Tobermory

Tobermory Distillery

Tobermory waterfront, Hebridean Princess in port

The town of Tobermory is really famous for being famous. Founded as a fishing port as late as 1788, it has latterly become very well known for its picturesque waterfront, with a rainbow miscellany of buildings looking out over the bay. I have a sneaking suspicion this variety of colour schemes is not accidental!

Nevertheless, it makes an idyllic location for film sets, television series and the like, as well as being a comfortable base from which to explore the fascinating islands of the Inner Hebrides.


After the destruction of the Armada in 1588, one of the surviving galleons anchored in Tobermory Bay to repair and provision. (There was no town on the shore at the time). The San Juan de Sicilia carried troops, though, of course, later tradition has made her a treasure ship.

Tobermory waterfront after dark

The soldiers on board served as mercenaries for Lachlan Mór Maclean of Duart in his feud with the local MacDonalds of Eigg, Muck, Rhum and Canna. Having no local connections and being frustrated of their true purpose (invading England), they apparently behaved very cruelly during this campaign.

However the MacDonalds were aiding Irish rebels at the time, whilst The Maclean was in league with Elizabeth I. With his local enemies smashed, Maclean had no further use for the ship, which conveniently blew up and sank, leaving fifty soldiers who were ashore at the time to serve him for another year, just to be on the safe side.

Salvage attempts have never found any treasure, probably because there wasn’t any, but the legend of sunken gold is always more fun than a wrecked troopship. It all adds to the romance of Tobermory.

Coll

Coll beach

I think I know where the Elysian Fields are.


Coll was our only beach landing during Hebridean Princess’ cruises of the inner isles. The passengers were all issued with wellingtons because even the little boats couldn’t get close enough to the shore and we needed to wade through about a foot of water. By the time we left, however, the state of the tide enabled us to re-embark dry-shod.

Coll machair

The island seems to have its own microclimate. 

While we were there, the sun shone, the sky and the sea were blue, the empty, golden beach stretched away into the distance and the whole prospect was quite blissful. 

Early Marsh Orchid

Having walked out along the beach, we returned by way of the machair, the endless fields of wildflowers that fringe the shore. We were greeted by the first lapwing I’ve seen in a long time. Common Blue butterflies, Small Heath, Meadow Brown and a variety of moths including Six-spot Burnets flutter about amongst the swathes of wild geranium, orchids, and several plants I’ve yet to identify. 

You do have to be wary of drifting away from the beach, towards the centre of the island when distracted by the wildlife, but it’s very nice when the crew has set up a mini-restaurant on the sand to welcome you back!

Iona

Common Seal off Iona

Like the originally Graupian, now Grampian, Mountains, the isle of Iona owes its modern name to a transcription mistake dating from the pre-printing age when manuscripts were copied by hand. It seems the name was once Ivova, Latinised as Ioua, meaning a place where yew trees grow.

During our visit, it rained quite a lot, which probably did not create the best impression. We were not inclined to venture out into the hinterland in search of the fabled corncrake, and even though dolphins did frolic around our boat as we went ashore, I couldn’t get any decent photographs.

Iona Abbey

Iona Abbey Cloister

It was one of those days for photographing things that stand still, and better yet for photographing buildings from the inside, though the common seals abounding on offshore rocks obligingly did the former and hence feature in this log.

Iona Nunnery

The main building is, of course, the Abbey, restored in the last century from a state of ruin to become the working centre of an ecumenical community. In the cloister, I was impressed by the care and subtlety with which new stone has been integrated with surviving elements. Although Samuel Johnson found his piety grow warmer amid the ruins of his day, I personally found the restoration less evocative of the past than redolent of a present quest for a lost spirituality. A medieval abbey, for me, does not evoke the 6th century but the popularity of pilgrimages eight or nine hundred years later.

If you want to find links with the earlier period, the mound upon which Columba’s study hut once stood perhaps serves better, and the Abbey museum better still.

The ruined nunnery is also worth a visit; you can pass through its grounds on your way from the port to the Abbey.

Jura

Hebridean Princess off Jura

The first port of call for Hebridean Princess's (left) July Cruise of the Inner Hebrides was Jura.

I must confess to knowing little of Jura before visiting it. Perhaps I shouldn’t claim that a single morning, featuring a stroll up the hill behind the largest settlement, Craighouse, and a wander back along the shoreline to our boat landing stage, makes me any kind of expert. However, in that short time, I found enough of interest to persuade me that I would welcome the opportunity to spend more time on this fascinating island.

The name Jura is derived from the old Norse for ‘Deer Island’ and today 5,000 red deer outnumber the inhabitants by around twenty-five to one. The island was home to George Orwell in his last years and can claim to be the birthplace of ‘1984’, though anywhere less resembling Winston Smith’s dystopian environment would be hard to find. Its three mountains, ‘The Paps’, are visible from a great distance, including from other, more low-lying islands in the inner Hebrides.

Standing stone & puffer, Craighouse

Jura was an early centre of the Scottish colonisation of Alba, and the shore of the mainland beyond it came to be known as Argyle (The Gallic Coast). Over the years it was important in disputes between the kings of Norway and Scotland and between various clans and factions in the isles. However the population was sharply reduced in the Clearances and now the local economy relies primarily on whisky, sporting estates and tourism. The ferry from the mainland runs only in summer and during the rest of the year access is only via the neighbouring island of Isla.

Rosy Starling

Our very alert local minibus driver spotted a pair of sea-otters out on a rocky islet; I would certainly have missed them. Sadly they came no closer, but on the way back I was lucky enough to see another celebrated visitor in the shape of a rosy starling. “You don’t just come across a rare bird sitting on a housetop,” I thought. But it seems on Jura you do, and since there are so few people there, I was able to observe it without a crowd of twitchers snapping away beside me.

Speckled Wood

A single red deer looked out of the long grass beside the road, a procession of oystercatchers sauntered by along the seaweed and rocks of the shore, a solitary grey heron maintained its statuesque fishing pose, and on the hill behind the village, I saw my first ever Speckled Wood butterfly (right) ...

Sedge Warbler

... while my first sedge warbler (left) popped up in the reed bed beside the shore.

Unfortunately, we’d sailed past the fabled whirlpool of Corryvreckan during dinner the previous evening, so all I saw of it was a large area of disturbed water visible through the dining room windows.

That’s on my bucket list for next time, along with a visit to the mountainous areas and an opportunity, perhaps, to see some of the local eagles, deer, and seals.

Should anyone be undecided about a visit to Jura, I'd recommend it. And if you're lucky you won't encounter any lesser-spotted former PMs.