Читать книгу The Isle of Mull. Mull, Ulva, Gometra, Iona and Erraid онлайн

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But so changeable is Mull that you can never experience it all in one visit; you will simply have to come back, often and again.

Terry Marsh

Glen Aros and distant view of Loch Frisa (Walk 1.16)

INTRODUCTION

An t-Eilean Muileach, an t-eilean aghmhor,

An t-Eilean grianach mu’n iath an saile,

Eilean buadhmhor nam fuar bheann arda,

Nan coilltean uaine, ‘s cluaintean fasail.

The Isle of Mull, of Isles the fairest,

Of ocean’s gems ‘tis the first and rarest;

Green grassy island of sparkling fountains,

Of dark green woods and tow’ring mountains.

Dugald MacPhail (An t’Eilean Muileach)

With a diversity of land forms unequalled by any other Scottish island, Mull is a place of wild beauty: untamed, rugged and never uninteresting. Great swathes of Mull are approachable only on foot, and while there are roads (240km/150 miles of them), the abiding impression is that they are incidental, in a very minor way, to life on the island.

Separated from the Scottish mainland by the Sound of Mull and the Firth of Lorn, Mull, with an area of just under 90,000 hectares, is the third largest of the Hebridean islands (unless you want to play the pedant and claim that the larger Skye is no longer an island because someone built a bridge linking it with the mainland). With a coastline deeply penetrated by a ragged 480km (300 miles) of sea lochs and inlets that reward the visitor with constantly changing views, Mull is an island of delight and considerable variety. Indeed, it is the coastline that vies with the mountain heartlands as the island’s most outstanding feature, offering towering cliffs and sandy bays, basalt columns and pink granite crags.