the northern-most part of the walk we turned onto a track for the return leg and the long-threatened rain began. It was heavy but short-lived; we got drenched but with the return of the sun and the strong wind, most of our clothes were drying by the time we got back to the harbour. Like many of the other harbours where the ferries dock, there was a little terminal building with a waiting room and toilets, as well as hot drinks, souvenirs and tablet (a very nice Scottish fudge-like sweet) paid on an honesty box basis. After making use of the facilities we had a lovely sit in the warm sun in a little sheltered spot to give our legs a rest after the rugged eight mile walk.

I can’t mention an ‘honesty box’ without highlighting the cake fridges of Shetland. We have come across them elsewhere, especially in Harris, but the number and variety of these little unstaffed shops was particularly great in Shetland. We bought cakes, jam and fresh berries from the various ‘cake fridges,’, we stopped at.

A day spent out on the far north-west of Mainland, eventually stopping at Eshaness was also one to remember. It was another day of grand Shetland coastal landscapes with high cliffs, rocky beaches and off-shore islands. Eshaness itself is worth a wander around once you get to the lighthouse with views that go on for miles, across the green pasture, along the rugged coastline and out to sea. On the way there we stopped at Mavis Grind, a narrow isthmus linking the Mainland to what would be a separate island but for this narrow 90 metre piece of land. It is said you can through a rock between the water on either side, from the Atlantic to the North Sea, but I’m not sure my throwing arm is that good. On the way back we stopped at Stennes Beach to the south to sea Dore Holm, out outlying island with a huge natural arch; we also stopped at Frankie’s Fish & Chips shop, which was great!

Having been to many Scottish Islands at this time of year, we knew that we shouldn’t expect wall-to-wall sunshine and Mediterranean temperatures, and the cancellation of the boat trips is just part and parcel of holidays on the coasts of the UK. However, over the course of the two weeks, the weather we had was probably 40% sunny, 40% cloudy and 20% rainy and, of course, 90% windy. While it was rarely warm when we were out in the open, typically 12 to 14 degrees celsius, the mid-summer sun was strong enough to make it almost hot in sheltered spots. There were actually only a couple of days over the whole two weeks when the rain altered or limited our plans and the wind did get strong enough on one of our trips to Hermaness to make us retreat away from the cliffs to reduce the risk of being blown over the edge. Overall, therefore, the weather was what we expected for a trip this far north.

Our five nights at Westshore were followed by a single night at the Sumburgh Hotel, at the very far south of Mainland. This gave us a chance to visit some of the main sites south of Lerwick including St Ninian’s Isle, Loch Spiggie, the amazing historical site of Jarlshof and, of course, Sumburgh Head itself. We visited the rocky outcrop, with its lighthouse, twice over 24 hours, firstly in the afternoon and then first thing in the morning before breakfast. We went, in particular, in search of close views of puffins and while during the afternoon visit we found comparatively few, the dawn visit presented us with good numbers in the perfect morning light. However, Sumburgh isn’t just all about puffins. This southern-most tip of Mainland has great 360 degree views including out towards Fair Isle, which is visible to the south. There are birds other than puffins too.

The birdlife was one of the main reasons for going to Shetland and weren’t disappointed. Yes, puffins are plentiful and fairly easy to find but so is an array of other birds which make the island a great place to wander around with a pair of binoculars. The seabirds dominate the islands with the cliffs and off-shore islands providing nesting for large numbers. There’s also a large supporting cast of wetland birds, waders and gull as well as the ever menacing skuas and other birds typical of the north in the UK. I’ll do another post to provide more details.

Our final accommodation of the trip was a seven-night stay in a renovated croft cottage on the island of Unst at the very top of Shetland; in fact, it’s the most northerly populated island in the British Isles. After breakfast at Sumburgh, we headed back to Lerwick to replenish our stocks and then took two ferries, first between Mainland and Yell, and then between Yell and Unst. 

Car-based travel around Shetland is very easy, with the good roads I’ve already mentioned and frequent ferry crossings on the main routes between Mainland, Yell and Unst. The prices for the ferries are also amazingly cheap, in my view. Prices are £2.80 per passenger for a return ticket, including the ferries to Yell, Bressay, Fetlar and Papa Stour we took. Cars are more expensive, at £16.50 return but even this seems cheap for the longer crossings. What did confuse us at the time was that you don’t seem to pay for the ferry between Yell and Unst. We made that crossing four times (two return trips) and no one ever took payment. On returning home, we checked and it appears that it is indeed a free ferry, possibly to reduce the burden of travel costs for locals.

With the good roads, and frequent ferries on the main routes, it’s also quite quick to get from north to south, especially if you time it right with the ferry crossings. Sumburgh Head in the far south to the ferry crossing to Yell in the north of Mainland is little over an hour while Yell takes around 25 minutes to cross by car, as does Unst. So, allowing for ferries, you can travel the full length of Shetland by car in significantly less than three hours. 

The general advice is book the ferry crossings, even for the more frequent routes for Yell and Unst, but definitely for the less frequent crossings, say to Fetlar and Papa Stour. However, we often turned up early for our booked ferry and were waved on by the crews with the ferries having space to spare. The ferries on the main routes, including to Yell, Unst, Fetlar and Bressay are full ‘drive-through’ vessels where you drive forwards both getting on and off them. However, on return from Fetlar, I did have to reverse onto the ferry to enable it to arrive back into Unst pointing in the right direction. To be fair, it wasn’t a difficult manoeuvre, partly helped by there only being three cars on that particular crossing. If the idea of reversing on or off a ferry puts you off, then you might want to leave the car behind if you go to Fetlar or Foula, as you have no choice but to reverse onto that ferry. However, that is largely a moot point as there’s little point in taking the car to those islands if you’re on a day trip.

On reaching Unst, we had a very convenient 10 minute drive to the cottage on the west coast of the island. Like Westshore, the cottage was accessed first by a single track road, then a private track with two gates to pass through. The second gate for was a little fenced corral for the car, and very soon we could see why it was a good thing to park in there. The cottage was in the middle of a sheep field, and while the front and side of the house, as well as the parking space, we inside a fence, the back of the house wasn’t; we got very used to finding lambs standing on the low stone wall at the back, looking into the lounge. I suspect the car would have become a convenient rubbing post for the local sheep without the protection of the fence. The cottage itself was very clean, comfortable and cosy, and had everything we needed for a week’s stay. Being an old croft cottage, like others we have stayed in previously, it has relatively small windows, unlike Westshore the previous week, which meant that, despite arguably having even better views, we didn’t get the benefit of them when inside the cottage.

Our week on Unst, like the previous week, included nature, landscapes and some history with highlights including two trips to the amazing Hermaness nature reserve, day trips to Fetlar and Yell, and a good walk in the south east of the island to some historical sites. Some of these I’ll also write about in separate posts. Highlights also included visiting the most northerly pub and shop in the UK and seeing the site of the first space port being built in the UK (although there isn’t a visitor centre for it, yet).

As long as you don’t mind a long walk out to the cliffs across open moorland (but mostly on a boardwalk), Hermaness is a must for anyone with a liking for seabirds and maritime scenery, and we simply had to go twice! The gannet cliffs are enormous and you can get close enough for some very nice photographs, while being careful not to disturb them or get blown off the top. The nature reserve also provides a sight of the most northerly point of the British Isles, the island of Out Stack, just north of Muckle Flugga with is lighthouse. 

A trip to Fetlar is also very much worth it with a chance to find red-necked phalaropes (which we did fleetingly) and yet more lovely scenery. We also had one of the best views of an otter there, with one munching on a massive crab we saw it bring to shore. As I have put in another post, we had some great otter sightings, with Unst being the most productive in our search for them, contrary to the view we had heard that this was the least promising place to look.  

During our stay, I spent the quiet evenings reading a book providing a fictionalised account of the Weisdale Evictions; the clearing of communities from villages in that valley between the two ridges dissecting the widest part of Mainland. As I have written on my blog a few times, I find this part of Scottish history fascinating and I’m drawn to the villages abandoned either through the Highland Clearances or later as people found living in these places increasingly impossible. Shetland is covered with abandoned homes and settlements like nowhere else I’ve seen and I simply had to take a walk out to spend time amongst then ruined walls of these deserted communities. We did a walk out to Colverdale on the south-east coast of Unst. Starting at Hannigarth, we walked along Sandwick beach and then on through the Viking history of Framgord and on to Colverdale, with tumbled-down houses scattered across a wide area criss-crossed by field walls and paths. The sense of communities lost was almost tangible under the dark clouds spreading dampness and gloom across the now silent landscape.

After a busy week on Unst, we set off early in the morning to catch the ferry to Yell for the last time, crossed the island and caught the ferry back to the Mainland before driving all the way back to Sumburgh. With the ferry back to Aberdeen not until late afternoon, we had chance for a final bit of puffin watching and then a slow drive up the coast, including a beach walk. The ferry crossing was a little more rough on the way home but not uncomfortably so and despite the gloom we had good views of Fair Isle as we passed it a couple of hours into the crossing and then the coast of Orkney as we stopped there very late into the evening. As we woke the next morning, not long before the ferry docked, the trip came to an end, except for the long seven hour drive back southward.

It took me a long time to write this post; partly because it’s so difficult to sum up those two weeks in just one go. It really deserves far more and I plan, even more than six months later, to write additional posts to ensure I do it, even slightly, some justice.

This was almost without doubt the best trip I’ve had in the UK. That in part was due to having the time over two weeks to spend travelling in a more relaxed way than a single week trip normally allows for. However, the main reason was Shetland itself – it’s spectacular in every way – it is an absolute must for another visit.

Isle of May: Another island I could fall in love with

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Anyone who has scrolled through the pages of my blog will know I spend time each year on Ramsey Island, the RSPB reserve off the northern coast of Pembrokeshire in Wales, and I have grown very fond with it. However, I have a general love of islands, both large and small, and will take most opportunities to visit them when I can. Earlier this month we had a week-long holiday on the Northumberland coast, which presented a couple of such opportunities; the Farnes and the Isle of May. This post focuses on the latter.

Our trip started at North Berwick, on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, with a fast RIB (rigid inflatable boat) ride booked through the Scottish Seabird Centre. The town was a nice bonus to our day; an old town with narrow streets lying behind two long sandy beaches split by a rocky outcrop build out further by the sheltered harbour. We arrived early and spent some time wandering the quiet streets and along one of the beaches in the increasingly lovely, sunny weather.

We headed out on the RIB after lunch. Partially enclosed, it provided a lot more weather protection to the passengers (and crew) than other, open RIBs I’ve been on before. Sitting at the back, I did get a little damp on the trip across but not enough to be at all bothered. The sea was relatively calm and with a following wind and waves flowing with us, the journey was pretty bump-free.

Before we arrived at our destination for the afternoon, we had an exciting stop on the way. Whilst on dry land, as we drove to North Berwick on our route to the coast, we started to get glimpses of a large mound in the distance. Eventually our view across the rolling countryside opened up and we could see the looming mass of Bass Rock. The 100m sheer cliffs stand abruptly in the sea, seemingly more cliff than island. On approaching the vertical sides in the boat, the Rock is a mix of light grey and white, the latter coming from its most famous inhabitants; the gannets belonging the the largest colony in the world. Before last year, ‘The Bass’ hosted more than 150,000 northern gannets but like so many of seabird colonies the population has been hugely hit by avian influenza and gannet numbers have dropped by around quarter in the past couple of years. However, the rock and its gannets still remain an impressive and unforgettable sight, especially as we peered up the looming cliffs from the boat below. There were gannets all around, those on the rock itself, others circling high above or coming into land, and some in and on the water around us. The noise was incredible with the thousands of birds raucous above our heads; pairs greeting each other amongst squabbles over nesting space. After a short stop floating by the gannets, we made our way to our main destination at the end of a 45 minute trip from North Berwick.

Lying towards the northern side of the Firth of Forth’s opening mouth, from a distance the Isle of May sits low in the water. It is a long, thin island, which is less than 2km in length, with the attached island of Rona, and less than 500m in width, running at an angle from broadly north-west to south-east. The 57 hectares aren’t flat with the land rising from the sea to a height of 50 metres. There are cliffs around much of the coast but the rise is more shallow on the western site from the beach and harbour. The island is a mix of grass on shallow soil, large areas of rock and jumbles of boulders, similar to so many exposed small islands at the edge of the UK.

As we landed, two more boats accompanied us, one of similar size to our RIB as well as a much larger boat carrying around 100 passengers, in all bringing around 120 people to the island for just under three hours. 

We were welcomed by two of the island team, giving us a very brief safety message; keep to the paths, don’t stand on the puffins (or their burrows), keep away from the edge of cliffs and don’t step over the ropes, and, most importantly, don’t forget to return in time for the boat home!

Our trip came with a guide and as we hadn’t been to the Isle of May before we decided to take a trip with him and our other passengers around the paths of the island and up to the large central lighthouse.

The main reason to visit the Isle of May was for its seabirds and we had a brutal introduction with one of the first sights being a huge great black-backed gull, with blood around its bill, tucking into one of other residents, a puffin. As we moved on we found many of the other inhabitants including other gulls including kittiwakes, razorbills, guillemots, shags and plenty of nesting eiders. Out at the cliffs we had great views of all of the seabirds on their nest sites and they didn’t at all seem bothered by the human onlookers quite close by. 

Like a number of other islands around our coasts, the Isle of May hosts a bird observatory. It was Scotland’s first and is celebrating its 90th birthday in 2024. Particularly during spring and autumn migration they and their fellow observatories record the passage of birds north and south and are some of the best places to seen rarities. We saw the Heligoland traps they use for humanely catching and then ringing the birds but unfortunately it was a quiet day for the migration.

There is interesting human history on the island, surrounding its monastic, royal, military and nautical past. Of most interest to me were its series of lighthouses including the currently operational one sitting centrally. As we finished the guided part of our walk around the island we were allowed up this Robert Stevenson-designed gothic marvel from 1816. It is so different from many of the lighthouses I’ve visited. No slender white cone of a structure but an unpainted stone, almost castle-like block with a square tower upon which the light itself sits. We went all the way to the top of the tower, up several floors via the open spiral staircase and then a steep ladder at the end. From the top, the view over the island and across the Firth was spectacular, a 360 degree vista of the Scottish coast of East Lothian and Fife, towards Edinburgh and out into the North Sea. With the weather so clear and bright, I could have stayed up there for hours.

We concluded our visit with a walk back south and more seabird cliffs with steep drops down to the rocks and sea beneath. There were more puffins, razorbills, guillemots, shags and kittiwakes, and again, very obliging in their general nonchalance towards visitors. 

As always with an island visit, there is never enough time and it was soon the moment to step back onto the RIB for the fast 35 minute trip back to North Berwick. I would very much like to spend more time on the Isle of May and the guide did suggest learning more about the volunteering opportunities with team of conservationists. For me to volunteer there, I would have to give up my Ramsey Island volunteering week, and I not quite sure I ready to do that! However, the Isle of May really does have its attractions; the birds and other wildlife, the lighthouses, the history, the landscape and the views, and I definitely would like to return, and spending a week there would be incredible. I could easily see myself loving the Isle of May as much as I do Ramsey (well, almost, maybe).

Isle of Mull – An Autumn Treat

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It’s taken me an age to get around to writing this post – must try harder! Towards the end of October I returned to the scene of some of my happiest times during my year off in 2011/12; the Isle of Mull. It wasn’t the first Scottish Island I’d visited, Islay and Jura came first, but this really was the place that kicked off my long, interrupted, odyssey around the Hebrides and Northern Isles.

I had promised myself not to return to previously visited islands until I’d been to all the larger islands or archipelagos but I had a choice – Shetland in October or a return trip to a previous spot.  Of those I’d been to before, Mull was an easy choice; it’s relatively easy to get to, it’s less exposed than others to those autumn storms, and it’s just that little bit more cosy than some of the others.

I’ll stop talk about ‘I’ now as there were two of us on this trip, and that was another reason for choosing Mull. One of us hadn’t been there before and it was somewhere I had a good chance of playing the ‘Wildlife Guide’ for a week having previously spent a fortnight getting to know the place very well, or at least some of the best wildlife-watching spots.

The route to Mull was quite simple for us, up the M6 to the Border, past Glasgow and over the Erskine Bridge and then alongside the lovely Loch Lomond. Just past the northern shoreline, we turned left and headed west to Oban, where was found a lovely bright autumnal day. Having arrived early for our booked ferry we tried to get on an earlier one but in the end we were grateful that we didn’t. The short crossing to Craignure, only an hour, was spent up on the deck and we were given a spectacular view towards the setting sun with light shining between the heavy, brooding, rain-laden clouds.

Another reason for deciding on Mull was the cottage we found. I can very honestly say that it was the best holiday cottage I’ve stayed in and by quite some margin. That’s no reflection on some of the other great places I’ve stayed, rather it’s just that the Old Little Theatre at Dervaig is unique. We arrived as dark was descending so we didn’t get a great view of the outside but on opening the front door and walking in, it was even better than the photos had shown. It was once the smallest professional theatre in the world and, essentially, just a small stone garage-type building. Now it has been extended with the addition of several modern rooms at the front and sides, to make a stylish but quirky holiday home. Whilst it is in many ways very modern, it still has little touches of its old use with theatrical flourishes and artefacts dotted around the inside. The single bedroom has a huge floor to ceiling picture window which enables you to lie in bed looking out across a lovely wide, flat-bottomed river valley. The place is just about perfect!

With six full days on the island, we spent them looking for wildlife and at the scenery, despite the mixed weather. The rain and wind with some occasional sunnier weather were not exactly unexpected conditions for the Hebrides in the autumn. Our first full day was our only really perfect one, weatherwise, and our visit to the main town, Tobermory, included a sit on a quayside bench in the surprisingly warm autumn sun. We then did a big loop of the island driving around clockwise on the main road down towards the Ross of Mull before turning right onto the north side of Loch Scridain. There are actually two loops, a northern and a southern, which intersect at a short cut-through from Salen on the east coast to Gruline on Loch Na Keal on the west coast. On that first day, we did both loops, driving almost the entire road around the island but missing out the Ross. This then became a familiar route with parts of the loops done most days in amongst other activities. 

For much of the route around the island, the road picks its way along the edge of sounds and lochs, sometimes coming inland to rise up through mountain passes. The road is often just a single track with passing places but there are sections of standard single carriageway along the east and southern sides of the island, making journeys a little quicker than along the west and north coasts. The scenery is dominated by hills and mountains as well as the hugely indented coastline. There is a mixture of green pasture and high grassy hillsides with many of the valley bottoms swathed in damp oak woodland. The autumn had brought an orange and yellow tinge to the views with the oaks and larches vibrant amongst the rusty-turned grasses and bracken. 

For me, the most memorable moment of our rambling journeys around the island was on the last day. We were getting a bit desperate in our searching for an otter; we’d looked in all the places I’d had success before but without even a momentary glimpse. My otter-sense, which has worked very well on Mull and Skye preciously, was letting me down. We’d stopped at a pull-in to the north of Salen quite a few times, or so it seemed, but we had to give it one last chance. The conditions were just about perfect for otter spotting; a low tide and still, calm waters. We spent a little while scanning the water and were just about to give up when I spotted some movement in between some little, seaweed topped islets. I thought it would probably be just a rock, again, or another sea-going Mallard but after blinking a couple of times I was sure. The three little blobs in a row were unmistakable; an ottery head, back and tail. It didn’t take long for it to roll head first/tail last down under the surface and disappear. We thought that might have been it but we spotted it again a minute or two later coming around the far side of the larger of the islets. There we watched it for what must have been at least an hour; otters seem to have some kind of time-bending capabilities. It spent a lot of time climbing on and off the seaweed covered rocks and fishing in the shallows. At one stage a group of Brent geese approached but were soon paddling off when they spotted the otter close by. Eventually, we had to leave and we moved on as the otter disappeared below the surface and behind the islets again.

That spot north of Salen was like looking at one of those nature reserve information boards that has the view painted behind a selection of all the creatures you had even a slight chance of seeing but usually don’t. In this case, we were blessed with a view of so many of those creatures actually out there where they are supposed to be. In addition to the otter was a wide selection of birdlife. From the waders feeding at the water’s edge, curlew and redshank, and the range ducks, including mallard, widgeon and a solitary eider, to a few gulls and the ever-present herons. The corvids were there too with quite a few hooded crows picking amongst the seaweed and a raven cronking overhead. A few more water birds were dotted about with red-breasted mergansers in the outfall from the river into the sea and that small group of Brent geese passing through on migration. In the trees around where we were standing were newly arrived winter thrushes, with the redwings ‘seeping’ and fieldfares cackling. I have to admit, I do keep a record of the wildlife I see, not just birds but mammals, butterflies and amphibians too. I do so, not simply to have a ever-growing list of ticks, but to note just how rich, or otherwise, an area’s wildlife is. At that particular spot, I could see from all the species, just how rich in wildlife a place Mull really is. All the scene really needed was an eagle or two to fly across above us, and it would have been complete; if we’d stayed a bit longer, maybe we’d have see one!

The other memorable mammalian moment was on the second full day on the island when we went on a three hour boat trip from Tobermory Harbour out into the Sound of Mull and and beyond towards and past Coll. We spent quite some time looking for groups of feeding seabirds and finding many, with large groups of gulls and auks feeding on fish at and below the surface. Suddenly there appeared a minke whale amongst them and we watched for quite a few minutes while it surfaced and dived. The scene of the whale and the feeding birds was made even more wild by the sense of being surrounded by so many of the Scottish islands; Jura, Tiree, Coll, Barra, South Uist, Eigg, Muck, Rum and Skye as well as the Ardnamuchan Peninsula.

Our trip was slightly hampered by me being ill throughout the stay and we didn’t do much walking at all because of that but it was lovely just to drive around the island stopping at familiar spots to look at the scenery and watch the wildlife. Eventually, our time on the island had to come to an end and it was with heavy hearts that on a dark morning we closed the door to the Little Old Theatre behind us. I usually avoid talking about the journey home from holidays but this one was particularly memorable. The sun rose just as we got to the ferry terminal and the light revealed glassy still waters and snowy mountain tops. As we pulled out of Craignure, Mull looked fabulous in its autumn finery. Once on the mainland, the scenery was just as spectacular with deep valleys swathed in rusty yellows and oranges with snow scattered over the peaks. It was hard not to want to stop every mile or so to get out and stare at the views but it was a long journey home and we had to press on.

I don’t like to pick favourites amongst the Scottish islands, they are all beautiful in their different ways. However, Mull was an easy choice to return to and it turned out just about a perfect decision.