The one thing this trip has taught us is not only how beautiful Scotland is but just how big. Huge. We blame our West Country bubble for clouding our knowledge of this vast land and its collection of dramatic mountain ranges punctuated with picturesque lochs - but we’re definitely hooked and want to return.
After our week in Ullapool we travelled 165 miles down to Loch Sunart on the west coast of Scotland just below Fort William. Loch Sunart is a sea loch bounded to the north by the Sunart district of Ardnamurchan and to the south by the Morvern district. We were staying in a beautiful cottage called Keepers Cottage in Liddesdale and on opening the door it was like entering a little time capsule, life slowed down, books got read, conversations lasted late into the night and cloud watching was essential. We had accidentally been implanted into an Enid Blyton novel - complete with lashings of ‘ginger’ beer - which we had actually purchased en route in Fort William.
Once again we found ourselves on the edge of a loch, in fact the loch’s mini beach was part of our garden so you could watch the tide ebb and flow from the living room window. We were able to give the mini beach a couple of beach cleans and found a few treasures including some beautiful, very fragile urchin shells.
We properly tuned-in, turned-off and dropped-out this week, enjoying log fires and a couple of good walks, discovering a beautiful nature hide the other side of the loch to our cottage to watch seals from. We were able to create some work as well - key rings and nets from the line that we found in and around Ullapool but the highlight day trip of the week had to be over to the Isle of Mull and the discovery of Calgary Bay.
The Cal Mac ferry over to Mull was not far from our cottage, and we deliberately picked a good weather day to go, so standing on deck was compulsory. Single track roads around Mull made for interesting if not slightly hair-raising driving conditions but we all survived to tell the tale.
Our desire to get to Mull was to visit Tobermory, which was a beautiful little fishing port and the capital of Mull but we also were fortunate to discover Calgary after a little google which really made the visit a special one. It was an absolute delight, gorgeous sandy-beach bay with an artistic community ‘Calgary Art in Nature’ on the approach to the bay consisting of gallery, delicious cafe and a sculpture trail with some very talented contributions.
If you find Calgary, Isle of Mull, you can’t miss ‘Calgary Art in Nature’ but avoid their website, it’s dreadful, perhaps on purpose to preserve the tranquility and the secret but have a look here instead to give you a better flavour of paradise.