Day 8
Today: 54 km 688m Ferries: 0
Tour to date: 525km 5834m Ferries: 7 Islands: 4
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| Isle of Mull Cheese, Tobermory |
So wet today, wet tent, wet all day, says my Strava entry for the day. It had poured overnight after our lovely evening in Calgary Bay, we packed up a soaking wet tent in pouring rain, which never let up all day. Just as well today is an easy day in miles, although we were supposed to do some gravelly adventure exploring and I had scoped out a breakfast destination north of Dervaig. It was a lumpy day though, especially around Dervaig. "Brutal" hills and then the gravel, "no way" said Steve so we stuck to tarmac to Tobermory, and more hills into the torrential rain.
Fortunately I had also scoped out the Isle of Mull Cheese café for a possible coffee/lunch stop. A beautiful setting in a glass barn with expansive views and a woodburner. Soup and a cheese board were very welcome
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| Cheesy lunch at Isle of Mull Cheese |
We dithered over lunch, it was so nice drying out a bit. We dallied so long we ended up having afternoon tea as well. We even convince ourselves it was drying up a bit outside. Over 90 minutes of delicious time wasting culinary gluttony enjoying the views and almost not shivering. I bought some cheese in the shop, but sadly it was not a cheese making day so we couldn't delay any further viewing the cheesy process. I'd have loved that.
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| Afternoon Tea at Isle of Mull Cheese! |
We pulled our socks up, put our wet gloves back on along with wet caps and helmets, wet jackets and ventured back out. We didn't have the enthusiasm to drop down into Tobermory town itself, we had visited on a gorgeous morning on our 2016 Tour d'Ecosse The stumbling block was the hill down, or more to the point the hack back up again. We had been stopped for a long time and couldn't justify any more café stops so we pushed on towards Salen. A road we had ridden before. We remembered it being a quick blast but had forgotten the rolling nature of the road. Also as a 2 lane road it's relatively busy as it's the main connecting artery between the island's 3 main ferry terminals.
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| Salen |
My lovely derelict clinker built fishing boats are still at Salen. I stopped to appreciate the rugged beauty of them and took rather too many pictures that I haven't cut down. I just love the weathering and decay. Still plenty of rain but in the drier spells the midges were out in droves. We did not hang about, out sprinting the midges was essential. A speed above 15km/h is necessary, but we are carrying camping kit remember.
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| Salen |
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| Clinker fishing boats detail Salen, Isle of Mull |
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| Utter beauty |
Bye bye Salen boats. A 20km plod back down to Craignure.
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| The run down to Craignure |
Back on The Sheiling Campsite, tent up, hot shower and pub dinner and I lost killer scrabble, we both had scores over 300! Ferry day tomorrow. thank you mull we had a blast, especially on the west coast round Calgary Bay. We still haven't got you out of our system, nor visited Ulva.
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| Marvellous Mull |
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