Monday 5th May - Day 4

For breakfast, we had a peach & almond pastry and Kevin took the opportunity to get some drone footage whilst I got the van packed up ready for the next part of our adventure.

Thankfully, the van started first time - I’m hoping that I just did something stupid when trying to leave the ferry - and we set off for our drive up to Tobermory.

The road changed to single track after a bit but there were plenty of passing places and in no time at all we arrived in Tobermory and headed to the town car-park as we wanted to spend some time exploring before checking into our next campsite.

We had arrived just after 9.35am, and found a decent parking spot with no hassle although the car park was already pretty full. There was a market getting set up that would open at 11am so, before we could go to this, we wandered along the main road taking in all the sights - Tobermory is a beautiful town.

We had a quick walk round the market, which was only a few stalls, and bought a scotch egg (just one - it was huge) and 2 tray bake slices (snickers crispy cake and a star bar slice). As we walked round the market area we noticed there was a boat trip round the bay leaving at 12pm which sounded like a good idea so we agreed to come back for that later.

We headed to Tobermory Stores, a small deli at the start of the main street, and bought coffee beans, black pudding & pistachio chocolates and then wandered around a bit more until it was time to go for the boat trip.

We dropped our purchased off in the van & picked up our coats & hats for on the boat and got there just in time for the sailing. There were another 4 people booked for the boat trip but despite waiting a few minutes they didn’t show so we ended up with a private boat trip - awesome!

There was informative chat throughout the trip and plenty of binoculars and spotters that could be used although we don’t see anything more exotic than a couple of seals.

Before heading on to our campsite we decided to have some lunch at Macgochans, and it was great! I had a tasty langoustine & crayfish sandwich and limonite and Kevin had a blue cheese & pear salad and a pint of Best, and he was equally impressed.

We were booked into Tobermory Campsite and were directed to pitch 18 which was a good size with a stream running behind it and we had the benefit of not needing to use any levellers. Once pitched up we relaxed for a while and I then walked along to the nearby Island Bakery to have a look at what they had in their honesty shop and picked up a box of lemon melts and a packet of cherry almond cookies - their lemon melts are one of our favourite biscuits!

Once back at the van we had a few drinks, Secret Orchard cocktail for me and a raspberry cream soda beer for Kevin, whilst getting dinner prepared. We made piadina wraps with heck sausage rashers, the spectacular black pudding we had picked up earlier and a fried egg all rounded off with brown sauce. We got it all cooked up outside on the cadac and then we wandered over to the dishwashing area and washed up the dishes together

We watched an episode High Potential and an episode of Cheers and then it was time for bed.

Tuesday 6th May - Day 5

I was up and off for a shower early but the water was freezing and when I went to investigate I found out that there was electricity issues - a damaged electrical cable was lying on the ground and a repair crew were on their way! Kevin used a different cubicle and had some hot water so I jumped in after him and thankfully there was still hot water available. The damaged cable was fixed quickly enough later in the day.

We had yoghurt (Co-Op strawberries& cream) and granola for breakfast and Kevin headed over to fill up our water carrier but, disaster, he was snacked on by midges over at the tap and returned with a ridiculous number of bites. I had noticed quite a few midges as well but I luckily don’t get any reaction to midge bites.

One of the things we were looking forward to when we booked this campsite was being able to walk to nearby Sgriob-ruadh Farm, to take part in their Isle of Mull Cheese tour and farm tour and we enjoyed every bit of it. Our tour guide was Troy and he was very entertaining and the tour was very informative and, of course, we picked up some cheese to take back to the van - their smoked cheese was the favourite.

We also stopped off at the Island Bakery honesty box on the way back to see if they had any new stock and picked up some lime melts & peanut butter cookies.

For lunch, we got stuck into the Scotch egg we had picked up from the market along with ham, cheese & coleslaw rolls and a cup of tea and the market tray-bakes.

For dinner, we walked into Tobermory and headed straight back to Macgochans as we had seen some good options on the menu when we had lunch the previous day. Kevin had goats cheese followed by sausage in a Yorkshire pudding with all the trimmings and rounded out with a crème brûlée and I had scallops followed by chicken schnitzel (delicious) and we drank best & aspalls.

Kevin was suffering with his midge bites so we decided to cut our stay in Tobermory short and the new plan was to head to Fidden Farm a day early and then book a stay at Port nan Gael for our final night on the Friday.

Decision made, and new campsite booked, we head off back to the van and the first part of the walk, up the hill, was very steep but overall it was not too bad a walk.