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Wednesday 6th October 2004
  
So . . . today we went over to Fionnphort . . . this meant getting the shuttle bus back to Craignure and then a coach from there to Fionnphort. Once checked in to our B & B, we took the ferry over to Iona and had a wander around. We probably got there around 15:15-ish, I reckon. On our way to the Abbey, we stumbled upon this ruin (15:30) . . . and then a Celtic cross . . . there were a few of these . . .
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Looks like we got to the Abbey at around quarter to four . . . pictures to the right there. The, er . . . visitors centre was funny. You know - the place where you pick up souvenirs and tea-towels and stuff . . . there were four people working there (all female, I seem to recall), clearly with very little to do . . . all eager to profer information about how long such-and-such is open until, how long the ticket I had just bought was valid for . . . all that kind of stuff.
|   First picture, that was taken at 16:14 . . . it was some kind of tiny museum containing ancient Christian artifacts. I liked their pillows. After this . . . we went for a wander . . . to the other side of Iona, using (though it was hardly necessary) 'Walking in South Mull & Iona' (by Olive Brown and Jean Whittaker) that I had bought in Tobermory the other day.
Second picture, that was taken around 17:12. It was pretty bleak on the other side of the island . . . a tractor and Tania's jacket being about the most colourful things going. There was meant to be a 'Spouting Cave', "a burst of white water and a plume of spray [rising] high up the cliff," but it wasn't really a burst, as such. 
Still some of the clouds were very pointy (pictured to the right there) and there was some strange stuff lying around on the beach (erm . . . below left somewhere, taken at 17:25). On the way back, we stopped again outside this isolated house with a selection of items for sale outside . . . and a tray to put money in. On the way up, we had each bought tiny pots of honey and Tania had bought a bit of marble with a cross engraved into it. It all relied on trust, you see. However, on the way back, Tania thought she might swap her bit of marble . . . and the owner of the house came out . . . an old man, with a strange accent . . . English, certainly, and he kept saying 'see' at the end of his sentences. 
"Those houses, those back-to-backs, yeah, they're firetraps, see." But he was very sweet, and asked me what I did for a living, which is how we got on to talking of Leeds, which is where his daughter either lives or had lived. I pointed out that the honey was popular . . . half an hour ago or so, there were several pots left. "No. They steal 'em, see. I take them in," which almost seemed impossible to believe (my immediate thought was that he was referring to some kind of rodent or bird or something), but they're you go. We chatted for a while, thinking, "Ah well, maybe we won't quite get the 18:00 ferry back to Fionnphort, but what the hell?" . . . it really didn't seem that important. However, we hurried back, and could see the ferry approaching as we approached the pier . . . made it in time.
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So, we probably got back to Fionnphort five to ten minutes later. First picture from the left, 18:21, and the sun's just starting to go down. Being further north than Leeds, the sun obviously takes a lazier path to the horizon than I'm used to . . . it doesn't just plummet down, you know? I've got two pictures of that house (those houses) for some reason . . . perhaps I couldn't decide which one to keep. I kind of liked the way the sun was penetrating the house in these pictures. Tarn went for a walk along the beach, and I think I 
popped back to the B & B to go to the toilet, drop my bag off maybe . . . I was also gonna get us a couple of bottles of beer from Fionnphort's only shop but - what was I thinking? - it had shut over quarter of an hour ago. Picture third from the left there (18:24), those were some birds Tania was curious about . . . I'm not sure if the picture is actually helping identify them, but that was the idea. So, we walked along the  sand a bit and then headed up those rocks you can see in afore mentioned picture. That picture to the left there . . . more weird vegetation in the sand . . . shame it's a bit blurred, damnit. And the last picture (bottom right, taken at 18:38). . . that was from the highest rock I could scramble up to . . . the sun (no, really?), just before it sank below Iona.
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