landscapes

Travel Diaries: Isle of Mull September 2016

- Michael 4 Comments

Loch Beg in the rain

As alluded to in a couple of recipes recently, I went up to the Isle of Mull to see my parents in September. I have been many times, and every time try to do something different. This time included popping to the idyllic island of Iona (twice, due to poor weather stopping ferries the first time) as well as a walk from Loch Buie to Carsaig (which includes a using a rope to climb down some rocks) and a number of other shorter walks. The trip also featured a 3 day period where we had no running water, as my parent’s pump on their private supply broke. This meant we had to carry about 1000 litres of unfiltered water from the stream up to their house, and we could only really use that for flushing toilets and running a dishwasher. Fortunately we managed to get a pump sorted in a few days, but it was a harsh reminder of why living on an island isn’t necessarily for everyone. This was also the first time I got to meet my parent’s new dog; Meg. She will feature heavily here.

Pennyghael

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Travel Diaries: Isle of Mull April 2016 Pt.2

- Michael 4 Comments

Pennyghaell - Loch Na Keal

So a while back I started my photo diary posts of the last trip I took up to see my parents on the Isle of Mull. You can see those here. As alluded to in a previous post, I took some time away from the blog in April/May for personal reasons, but I wanted to complete the photo diary. So here’s the last photos of our trip, taken at Easter 2016 on the Isle of Mull. This entails a drive to Ulva, a waterfall, the Ulva Boathouse (where we had a particularly special meal) and then the trip back to the mainland on the ferry. We had some wonderful wildlife spots on this trip, which sadly didn’t get photographed. A good few of them were in the dark like an Albino Deer and Barn Owl, and others, like the White Tailed Eagles, are just too far away to capture without a decent zoom lens.

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Isle of Mull – Christmas 2015

- Michael 4 Comments

At Christmas I took a trip to see my parents in Scotland again, you can see snaps from previous visits here and check out general Scotland rambles here. For the uninitiated; my parents live on the Isle of Mull and I absolutely fuckin’ love it there. This is part one of a two part series, and concentrates on the days over Christmas, before my friends came up for New Years. That will be following after I finally get around to doing my first recipe post of the year.

Isle of Mull - Christmas 2015

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A Photo-Diary of Mull

- Michael 6 Comments

So I’ve just returned from a week at my parent’s on the Isle of Mull, just off of Scotland’s west coast. I followed it up with a couple of days in Edinburgh which I’ll be posting about later this week. The days off were very much needed. Despite a last minute break I had between jobs (when I went to Berlin), this was my first proper chunk of time off since Chicago last September (I don’t understand how that’s been a year) and with moving 4 times (soon to be 5) since then, I was starting to get burnt out. I had a lot of time to myself so the trip took in cycling, running and walks from the house, as well as a trip to the picturesque Iona plus a heap of cooking and baking (go see my biscuits here). It was rounded off by a walk along cliffs (including a clamber down a rusty ladder) to see the remains of a fossil tree. I’m simply going to let the photos speak for the rest of the trip:

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