Solo adventures on the Treshnish Isles
On a wet and windy Friday I set sail from Oban to Mull to hitch a ride to the Treshnish Isles. A wee group of eight uninhabited islands, and many skerries, located in the Inner Hebrides. My mission; to see the most characterful and entertaining of the seabirds... The Puffin.
Despite a very windy trip to Mull, I landed to be met by blue skies and a hippy from Exmoor who now drives a minibus (at pace) across the island! Travelling across Mull is always stunning; the island is so diverse, with sumptuous moorlands, man made forests, crooked natural woodlands, thriving agriculture, deep blue Lochs, towering mountains, and wildlife everywhere you look. We saw deer, eagles, buzzards, so many sea birds I couldn't name, signs of otters and lots of cute fluffy Highland coos (my favourite!).
We arrived at the teeny Ulva ferry port where we disembarked the minibus and boarded a small boat that would take us on to Staffa and the infamous Fingal's Cave. Staffa itself is just 1/2 mile long and 1/4 mile wide and is home to black guillemots, fulmars and puffins, and the impressive caves of course. Fingal's Cave's hexagonally jointed basalt columns were formed by cooled lava flow, similar to the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and is known for its amazing natural acoustics. The cave's entrance is 60ft high and 50ft wide and on a calm day you can sail in and even swim in the crystal blue water.
The swell was big and we ploughed through the waves as they crashed over the boat's bow and soaked the deck and those of us crazy enough to be sat on it. I was thankful for my waterproofs, as I was taking the brunt of the conditions, yet I felt alive and full of excitement for what lay in store.
However, as we approached Staffa the boat started to rock side-to-side and my very unattuned sea legs and stomach were having none of it. It was too rough to land on Staffa, so I held my phone in the air whilst crying into the railings to capture a video of the caves, so at least I could watch it back later. Unfortunately, soon the boat was redecorated with a beautiful pebble dash, as we lurched our way across to Lunga.
Lunga is the largest of the islands at 81 hectares in size, with a flat grassy top awash with wild flowers and steep cliffs that plunge into the cold Hebridean waters below. Yet this small outcrop is home to over 4500 puffins and more than 45 other bird species, including guillemots, razorbills, shags and kittiwakes, along with a colony of grey seals and various rare and indigenous plants. It's a haven for wildlife and as such is protected and cared for by the National Trust for Scotland.
The smell of rotting seaweed is the first thing to insult your senses as you land on this tiny island but then comes the noise of the birds. I've never experienced anything like it. Everywhere you look there are cute little clown-like birds hopping about their burrows, building their nests or feeding their pufflings (is puffling not the best word in the English language?!). They fly at immensely fast speeds, their teeny wings flapping at an astonishing rate, as they whizz over your head, their beaks full of silvery sand eels, glistening in the sun.
After getting my bearings and pulling myself away from the first puffin I set eyes on, I headed across the island towards Harp Rock. The walk was slightly uneven under foot with narow walkways cut into the grass laden clifftops. I passed literally hundreds of puffins and their burrows; each puffin turning to see who I was but totally undisturbed by human presence. I watched as the birds flew over my head towards the cliff tops and then plummeted to the sea below before minutes later whizzing back with their catch to take home to their young. The senses were awash; stimulated by everything nature was throwing at me, yet I couldn't get enough so I walked on towards the top of the island.
As I rounded the bend of a grassy mound I could see Harp Rock. The smell and noise of thousands of guillemots, razorbills, shags, kittiwakes and puffins, nesting and fishing from the large rock ahead were overwhelming; it reminded me of my time on the Falklands surrounded by noisy smelly Gentoo Penguins who were so boisterous and would throw their poo at you!
I lay on my tummy not far from a burrow in the path and spent an hour being entertained by a family of puffins going about their afternoon. One was rather inquisitive and liked to hop up to me, over me and back to his family again, I watched another return time and time again to the same patch of dried grass, plucking it strand by strand, and then trying unsuccessfully to fly with the weighted load to her burrow.
These tiny clown like birds offered hours of entertainment and my phone battery was soon flashing low after taking too many photos and videos of these amazing encounters. I sat and ate my lunch watching the birds continue their routines and swoop dangerously close to my head when returning to their burrows, despite me sitting down low and away from the entrances. I think they thought it was fun doing fly pasts like Maverick on Top Gun!
It was time to head back towards the boat and on my way I came across a chirpy razorbill in the path who wasn't sure you had right of way, so as I went to move aside from him he nodded his head in thanks like a little gentleman. These birds were almost as fun as the puffins and so I lay near a rock enjoying the view out to sea watching the birds coming and going with their catch. Suddenly, a razorbill decided to come say hi and landed on the rock by my head to see if I was a potential food source and we had a nice chat about the weather and the island before he hopped off to look for something new to entertain him... maybe they are just as entertained by us as we are of them.
I mooched back to the boat and stayed on dry land amongst the rotting seaweed for as long as possible unsure if my stomach could handle the hour long return trip. But it was the only way back, so off we went once more into the choppy swell to navigate around the smaller isles to see the abundant grey seal colonies before sailing down the beautiful Loch Tuath, alongside the community owned Isle of Ulva, with it's tiny crofts, fisherman shacks and pretty rolling countryside.
We docked back at the little port, and I said cheerio to my adventure companions, thanked the crew for an epic day, apologised for redecorating their boat and once more boarded the fun bus for the return trip to the ferry back to Oban.
What a day it had been; I was exhausted, on a high, mentally over stimulated and in need of a cuppa and a lie down. It really was an experience of a lifetime and one I would highly recommend regardless of the pebbledash incident!
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