May 12 & 13: The Hollow Mountain & The Puffins
We woke late on Tuesday. The heavy rainfall overnight had meant that the stream and the waterfalls were even heavier than they had been the previous day, and it was quite a meditative sound. I dragged the blankets out into the lounge room and Nicholas poked the smoldering embers from last night’s fire, getting the fire going again.
Vincent came and sat down by the fire, Black Cat taking his leave to go on parole. We hadn’t had much planned except a hearty breakfast, and decided to head to Cruachan Mountain (kru-kan mountain) to have a look at the hydro plant that they build into Ben Cruachan in the 60’s.
They’d made a huge dam up in a mountain corrie, and allowed the
water to run through pipes inside the mountain and down to the loch below to
generate power. At times when they
didn’t need much power, they could reverse it, and suck water back up to the
dam. This made me worry about the fish
in the dam, but the guide explained that they had nets to stop anything getting
sucked up before I could ask.
Inside the mountain they were long tunnels, big enough to allow a
bus, and a huge chamber, big enough to fit the Tower of London inside. They housed the four big pony motors, which
Nicholas tells me start the generators.
The use of the pony (or starter) motor means that they can have power to
homes in about 28 seconds. If they just
let the water in and let the generators get themselves going, it’d take about 2
minutes.
Cruachan doesn’t run continuously, only at peak times when the grid
needs a boost, but it can power the UK at peak energy for something like 16
hours without needing to suck water back up.
Amazing.
They had a nifty model of the inside of the generator, which
Nicholas liked and I didn’t really understand, and they also had a wooden mural
depicting the legend of the mountain and the Queen using a scepter to bring
electricity to the land (the Queen pulled the switch that turned the generator
on). It reminded me of the Assyrian art
we saw at the British Museum that depicted kings and leaders doing things that
other people obviously did. I kind of
love monarchical propaganda, even though I’m not into the monarchy. I did notice Prince Harry was looking for
somebody to have his babies though.
Back at the house, we had to do a big overhaul and a big sort of all
our things. The boat trip was on for
Wednesday (I’m currently on the ferry to Mull!) and on Thursday we are dropping
off the car, so we had to reorganize all the loose bits under the seats and
floating around in the ether. This took
longer than expected and at 20 minutes past midnight, Cara decided to go
walkabout and Nicholas was running around the yard with a head torch on trying
to find her. Black Cat didn’t
particularly care, and was sitting beside the fire, which was eating all the
pamphlets and magazines we’d picked up and didn’t need anymore.
We did stop by Castle Stalker to take some pictures, because we'd been driving past it almost every day.
Black Cat
This morning we were up early (too early) and Nicholas had a speed
shower while I packed up the clean clothes and organised our backpack for the
day. We forced down breakfast and left
later than anticipated, so sped along the windy road towards Oban. Nicholas parked the car in the long-term bay,
while I collected a roll of tickets from the tour company. This was our first pre-planned tour day
(possibly last) and we were to visit four islands: Mull, Lunga, Staffa and
Iona. Mull is the stopover island that
takes you to the good stuff. Lunga is
PUFFIN ISLAND. Staffa is a geologists
dream. Iona is where Columba stopped
over on his way to mainland Scotland on his mass conversion, but they also have
some nice beaches.
We got the ferry to Mull and immediately jumped on a tour bus with
lots of other tourists, most of them American.
I fell asleep after about three minutes and Nicholas entertained himself
by taking embarrassing pictures of me.
The bus takes you from one end of Mull to the other, and this takes
about an hour. I’m not sure why it takes
so long, but it does. At Fionphort
(which I had been reading as Finport but is obviously Fyon-fort) you jump on a
smaller boat and they ferry you around to the islands. We were doing the biggest, best and longest
tour, so we got on the first boat.
The master onboard had a golden Labrador to
help him steer, and there was another bloke who mostly hung around and helped
lift the uncoordinated passengers (ie. me) on and off the boat at the
stops. Before we’d even got to our first
island, which was Lunga, he slowed down and pointed out a small colony of seals
to us. They were lying, some
half-submerged, on the rocks, like big, fat, spotty bananas. I told Nicholas this.
“Ah, yes,” he said, “is that their
scientific name? Big Fat Spotted Banana
Seal.”
“Yes,” I replied. “The Atlanticus Bananicus Pinnipedicus is its
proper name.” Nicholas rolled his eyes
at me and ate a chocolate-covered muesli bar.
A black bun, the first animal we spotted when we arrived on Lunga
A wee sea parrot
The first stop was Lunga, and it was the
best stop. When the man driving the boat
says, “there’s a colony of about 3000 puffins” you think that you’ll probably
see lots of them diving around and catching fish, and a handful of them might
be nesting on land. If you thought that,
like I did, you would be overwhelmingly, incredibly wrong. From the moment we scrambled up the slippery
rocks and found ourselves on the headland, we were bombarded by fat little
balls of feathers with orange beaks and big orange feet.
Puffins aren’t too bothered by humans. In fact, when humans are around they tend to
relax a little bit, because it means that sea eagles and things won’t come and
prey upon them. We could get quite close
to them without bothering them at all.
So, we’ve just rock-hopped over wet rocks and seaweed and scrambled up
some rocks to find ourselves on the headland – still alone at this point
because we raced ahead – confronted by a good 50 puffins. Before we left for the tour, Nicholas and I
had bet how many puffins we would see; I said 50, Nicholas said 20,000. I won, but it was a closer margin than expected.
Lunga
A bunny with a grass beard
Knowing that this flat headland would soon be covered in other tourists, we continued walking through the mud and over boulders and through the grass until we came to another clearing. Several rabbits had been hopping around beside us, including one very pretty little black rabbit, and Nicholas was taking pictures of a brown rabbit eating some grass when I called him over.
I was standing in front of a mini island, just off Lunga, that was more of a sea stack pointing out of the ground, but more square-shaped. It was cliffs on all sides, and every available nook, cranny and crevice housed a razorbill. They were squawking and crying out and making a fuss, and you could discern several puffins amongst the throng by their vibrant feet. Several majestic cormorants were swooping out of the ocean and landing in front of us, opening their beaks wide.
Literally thousands of razorbills
We changed direction when we happened on
some aggressive, nesting cormorants and we feared they might abandon their
nests, and walked down to a small inlet where 4 or 5 little puffins sat in a
line, like that Pink Floyd album cover with all the painted ladies. I was sitting quietly, watching them preen
themselves and stare curiously at us newcomers, while Nicholas took pictures. It wasn’t long until 5 puffins became 20, and
4 more cormorants joined them, and then a pair of razorbills as well. I inched closer to their little group, who
were on the very edge of the cliffy inlet, and one especially curious little
puffin edged closer to me until we were less than two feet apart. After almost half an hour of watching the
puffins and cormorants and razorbills flitting in and around us and being so
un-bothered by us that they tucked in for asleep, other tourist cottoned on and
we were joined by a handful of other camera-wielding holiday-goers. It was pretty magical, and really ignited a
love for the fat little fuzzy birds.
They’re so small. They’re like
little toys!
From Lunga we got back onto the boat and
sped down to Staffa, which was an island gifted by a husband on behalf of his
wife to the Scottish Trust. For her
birthday. I’m yet to meet a woman who
would like somebody to give her island to somebody else for her own birthday,
but I don’t have a plethora of islands to spare. Staffa is a pretty amazing island,
though. It’s famous for a series of basalt
caves, formed by erupting volcanoes on Mull.
Fingal’s Cave, which is the most famous of the caves, features three
different basalt formations, including the columnar kind, and looks more like a
master craftsman sculpted it than moulded from lava. Mother nature is badass.
We dubbed this island Sombrero Island, because we weren't sure what it was called.
Staffa
We climbed and stepped and slipped over the
columns until we reached the mouth of the cave, which was tall and deep and
wide – more like entering a cathedral than a sea cave. Nick whistled to test out the acoustics. They were top-notch. The water was bright turquoise and shimmering
under the sun, but as it beat its way to the back of the cave, it began to look
dark and mysterious, the cave casting all manner of strange shadows in the depths. Nick took some recordings of the waves, then
we listened to the eerie wind music he had recorded, and they sounded like
whales calling out to us playing over each other.
The last island on our little adventure was
Iona, which had a greater emphasis on Christianity than its pale, glittery
beaches, which I think was an oversight on their part. Lots of people opted to have a beer and an
ice cream at the many, many cafes that littered the tiny island, but we went walking
through some crofts to get to the Monk’s Beach, where Vikings massacred a whole
bunch of monks. We considered stopping
by the abbey, but it was a paid entry, and we weren’t keen enough on St Columba
to pay it a visit.
Back on Mull, our driver gave us a bit of a
guided tour, giving us the low-down on every famous person who’s ever been to
Mull (Damien Lewis, Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas),
every crime that’s ever been committed (a man grew cannabis to soothe his
arthritis once) and telling us stories about the health care in Mull. Apparently it’s excellent. The most interesting thing was probably about
the Highland cattle, which are most commonly naturally the black variety, but
the Queen liked them brown, so now there are mostly brown ones. Go figure.
The real boat master
The Nunnery
We arrived back in Oban, tired and probably
more freckled than when we left, but drove on until we hit Loch Lomond where
we’d be planned to kip for the night. We
caught a genuinely killer sunset when we took a wrong turn on the roundabout,
clouds burning highlighter pink in the distance. A few days earlier, we’d noticed text on the
map, amongst monuments and place names, which simply read “Rest and Be
Thankful”, so we drove there. It’s
supposed to be a lookout, but we missed it and slept in a large passing place. When we woke up and drove back way we came,
we saw Rest and be Thankful, but there was already a food truck setting up, so
it’s probably good we didn’t sleep there.
One of the many castles belonging to the MacLeans on Mull
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