Wild Camping on Mull

If you’re looking for an adventure that connects you to the outdoors, makes you feel completely alive and costs next to nothing, then this might just be the one for you! It’s hard to beat the feeling of wild camping… the freedom of just pitching up wherever you fancy and spending the night under the stars is exhilarating. And there can’t be many places better to do this than the beautiful coast of Mull. 

Difficulty:

Well the difficulty of this adventure (as it is with most) is subjective. Do you see spending the night in a small tent with no access to showers, heating or anything really, other than nature as hardship or bliss? 

Either way this adventure will push you a little bit.

Wild camping strips life back to its basics, embedding you in nature and conjuring up a unique cocktail of emotions as you appreciate just how beautiful nature can be.  

For every feeling of ‘discomfort’ you will be paid back ten times over in unforgettable moments.

Time:

Due to time constraints we only wild camped one night, however if you wanted to there is nothing stopping you from doing a week or more as long as you abide by the outdoor access code.

The Adventure:

This adventure is all about prep, something that we are naturally not the best at! However given the nature of our job we try to force ourselves to be better. And this adventure is certainly one where we needed to push against the overly relaxed, ‘it will figure itself out’ attitude we tend to take into our adventures.

Perhaps a very obvious point, BUT: The prep begins in the packing your kit a couple of days before you’ve even left home. Make sure you’ve got all the things you need: tent, sleeping bags, mats, torches, stove etc. This may seem simple but the amount of times we’ve forgotten one or two even little items is ridiculous, and when you’re sat there out in the wild with nothing around it can be pretty annoying to know that the experience could have been enhanced just that little bit more if only Charlie had remembered to pack the bloody head torches!

The next step is planning your spot for the night. With the right to roam and laws allowing wild camping in Scotland, you can keep this process pretty fluid and make exact decisions nearer the time, but it is probably best to have a rough idea before you set off. For this adventure, as it was on the coast we checked tide times, weather forecast and made sure that we weren’t disturbing any animals or nearby farm life.

We made the decision to camp on Mull’s west coast, driving past the little village of Fidden before parking up at Knockvolgan Farm. There we loaded ourselves up with what seemed like a silly amount of kit. Like two cruelly overloaded pack horses we trudged our way around the coastline looking for a spot that we had scouted a couple of days before on an earlier adventure.

After a few weight based arguments we eventually agreed to pitch up a little sooner than planned and set up our home for the night on the edge of a small hill overlooking a vast, empty white sand beach. We looked for a spot sheltered from the wind and began the process of erecting our tent.

Once satisfied with the set up we set about looking for firewood. We had faffed about a bit and the light was slowly fading, therefore we knew it was best to gather up the necessary wood before we sat back and relaxed.

This is another little ‘tipette’ we’ve picked up over the years - get the ‘work’ done first then you can really enjoy the experience.

Wood gathered, we climbed the nearest high point and just sat watching over our tent, the coast and the ocean as the sun lowered. To say it was peaceful would be a fairly dramatic understatement. I suppose the real appeal of wild camping is being out in nature the moments just before you zip up for the night and first thing the next morning. You are all alone out there, and the far coast of Mull is so remote and wild, knowing that you’re the only ones for miles really is an exhilarating feeling!

As we sat there each wearing a smug smile things took a turn for the strange. Around 40 cows and calves appeared from the green of the hills and made their way down onto the sand. They seemed excited as the younger members of the herd jumped and ran across the beach, heading for the water. It was low tide and so they had quite a way to go. By this point we were stood up, completely bemused as to what we were witnessing. Once all the cows were on the sand we followed slowly, arcing around them so as not to interfere. We stood on a small tidal island and as observed as, to our amazement, the cows started paddling in the shallows of the sea. They did this for around 10 minutes before all huddling in a small cove then slowly making their way, single file, back across the beach and up into the hills. Just like that they were gone, disappeared, leaving us scratching our heads in a state of shock/amazement.

I wish I could tell you that we have subsequently discovered the reason behind this behaviour, but sadly we have not, we asked everyone we met on Mull afterwards and no one could explain it.

And to add to the bizarreness of the evening, almost as soon as the cows left, a huge full moon appeared from behind the hills the cows had just disappeared off into.. Were the two connected? Not sure. But what we do know is that our decision to wild camp on Mull had already been more than justified - it was 9:30 on a long May evening and we had just witnessed two of the most extraordinary displays of nature, neither of which we would have seen had we not been camping.

We lit our fire and watched the moon rise through the sky a little longer before crawling into our tent and zipping up for the night.

After a fairly good night's sleep, we woke as the early morning light began to creep into the tent. By 6am we were up and at ‘em, collecting firewood and discussing the possibility of a morning swim. It was a beautiful but cold day and we knew that despite appearances the sea was as good as Baltic. However we concluded that if we didn’t swim we would regret it, and so the decision was made, we lit the fire and threw ourselves into the water. Any semblance of grogginess from the night before was blasted out of our systems in a short sharp and shocking instant.

Warming up by the fire with a cup of tea as the sun came up we were warm, clean and very happy. The simplicity and beauty of the wild camping experience had delivered once again.       

The Numbers:

/ 1.5 hrs drive from Tobermory

/ 2 fires

/ 1 km walk from car

/ £0

/ Carbon Footprint

Pointers:

• As stated above; make sure you plan. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

• The most important thing about wild camping is to live by the LEAVE NO TRACE rule. It’s so so important to stick to this at all times. Allow yourselves extra time when packing up to go over your site looking for little bits of rubbish you may have dropped. If we all do our little bit on this front then hopefully the right to wild camp in Scotland will be around for many more years to come.

• This rule extends to beach fires, make absolutely sure you bury the ends of your fire as deep down into the sand as you can. What’s more, when looking for firewood look for already dead wood, driftwood etc. Don’t start hacking down living trees.

In Conclusion:

In many ways this is one of our favourite ever UK Achievable Adventures. It is hard to access a feeling like that in many other ways: remoteness, connection to the outdoors, beauty, wildness and sense of achievement all combined to create a really unique experience.