Weather/Conditions: Again, nice weather.
Distance/Ascent/Time: 11.4km / 350m / 4h 25m
Accompanying: Alone for the hill, with Kate to Kilmory

This was our final day on Rum, a trip that, though short (one full day and two half-days) had been absolutely packed to the maximum. This has the effect of stretching out time, and so at the least I can call it a 'full-bodied' visit.

Mullach Mor was also my last hill on the island. The first day had seen me around the Rum Cuillin, the second around a cluster of hills on the west of the island. Mullach Mor is a low and sprawling sandstone lump situated to the north of Kinloch.

I headed out of Kinloch mid-morning, to a location on the track where I could cut straight across onto the open hillside. As soon as I was on the open moor it was hard-going and rough. The sandstone was interesting; it is Torridonian, an outcropping that strikes me as being pretty far south. It was nice to see though, and makes Rum out to be a geologically pretty diverse island, with gabbro, basalt, gneiss and sandstone all within quite a small area. On Mullach Mor I sometimes felt I was back in Glen Torridon.



The summit was crowned by a trig, my last hill on the island. I'd enjoyed the Rum hill bagging, now to get to Eigg, Muck and Canna one day and walk around them, too.

I headed back to the Kinlock track feeling pretty wasted. It'd been a crazy couple of weeks, really: every day had usually been rammed with hillwalking. But I was feeling it now, and would have been quite happy to call it a day when I got a text from Kate saying she'd just hired bikes from Kinloch.



I was done, I could just say so; I want to rest! But she'd spent the money, and I was sensible enough not to say anything until we met. When we did, she was pushing the bikes out Kinloch. I couldn't say no to that! A cycle trip to Kilmory? Ok. So in five or ten minutes I stomached the tiredness and we set off on the bikes.



I'm so glad we went to Kilmory. Another highlight of the trip. It is a staggeringly beautiful place, a hut or two set on the edge of the bay with the waves rolling in and some ruins clutching by the edge of the river. The Cuillin across the water, a sight I don't tire of. We looked around the huts, watched the deer stoat away, and had a peek at the burial ground. Kilmory has none the isolation I experienced the previous day above Guirdil, but it is empty. It felt to me there could really have been a population there, Lewis-style with a straggle of houses strung across the moor. But whatever, it's still some place.

On a time limit, we cycled back to Kinloch where Dave gave us a lift to the pier. We took the boat back to Mallaig thus finshing the Rum trip. No Doubt I'll be back, for a small island there is a lot to go back to; no least the two bothies, Harris and the sea cliffs...

360° Panorama

Mullach Mor