Hunger on Lunga

Today I went with three photo friends to Lunga, one of the Treshnish Islands to the west of the Isle of Mull. The forecast was not too bad and it looked as if we might have a reasonable day. We took the 7.30am ferry from Oban, where I was extremely surprised to meet my neighbour John from across the road, to be even more surprised to find that he was going to Lunga too! What sort of coincidence is that?
 
My friend had taken his car over so we drove to Tobermory, the largest place on the island, and took the StaffaTours boat to Lunga, sailing north round the top of Mull and through the islands to Lunga. The weather turned out to be absolutely glorious, as it was all day. We could see rain falling over on the mainland, but we had a wonderful day, sunshine and fluffy white clouds!
 
Once ashore on Lunga we climbed over a rocky beach and up the hill to a  place where all the puffins had excavated burrows in the soft soil, and into which the adults would fly with beaks full of sand eels to feed their chicks. It was impossible to say which burrows were going to be used so it took a while to be lucky and catch a beak-stuffed puffin coming into land.
 
We later walked along the coast to the Harp Rock stack, home to more than 6,000 guillemot, razorbill, puffin, kittiwake, fulmar, shag, skua and many more. The stench of fishiness was outstanding!
 
We left after two hours and sailed over to Staffa, that amazing island with the basalt columns, the other end of the famous Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. The boat nosed into Fingal’s Cave while the skipper played part of Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, written after the composer’s visit to Fingal’s cave in 1829. While most of the passengers went along to the cave, having been in before and not having time to do both I went up to the top of the island and took photographs of the other side. I’ve put a Staffa picture on as my extra of the day. 

We then returned to Tobermory via Ardnamurchan and arrived back in Oban at 8pm after a wonderful day out!