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Staffa and Fingals Cave

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Staffa or Pillar Island, using its Norse translation, is a small island situated approximately 10km off the west coast of Mull. It is one of the Treshnish Isles which form part of the Inner Hebrides. Staffa is world famous for its volcanic Basalt rock columns and the numerous spectacular caves around its coast line. The most famous cave being Fingals Cave. This island should be on any self respecting sea kayakers tick list. We chose to launch from Ulva Ferry one of the places we whizzed past on our cycle ride the day before. Boat trips leave Ulva Ferry for visits to the Treshnish Isles and Staffa. Parking is limited so we dropped the boats off near the slip and parked further up the road so as to not upset the locals. The Boathouse on Ulva is a licensed tea room with a lovely sea food menu which includes local oysters. The ferry takes visitors over to Ulva a delightful looking island which is privately owned and a nature reserve with hundreds of

Balamory Loop

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The Fidden camp site filled to overflowing by the Sunday of the Jubilee week end and so it was time to depart and find a more peaceful spot. We travelled back along Loch Scridain looking for a shop to buy some essentials such as milk. Be aware if you travel to Mull, it closes on a Sunday. After about an hours drive we arrived at the head of Loch na Keall at the campsite at Killiechronan. The facilities were basic as in no showers but it is a fantastic place to pitch a tent, and it was quiet. Sunday was riding day so we set off NW along the shore of the loch on the B8073. A typical Mull single track road with lots of passing places. There were a couple of small climbs to get us warmed up but nothing to worry about. Across the loch we could see cliffs and the Island of Inch Kenneth. Behind us was Ben More the highest peak on Mull. It was not long before we were passing Ulva Ferry which was the launch point for tomorrow. The first real climb of the day s

Circumnavigation of Iona

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Jubilee weekend and fine weather resulted in a quick trip to the west coast of Scotland and a visit to one of our favourite places - The Isle of Mull. We caught the half past ten ferry from Oban on Friday evening and I crawled into my new tent about half one Saturday morning having left Bridgend at six am Friday. Not a bad effort I thought. Saturday morning dawned with fine weather and noisy kids. Fidden campsite was packed. We had a relaxed breakfast and waited for the tide.  There was quite a strong NE wind so the plan was to travel clockwise around Iona taking advantage of any shelter from the wind that we could find on the west side. We also hoped to get a push from the flood tide up the west side and then use the ebb tide to travel back down the sound of Iona to Fidden with the wind behind us. We launched from the beach at Fidden and headed over to the south end of Iona We rounded the southern end of the island without incident and passed close to