After a week in the land of single track roads, cattle grids and unpronouncable place names, it feels utterly weird to be in a city. So many people. So many cars. Actually, less cars than usual, but that's due to the Easter weekend. Still - it's quite uncanny that I managed to survive a full week without access to anything remotely like the internet, in fact, no access to phones (no reception or phone boxes kaputt), no access to TV or DVD, and, no access even to decent grocery (or other) shops. Instead, there were plenty of deer, sheep, seals, puffins, waves, beaches, walks, boats, basalt columns and sick bags. Thanks to the suitably bad weather, the time was spent nose in books, games, open fires or on mountain paths, boats and passing places. And we found teddy bears which looked like monkeys.
A life beyond the internet is possible!

What surprised me most is how people get by without a decent shop. I was told that the peninsula of Morvern is inhabited by about 300 people, we added 20 to them for a week. It's a big peninsula, it takes you about two hours to drive around it. That's not going too fast due to the single track roads, but still. The one and only shop offers leeks, onions, carrots, turnips and ... well, that's it really. Apparently you can place orders and once a week the meat comes in. Failing that, it's off to Fort William, which is at least an hour's drive away. To get to Morvern, taking the ferry across is quickest, and strangely, the first sign on Morvern is: "no dog fouling. CCTV in operation". They  must have little worries if the criminals they chase with CCTV are dog foulers.

We stayed in Ardtornish house, a mansion which has been converted to self catering and self contained flats, accommodating lots of people (there were two groups, and we were a flock of 20, so you can imagine how big a house it is). It's grand, with open fires, lovely views of the loch and Mull, right in the middle of the Scottish nowhere. Time passed quickly between reading, talking, cooking, walking, boat tripping and sleeping.

One trip took us to Staffa, the Scottish end of the giant's causeway built by mythical Finn McCuill when jumping across between Scotland and Ireland in his giant's frenzies. Staffa is an island off Iona, which is an island off Mull, which is a bigger island off Morvern peninsula. That makes four boat trips in total, plus lots of single track road in between. It was an adventure indeed, and we just about made it. First, we arrived early at the first potential ferry slip for getting to Staffa. No phone reception, no working payphone and there was precious little we could do to tell the boatsman that we were establishing a demand for a crossing. You see, the ferry operates on demand only, to any of the many islands off the coast of Mull. So really, it's not even a Staffa ferry, but an Ulva ferry, which, if you want and pay for it, gladly takes you to Staffa as well. But as we had no means of contacting the boatsman apart from waving across the bay, we went all the way to the other end of the island to get the ferry to Iona. By that time, the sun had decided to do us good and the magic got to us. Unreal colours, unreal people living on an unreal island. All is small, post office, boats, houses, beaches, cars, shops, tearooms, abbeys. All is also very pretty.

Half an hour later and we'd really seen it all, as nice as it was, and decided for more adventure, and the boat trip to Staffa. It takes an hour to the island, theoretically you spend an hour on the island, and back on land. Effectively, the sea wasn't in favour of us landing, so we got thrown about for three hours non stop and my panic at the very high waves, and the consequential movements of the small boat was soon given up for amazement at the sight of half the passengers making good use of sick bags which were not so altruistically provided plentifully and free of charge. There they were, grown men and young women, old ladies and young boys, all getting rid of their lunch. Such a waste. I held firmly on to the lovely apple pie I had swallowed just before boarding the boat, I never like wasting food you see.

The puffins were cute, the dolphin curious, the basalt columns impressive. I felt invigorated when returning to Mull, ready for the single track road trip back to Morvern. I fell asleep instantly of course. The next day, a 10 mile journey in search of a teddy bear shop got me car sick galore, I've seemingly been given sea legs for some unexplained reason. Maybe I was a sailor in a previous life. Or a whale. As for the teddy bears, they were really hiding away at the end of the world. Go to the end of the road in Drimnin (that's the end of THE road in Morvern), then turn right after the phone box, into a private road. Take the next left. Leave the car, walk up to a building site of a house, ask the builder for a key and you'll be shown into a 2x2m box. This is the teddy bear shop. They had 4 teddy bears, all handmade and collectable, clearly not yet making a rivetting business out of it. But nothing is busy, or business, in this part of the world. It doesn't need it, and we didn't need it either.

Oh, and we never saw John Snow.