Half the people who ask about Mull have looked at a map and counted about 30 miles from Craignure to Fionnphort and decided that is an hour. It is 1 hour 40 in dry weather with nothing in front of you, and the reason is on the road itself: single track with passing places for almost the whole run, which means the pace is set by whoever you meet, not by you. When you book an island week on Mull you are buying time in a car more than you are buying miles, and the office would rather say that at the start than have you find out on day two.
The other half arrive holding two islands in one question, and Arran is nearly always the second one. That question is fair. Both are west coast islands, both take a car, both have one road that everyone drives. The difference is size and shape. Mull runs to about 338 square miles against 167 for Arran, and where Arran's road makes a closed loop of roughly 56 miles, Mull's roads run out at the ends of long peninsulas. There is no circuit here. Every day is out and back on the same tarmac, which changes how a week is planned and how much of it is spent moving.
- What the week is
- Ferry over from Oban, one house or inn for all six nights near the middle of the island, a hire car collected on arrival, and days planned around driving times rather than map distances.
- What sets it apart
- Mull is roughly 338 square miles against Arran's 167, so the same map inch costs twice the time; the crossing from Oban is 46 minutes on a large vehicle ferry against 55 minutes from Ardrossan to Brodick, but the drive to Oban from Glasgow is about 2 hours 40 against 45 minutes to Ardrossan; the road to Iona and Fionnphort is single track with passing places for 35 of its 37 miles and takes 1 hour 40 each way from Craignure; Mull has no through ring road, so every day out is a there-and-back, and the ferry to Iona is a second, separate crossing.
- What the figure covers
- Six nights in one booked base with private bathroom; return vehicle ferry Oban to Craignure for car and occupants; compact hire car for six days with unlimited mileage; breakfast on all six mornings; two evening meals booked at the base; a printed driving sheet with timings for nine standard runs; a named contact in writing for the whole stay.
- What it leaves to you
- Flights and any travel to Oban; fuel, which on a full week here runs to two or three tank fills; the passenger ferry to Iona and the Staffa and Treshnish boat sailings, which are booked separately and can be full weeks ahead in summer; four evening meals and all lunches; entry to Duart and Torosay grounds; anything on Coll, Tiree or Ardnamurchan; car hire excess reduction; anything not written in the figure you receive.
- Who this one is wrong for
- Anyone who does not want to drive single track roads with passing places, reversing sometimes for two or three hundred yards to let a truck through, on six of seven days. Anyone hoping to walk between towns: Tobermory to Fionnphort is 51 road miles and there is no footpath. Anyone booking November to February, when daylight runs about seven hours, the Iona crossing is thinner, and several places to eat are shut.
Single track, passing places, and what the map will not tell you
A passing place is a widened bay every two to four hundred yards, marked with a white diamond or a black and white pole. The rule is simple and the practice is not: if the bay is on your side you pull in, if it is on theirs you stop and wait, and if you have just passed one and they have not, you reverse. On the Fionnphort road you will do this dozens of times in a single run. Add a delivery truck, a coach heading for the Iona ferry, or a stopped car with a camera out of the window, and 40 minutes becomes an hour.
Here are the numbers the week is actually built on, all from Craignure where the ferry lands. Tobermory, 21 miles, 40 minutes. Fionnphort for Iona, 37 miles, 1 hour 40. Calgary Bay by the north coast road, 45 miles, 1 hour 35. Loch na Keal and the Gribun cliffs, where the road runs on a shelf between rock and water for 4 miles, 25 minutes to the start of it. Ulva Ferry, 50 minutes. Lochbuie on its own dead end road, 9 miles, 30 minutes. Those are dry road, daylight figures with no stops.
Ground underfoot is a separate matter from ground under wheels. The interior is rough hill: Ben More reaches 3,169 feet and is the only Munro on any island other than Skye, with about 3,000 feet of ascent from the Loch na Keal road and no path for the upper half. Most people here never touch it. The walking that fills an ordinary week is coastal and flat to moderate: the Treshnish headland circuit at around 5 miles and 400 feet, the Carsaig arches at 8 miles there and back with a boulder scramble at the far end, the shore at Calgary with 30 feet of dune behind it.
Arriving with the other island in mind
Nobody comes here having read nothing. People come with a picture, and the picture is usually built from something specific. Naming what it points at is more useful than telling someone their picture is wrong.
Six months that work, three that are stubborn, and what closes
Two calendars run over each other on this island. One is daylight and weather, the other is what is open and what has spaces. They do not line up, which is why the same week costs different things in May and August.
- April to mid May
- Long light by month end, drier weeks than the average, midge free, most places open from Easter
- Late May to June
- Around 17 hours of usable light, the Iona and Staffa sailings running full timetables, and the tightest month for accommodation
- July and August
- Warmest at roughly 60 to 66 degrees Fahrenheit by day, ferry vehicle decks booked weeks out, midges active on still evenings inland
- September
- Sailings still running to mid month, roads quieter, first named storms possible from about the 20th
- October
- Around 10 hours of daylight, boat trips finishing for the year, many eating places closing after half term
- November to February
- About 7 hours of light, reduced Iona crossings, several villages with nothing open in the evening
From your message to a written figure
- 1. You write
- You tell us the month, how many of you, whether anyone will not drive single track, and whether Iona and Staffa matter to you
- 2. We check three things
- Ferry vehicle space on your dates, what is actually open in that month, and which bases put your driving times where you want them
- 3. A written figure arrives
- Two to four working days, itemized, with the driving sheet attached so you can see the week before you agree to it
- 4. You ask again
- Change the month, the base, the car size or the meals, and a revised figure follows the same way
Say the thing you are worried about
If what you actually want is a short crossing and a road that loops, say so in your first message. We book Arran too, and the honest answer is that these two islands are different in size, in road type and in how a day is spent, not better and worse. Tell us what your week is supposed to feel like and we will set the facts of both in front of you.