Whoosh 2025, Day 5: Oban to Iona

38 miles 1.7 miles in Oban; 35.3 miles on Mull; 1 mile on Iona

1,407ft of climbing

By Robert Wright

There are places that put the scale of the individual in perspective – and Mull is one of them. Sheer mountain sides hundreds of metres high sweep down to deep sea and fresh-water lochs. The highest peak – Ben More – towers over many views, from its height of more than 3,000 feet. Anything human – houses, cars or people – looks tiny and puny against the backdrop.

It would be easy in many places to believe that the glaciers that scooped out the glens, mountainsides and lochs had only just receded.

So it was appropriate that, after cycling with other riders all day on Monday, on arrival in Mull from Oban, I made my excuses to the other four riders who arrived with me on the ferry coming in at 10:40am. I headed off alone to be dwarfed by the scale of the wilderness.

But I rode remembering that the sparseness of the area’s beauty is far from natural. It is, instead, a result of centuries of clearing of forests for fuel, by deer or by sheep. Its desolation only grew more complete after 19th-century landowners decided they would be better off managing the land without most of its people and evicted them.

Tree Aid, the charity for which this year’s ride is raising money, is seeking to plant trees in Africa’s drylands to ensure they avoid being turned into similar, modern-day deserts.

The urgency of the challenge was illustrated early in the ride when I came up the Ardura Community Forest, one of several efforts to re-establish the oak and holly woodlands that traditionally made up the area’s temperate rainforests. For much of the rest of the ride, the land was either wind-blasted moorland or the commercial sitka spruce forests that have been planted over western Scotland in the last century.

The road started climbing around five miles after the ferry port of Craignure, to a height of 686ft in a pass above Loch Sguabain. The sight of birds of prey, including one swooping low in front of me across the road, felt slightly jarring. It was not obvious what living things there were in this landscape for them to eat.

The sweeping descent, on a single-track road, was less thrilling than it might have been because of the need to pull over regularly for cars, motorhomes, buses and trucks either to overtake or come the other way.

There was no denying the sheer majesty of much of the landscape, despite its barrenness. After descending, I rode for miles by the shores of Loch Scridain, marvelling at the cliffs, forests and scree slopes on the Ardmeanach Peninsula on the other side. The sun caught huge rock faces far up above me. In the sea beyond, I could see the distinctive shapes of the famous island of Staffa and the uninhabited Treshnish Isles.

Then, suddenly, in the distance I could see the famous outline of Iona Abbey, the goal of our ride from Lindisfarne. The stretch of sea separating it from Mull is so narrow as to be invisible from many vantage points.

The sight of the abbey was a reminder that, bleak as it feels, this landscape has been a source of wonder and contemplation for humans for more than 1,400 years. The blue water in the harbour of Fionnphort, our point of departure for the short crossing, made the area feel peaceful in a way that the wilder countryside before had not.

We arrived in Iona to find an abbey and other sites that have been assiduously restored since their founding by the missionary Saint Columba, despite the area’s harshness. We hope that our fundraising will enable something similar despite the growing climate change challenges in parts of Africa.

2025 Charity

This year we are supporting just one charity - Tree Aid, who are backed by our very own Eamonn and Adjoa and who work with people in Africa to plant trees which can provide food and incomes.

Tree Aid. Grow Trees; Grow Hope