A cloudy day with sunny spells and warm
Oban - Mull to Iona
We arrived at Fionnphort which is the little village the western extremity of Mull where the little CalMac ferry M.V. Loch Buie picks people up and takes them over the sea to ... Iona. A bit wobbly on its entry!!
The it drops the ramp for the cars to run off. This is done by running the bow of the ferry up onto the concrete slipway - no mooring ropes - and the cars drive on or off!
As we travelled over to Iona we could see the Church buildings in the distance:
The first thing we did when we got off was eat the lunch, that Mary-Ann had made, down by the silver sand beach
A flock of Sparrows joined us for lunch. You don't see many birds in other parts of the UK except for the scavengers like Crows and Seagulls - lots of those in Glasgow.
The we walked up the path to the Iona Church, established in 567 by St. Columba - 1500 years old!
Inside the entrance doorway there is a message for travellers:
The nave is magnificent and still used:
To one side are the Cloisters where that the monks used to for contemplation or to move to other parts of the complex - it was a huge place:
By this time it was nearly 2:00pm and time to go down and catch the ferry back to Fionnphort, drive through Mull for an hour and 10 minutes and catch the ferry from Craignure back to Oban.
Here is a weird looking ferry!
We got back at 6:00pm!
You lucky things. I got to within 3 metres of Iona and the ferry had to go back. One engine was playing up and it was not safe to dock. We were billeted on Mull at Fionnphort and next day I had to go back to the mainland.
ReplyDeleteLoving these Ruary. Great to hear from you. Extreme huh?
ReplyDeleteHi There "Unknown"
DeleteGood to get the comments, thanks. Could you put your name at the end of your message, as it is posted as "Unknown".
Love this area of Scotland. I've been to Iona 3 times, once as a kid with my parents and grandparents when we did drove through Mull and crossed to Iona. The other twice we did the three isle tour, one with a friend and once with Andy. That extra little bit to Staffa island was awesome to see in Fingles cave and also the puffin sanctuary. Agnes
ReplyDeleteYes, that would have given you a feel for the place that you couldn't get in any other way.
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