KYQ4: Coll Reprised

Rum and Eigg from Sorisdale

We had a voucher from our offspring for a couple of nights at the Isle of Coll Hotel and, by some unusual luck in the Grand National when I put £5 on a horse with my name and won £270, we decided to make it three nights over the May weekend. Coll is a place we have visited every few years to sample the gentle mellifluous sea air, the birdlife and the seafood at the hotel. The forecast was not auspicious so unlike all our previous visits when we took the bikes, we took the car. Apart from anything it saved the trauma of unloading the bikes at the Oban ferry terminal, driving to a long-term car park and then rushing back to catch the ferry. Leaving at 4 am in the morning to catch the 7am Calmac ferry is enough of a hassle without having to beat the clock galavanting around Oban.

Aileen was needing a break after another winter dominated by taking precautions against Covid as the niggles of ageing impinged on her life. The Isle of Coll has always been an escape for her with lots of happy memories from childhood and visits with our own children. We visited Coll in 2020 on the first week after the Covid lockdown was relaxed and it proved the perfect escape. When we booked this trip, it was Aileen's well-being that mattered and her silver hair reminded me of the refrain from a favourite track.

When you're weary, feeling small....

Sail on silver girl, sail on by....

All your dreams are on their way....

Like a Bridge over Troubled Water,

(Coll) will ease your mind.

The sail down the Sound of Mull on a near-empty ferry was relaxing, the clouds were hanging over the Mull hills but the skies were brighter as we approached Coll. Within 30 minutes of disembarking, we had driven to the far north of Coll to Sorisdale and walked to the northern point. As we sat on some rocks to admire the distant views of Rum and Eigg, an Otter scuttled past us, no more than 10 metres away as it headed to the sea. Its rich brown coat gave it a healthy glow, and we felt the same. The Coll magic was working. We returned across the nearby beach, where SSE engineers were installing new transmission lines. It is a mere 5 minutes back to Cornaig beach, the tide was out and we spent an hour exploring the empty series of intimate beaches that were scalloped out of the gneiss bedrock.

We returned to the Arinagour and had some lunch before our room in the hotel was ready for us to catch up on some sleep. And so things continued for the next three days. We would have three or four walks on the different beaches with a lunch of a laughing cow cheese triangle on a roll followed by an orange. We were mesmerised by the birdsong throughout the island from the melodic Linnets to the barking of the Barnacle Geese to the rasp of the Corncrake hidden in the ditches. The walks along Foyle Beach and from the RSPB centre at Totronald to the magnificent Hogh beach that should be admitted to a museum of rock were particularly memorable. On two of the days, we were able to spend a couple of hours soaking up the evening sun in the hotel garden. We slept well.

Since our visit in 2012 Coll calling, there have been some changes with families who had returned to Coll and boosted its population and the school roll, moving back to the mainland rather than sending their children to board in Oban. The primary school was down to 6 pupils and the population had dropped to 170. We were told that about half the houses were holiday homes and many of the larger new homes that had been built by couples for retirement were now occupied by widows. The roads seemed even less well maintained than in the past and the cafe and bunkhouse had still to recover from Covid closures. The local shop had been rebuilt and was well stocked and an electric charging point had been installed between the community centre and bunkhouse. Even the hotel seemed quiet until a noisy wedding party arrived on the day we were leaving. They had a convoy of SUVs loaded with bodyboards, kayaks and lots of booze for a wedding on Torraston beach the next day. Rain was forecast.

On the last day, it was dull with showers but we managed four walks before the ferry to Oban at 6:15pm. We visited a beach beyond the White House at Grishipoll that had the most exquisite sea-sculpted gneiss rocks. In the afternoon we walked out to Port-na-Luing from where milk and cheese had been transported a hundred years ago. The cottage was occupied and the occupants made us welcome and offered us afternoon tea after we had explored the old harbour that had been devastated by a hurricane in 2005. We returned via the Maclean burial ground and shared the Crossapol Beach with dozens of Barnacle Geese and the wedding party, who were revving up their sound systems on the beach. After a final coffee at the hotel, we were content to drift along to the jetty for the ferry to Oban and home by 11pm.