Last night Katja discovered that the last ferry from Mull to Iona departs at 18:15. I booked the 17:00 ferry Oban - Mull which turned out to be too late! We would never make it across Mull in time to get to the last - 18:15 - ferry to Iona. We decided to depart at 9:00 to have a chance to the Oban ferry of 14:00. We also changed our route to the quickest one, foregoing some of the Loch Lomond treats.
Additoinally, I got an email from Glen Nevis camp site reminding me that we should bring our own linen if we want to spend the night in a pod. Since we didn't think of that, we had to buy two sleeping bags!
Had to buy sleeping bags!
The trip went without adventures, we did traverse some of the beautiful Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park and arrived in Oban around 12:45. One observation is that Waze is not perfect: it sometimes has weird routing decisions (like making a detour while just driving straight was possible) and Tesla nav is better in those cases. Another huge advantage of the Tesla nav is that it works without Internet coverage as we noticed frequently during this trip. We keep using both navigation systems and use our judgement when their opinions differ.
In Oban, we immediately drove to the ferry and asked permission to board the 14:00 ferry instead of the booked 17:00 one. We were told to park in lane 4 (unbooked) and visit the ticket office - which you need to visit anyway if you don’t have printed tickets. I didn’t have, since I booked through Internet I only had a printed confirmation. Incidentally, there is a ChargeYourCar charging spot near the ferry terminal providing a Type 2 and a CHAdeMO charger. We couldn't use the waiting time to charge because we needed to keep our spot in the lane.
The ferry trip took about 50 minutes and we arrived in Craignure. From there it's about 60km of 1 track road to Fionnphort. The scenery is simply stunning, but you need to be very careful: drive not too fast and when you see a car coming, immediately look for a pocket on the side of the road where you can let the other car pass. Fortunately, we are in the UK, so politeness is abundant: everyone tries to be the one to let the other pass. Lights are signalled, hands waived.
Forgot to disable the alarm
Gorgeous 1-track road on Mull
We left Tesla here for more than a day - connected to a Type 2 connector.
My advance research revealed that there is a charging spot in Fionnphort. We found it in the middle of a free parking space 5 minutes walk from the jetty. We connected the Tesla to the 44KW Type 2 connector (although we can only use 11) and left the car there. Since there is no mobile Internet coverage around the car we hope everything is all right with it!
Tip: get the app Zap-Map which shows all charging places and providers in the UK. You can also see ratings and comments and decide for yourself whether you trust that specific charger.
At 18:15 we took the (last) ferry to Iona - a 10 minute trip. Our B&B called Iona Cottage was in 30 seconds walk from the jetty! Since it was a gorgeous sunny day (where is all that promised Scottish rain?) we went for a walk. To celebrate Katja’s birthday we had a tasty dinner at the St. Columba hotel. After some walk in the dark - the island becomes really dark and quiet - back home and to bed, to get a good night’s rest.
