All of nature wild and free, this is where we long to be.

Have you seen the film ‘Inception’?  A superb and complex film from Christopher Nolan that was a wonderful tale of a dream, within a dream, within a dream, within a dream… which ends with you still unsure which dream you are in! Our recent holiday had an ‘inception-ish’ feel to it – an island off an island off an island off an island…

Living in the UK you sometimes forget that we are an island nation with a coastline dotted with more islands – islands of great beauty, islands full of tourists and places to visit, islands frozen in time, secluded islands and even abandoned islands. We have them all.

2018 bought us our first taste of island hopping using the ever reliable Calmac Ferries to island hop on a very small scale but one that certainly whetted our appetite for more.

Home base was the Isle of Mull - an island renowned for its wildlife with a population of just 2500 people and a tiny network of single track roads to get you around. Grass growing through the B roads and some hair raising but memorable journeys round sheer cliff faces (well that’s what it felt like)! Plenty of passing places but plenty of people either selfish or unaware of the etiquette of driving round the island – we had more than one ‘stand off’ with motorhome drivers with no desire to allow you to pass.

But as with a lot of similar locations on the wild Scottish West Coast and its islands there are huge opportunities to use these as jumping off points for taking your explorations further with other islands and remote destinations in easy reach.
The first place we aimed for was the world renowned island of Iona – tucked away just off  the southern most peninsula on Mull’s west coast and a short 10 minute sailing from Fionnphort using (you may have guessed) one of Cal Mac’s regular services. For those that haven’t been anywhere on the Scottish isles if your image of these ferry ports is like Dover then you may be a bit disappointed (or surprised). With one street , about a dozen properties, a café and a cow inhabited car park it certainly isn’t a major centre of attention (or so we thought!)

Ferry tickets bought we duly got onboard – the ferry here is passenger only though the post van was coming off before we got on board – and waited to set sail. Then the fun started as 5 coaches pulled in one after the other and disgorged their occupants who all made their way en masse to board the ferry. If you’ve watched the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds film the similarities to the ferry scene in that was uncanny. We assumed and imagined that these were tourist trips from the mainland having sailed from Oban and then made the dash along the single track roads to Fionnphort. The thought of the mad dash from the ferry made us chuckle (and thankful we hadn’t met them in the opposite direction!)

Anyway, a gloriously smooth sailing later and we landed on Iona. Within minutes we were lost in a world of tranquillity, seclusion and genuine wilderness with some of the best beaches and views we’d ever seen (the glorious weather probably helped too!). Where the passengers all went we aren’t sure but despite its peaceful setting the island is prepared for the tourist onslaught.
So our first trip from an island to an island to an island and we felt like Robinson Crusoe – sat on a white sandy beach in the sun with no-one else in sight. However we did have a return ticket so very little chance of being stranded.

We had to wait for the following day for that and our second island off an island venture to the even more remote Island of Ulva – careful with the pronunciation!

Ulva really is a step back in time from the unique way that you signal for the ferry -  by sliding a small white door on a board on the wall to show a red square and then wait for the ferry to come across from the island (definitely not Cal Mac!) to the history of the island and its fall from a home for over 600 people, the desperate plight following the clearances to a small community owned venture of just 6 hardy residents.

Once on the island (off an island, off an island) the remote wilderness and beauty was breath taking from basalt columns, to Golden Eagles and abandoned cottages. It was so wild that we ended up getting a little unsure of the path we were walking so decided to backtrack a few miles rather than run the risk of missing the last ferry back at 5.00pm!

With ourselves to ourselves and some stunning cloudy weather it did feel like we were at the end of the earth despite at some points actually being able to pick out our own little cottage half way up a mountain on the far side of Loch Na Keal on Mull itself.
Again though despite its remoteness there was a great café/restaurant  - The Boathouse  - with fresh caught fish and some great cakes. It was so good we did ponder coming back just for the food later in the week – we didn’t, so maybe another time?

The ferry back took longer than the journey across – not because of any technical issues - it was just that the ferryman had spotted the resident Otters in the water so he stopped for a few minutes so we could have a good look at them!

And that was it – we could have gone to several other destinations – including Gometra (an island off Ulva itself connected by a bridge – getting very deep now) or Staffa, Lungha and the rest, all served by a variety of vessels of all sizes but we ran out of time.
So no sea-faring adventures to put Nelson to shame but certainly enough to spark something that we will definitely come back to in years to come and continue our journeys to some genuinely remote parts of these glorious British Isles.