Looking for the noisiest hostel on earth? Try theJeremy Inglis Hostel in Oban with a window room overlooking the 2 and 3 and 4 a.m. singing drunks as they circle and circle the downtown roundabout. Something quiet in a Scotch Pine paneled room? Head through a warren of back lanes on the edge of Tobermoray (Isle of Mull) to Fuiran's.
Pictures to come ... but we've been rollercoastering along the one-lane 'roads' of Mull that make the bicycle paths of Ottawa feel like wide byways.
Imagine high heather and golden bog-covered braes, rocky coasts with bronze seaweed, great red-flowering fuschia bushes along the roadside, here and there another abandoned most pile of stones (photogenic castle that is), some which we clamber about over sopping, mossy, heathery rocks ... like the roofless 13thC Castle Tioram in the Moidart area, sitting on an island surrounded by water at high tide (we arrived at low).
All this building of fortifications! Clan warring, gangsterism, bossism, machismo insecurity and paranoia, the behaviors mistaken attributed to some other than human animals. Apparently a Macdonald chief had Tioram torched rather than have it fall into the enemy's hands. Today there are signs warning visitors to watch that the northwest wall doesn't crash down on you - but we, with other couples and children, enjoyed climbing the heathery rocks that surround it.
A fish-lovers paradise this, like the smoked haddock and salmon I had last night and B's shrimp tonight. And local dark ales for every taste.
Rain, rain and yet more rain. Everyone is talking about the rainfall record set in August. We yelp for joy when our several a day 15 minutes bursts of sunshine appear. Yet the drama of light and cloud off the hillsides and ocean is something to behold - again I'll try to post some photos soon.
Tom
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