The Sound of Mull

Published 1 September 2013

Sound of Mull on the Isle of Mull, Scotland

I’ve probably said this before, but every now and then I come across a photograph of mine and instantly think “why on earth haven’t I used this on A Sunday Picture?”

More than once the answer turns out to be because the photograph has nothing to do with walking, but sometimes it’s just a matter of workflow. See, I tend to do A Sunday Picture in batches – do a big hunt for great pictures, then schedule several weeks worth all in one go. If I did it one picture a week, just ahead of publication, well things would get in the way and it would probably never happen.

Of course, I’m taking photographs all the time. And what that means is that sometimes I take a photograph and think “yes, that would make a great one for the website” and then don’t do anything with it. By the time I’m ready to process another batch of photos, that great photograph has been forgotten.

Well the good news is that I get there in the end. This one is a prime example of that. Taken in July 2012, it’s on the lovely Isle of Mull in Aros Park, near Tobermory.

There are a few walking trails in Aros Park, although none particularly long. Still, we got a couple of hours walking out of the place as we pootled along before heading for the ferry and the mainland.

We’d actually had far grander plans for our trip to Mull. There are several walking routes on the island, documented in a tome called Scottish Hill Tracks. Published by the Scottish Rights of Way and Access Society, it documents many historic walking routes. There are several on Mull that you could connect together and basically allow you to walk the entire island.

Bad weather and flooding prevented us from doing most of them during our stay, hence the more sedate walking through the Forestry Commission’s Aros Park. But we got a few views of the Sound of Mull (the piece of water between the island and the mainland) in compensation.

It’s quite possible that to most people, the above photograph doesn’t look anything special. But to me it brings all that trip back in abundance. The Scottish Highlands. A fantastic place to be.

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