Day 15 – From Mull to Inveraray

Thistle

It’s a long, long way to Inveraray, but my heart’s right there, sing Sid and Doris.

Tobermory in the morning is cloudless and still. A swift walk along the prom finds it little changed from last night, except that three post office vans are running an outdoor sorting office with piles of Amazon packages.  The piles pile up and then are jigsaw-ed into the vans, a slick operation which obviously happens every day.
We all fuel and set off to drive the main road to Salen looking for otters. Obviously there are otters as signs ask us to let them cross the road. If we see an otter we will definitely let it cross.
Moving gently on we take the Glen More road to the rally stage on the south west coast of Mull, which is very lovely and only slightly marred by the presence of a BMW X1 ahead of us. This seems not to be the Ultimate Driving Machine the advertising used to promise. It weighs 1400kgs. BMW describe it as being sporty and powerful and having ambitious dynamics. The roadside signs ask drivers to use passing places to allow passing from behind and in front. Perhaps the mirrors don’t work.We stop for two minutes and we catch them in two minutes. Anyway, we get enough play and turn off for the Iona road. Out and back with much scenicity, coffee and cake at the Iona pier.

Walking down to the cafe we chat to the Coastguard. When he and his wife moved up to Mull they came with all their belongings in a Mini Clubman Estate. Now he manages missing person rescues and helicopter evacuations from the helipad marked out in the Aridhglas school playground. We saw the windsock on the way by.

So back to Craignure where our Mull adventure started. We pause at the Bay View garage to take a picture of a rally Nova shell that has had quite a big accident. The mechanic comes out (“I heard the Mini”) and says we can go in to see some of the rally Escorts they look after. On a Mull Rally they put out about ten of the entry. He asks after Teal’s spec and a good time is had by all.

We wait for our final CalMac ferry, taking advantage of the time to buy the weekend edition of the Press and Journal. It is UK regional newspaper of the year. It is a great piece of work with a very interesting article on sheep viruses and their correlation with social distancing. [I have included the hyperlink because I know you are secretly fascinated – D.] 

In Oban we are soon away under the Connel railway bridge. We have had our last single track road in Scotland and with cries of “gosh look, trees!” are beaning along up the north side of Loch Awe and back along the south side to Inverary.

Inverary is a pretty little Georgian town, home of the Duke of Argyll, all black and white up the Main Street. It is suspiciously architecturally consistent because in the 18th century the Duke rebuilt his house and found the village was blocking the view, so moved it.

Around the back the housing is typical Scotland with small grey houses on a dreary estate. At the Co-op a man is shouting to the Covid-induced queue that all the official figures about the pandemic are wrong. He may be correct but his delivery does not enhance his case.
A walk to the pier finds a fishing boat is for sale. Perhaps Boris’s Brexit agreement will bring it back to life. And maybe the BMW X1 is the ultimate driving machine.
We finish the day with a beer from a pub that is practising outdoor distancing very successfully.