We got off to an early start the next day and drove straight into Oban to catch a ferry over to the Isle of Mull. Our pups experienced a ferry once before when we went to Arran and generally coped well, although Biggles found the stairs a little too steep for his liking. How would the ferry to Mull measure up now our two were experienced seafarers?

Well, the steps were still very steep but as a big four year old boy, Biggles was well up for the challenge this time. He charged up them, perhaps hoping that if he could get far enough ahead of me he could take a small diversion into the canteen area. No such luck! But at least complementary doggy drinks had been served on the upper deck, courtesy of rainwater that had collected on the outdoor seats. What’s more, this ferry was apparently built to the same high standards as the Arran one:

Head-sized gaps between all the railings for the nosy Beagle? Check!

Lots of strange nooks and crannies to explore? Check!

A spacious under-seat area with the promise of food crumbs hidden in the flooring? Check!

On top of the mostly Beagle-friendly design, the Mull ferry offered some very pretty seascapes:

On arrival on Mull we stopped off at a cafe for a light breakfast. This wasn’t nearly as relaxing as it should have been because Beanie (who’d already had her breakfast!) pulled out all the stops to get an illicit nibble of our food.

Princess Beanie is not above begging if the spoils are worth it..

Breakfast over, we headed to the starting point of our first walk: the Carsaig to Lochbuie coastal trail. The drive to Carsaig is an adventure in itself. Most of Mull seems to be served by single track roads. The major roads at least have regular passing places and grass verges that could be used at a pinch, but the road to Carsaig is extra narrow, with scarcely any passing places. Run into someone coming in the opposite direction and you’re looking at up to a mile of reversing.

As it happened, we lucked out and the only other vehicle we encountered exactly coincided with a passing place. I think Biggles sensed my stress during the drive because he had a very noisy bed making session mid-journey. Biggles isn’t very good at making beds, and on this occasion he ended up lying on the rough plastic crate bottom with only his chin resting on a pile of ruckled up vetbed. Fortunately the walk was well worth the tortuous drive and bedding disaster it took to get to it.

The old pier at Carsaig

The coastal trail is one-way, so we only did part of it then turned back, leaving the afternoon free for a further ferry trip to the Isle of Iona.

Iona approaches..

..and Beanie & Biggles make their second island hop of the day

We had plans to go on a walk to the other side of the island, but quickly discovered that Iona, like Skye, is absolutely teaming with sheep. For the sake of  a quiet life we abandoned the walk and Susan gave the pups a short run along the beach. Needless to say, as seasoned running dogs Beanie & Biggles behaved impeccably, always running forward in a straight line and never once indulging in any funny business.

OK, so maybe there was a bit of funny business. Once. Or twice.

Of course our return journey now involved not one but two ferry trips and a substantial drive.  What’s more the first trip from Iona back to Mull had a lot of other doggy passengers. This was the last straw for Biggles. Not only did he have the responsibility of keeping our campsite in order, but now he had to police the blummin’ ferry as well? It was too much to ask of our little boy! He tossed his sheriff’s badge into the sea and climbed up onto his Mum’s lap for a cuddle.

That’s it! If they want a supervisor for this ferry they can find someone else. I’m going on strike!

Our caravan has spent far too much time sitting unused in our drive this year, so when a few dry days showed up in the forecasts we dusted it off and headed to a campsite a few miles out of Oban.

The site is directly on the coast, so after a seemingly interminable time stuck in the car, our pups got to stretch their legs down by the sea. It was extraordinarily sniffy and Beanie & Biggles’ noses sounded like Geiger counters on a bad day at Chernobyl. It was only when we returned to the caravan that the reason for all this nasal interest became apparent: the beach was the local walk of choice for all the dogs on the campsite, and there were lots of ’em. Bassets, Yorkies, Boxers and Collies to mention but a few. With so many dogs on the site you’d have thought that one would have claimed the job of camp warden, but no, none of them were dog enough for such a vital role so once again it fell to Biggles to keep order. For the next hour or so everyone and everything passing by our caravan was on the receiving end of a stern (but thoroughly deserved) woofing. Once the whole site had been made aware that there was a new sheriff in town we were finally ready to drive into Oban itself to check it out.

Being a seaside town, Oban is well served by Fish & Chip shops and that of course means lots of dropped chips on the pavements. Beanie was ready, willing and able to clean up every street in the town, but she’d been beaten to it by an army of seagulls.

Like other seaside gulls, these were bold, pushy and in some cases rather plump. They also seemed blissfully unaware that a fat, brazen bird with chips in its belly is the very definition of a “Happy meal” to a Beagle.  Fortunately for them, both our pups are completely inept at catching living things (even though they both fancy themselves as ace hunters). That didn’t stop Beanie scaring the bejeezus out of a couple of ’em though. At one point she lunged after a gull so fast that she nearly went over the harbor wall!

You ate my discarded chips and you are below me in the food chain. GET IN MY BELLY!!

We returned to the caravan with seagull-less Beagle tummies, and there was a further hiccup in store for our two furry children when bedtime arrived.

Like most other dogs, our two know their daily routines very well. In the caravan, the bedtime routine should go like this: you go on a short last “toilet” walk, then the humies take out a dental chew and break it in two, whereupon you sprint into your travel crate and wait to receive your half of the chew. This evening however I completely miscalculated the time taken to erect the travel crates and took out the chew too early. Beanie’s crate was already made up so she dove straight in and got her treat immediately, but Biggles wasn’t so lucky. His crate was not accessible, yet the only way to get his chew was to be in a crate. Faced with this insoluble dilemma and desperate for his treat, panic overtook him. Ever seen one of those Star Trek episodes where Kirk ties a computer up in its own conflicting logic, causing it to run back and forth until it breaks down? Same thing here. I think Biggles’ thought process (if you can call it that) was roughly:

“Oh no, I’m not in a crate so I can’t get my chew. Ah, there’s a crate here! I’ll run into that!”

“Oh bugger, Beanie’s already in this crate. I’d better leave quick or she’ll bite my bottom.”

“Oh no, I’m not in a crate so I can’t get my chew. But there’s a crate here! I’ll run into that!”

“Oh bugger, Beanie’s in here and she’s going to bite my bum.. I’d better go!”

And so on.

He’d been in and out of Beanie’s crate at least five times before I managed to grab his collar and restrain him until his own crate was ready. When I finally got him in there and delivered his chew he was instantly happy, but Beanie wasn’t, because her chew was long gone. Her request for a second one went unanswered, so she eventually settled for telling her bed off rather loudly. Like Queen Victoria before her, Princess Beanie was not amused.

Summer’s pretty much over now but by way of compensation it’s blackberry season once again! One of our regular walks is virtually lined by blackberry bushes and Beanie and Biggles have been honing their picking skills.

There’s berries in them there bushes!

Beanie quickly became adept at picking only the ripe, tasty berries and dodging the red immature ones, but Biggles got off to a slower start. He’d sniff and lick at them but then hit me with his “little boy lost” look, goading me into picking them for him – which being a complete muggins I of course did.

Those berries look and smell really nice..

..but The Bigglet wasn’t sure about the whole “self service” thing initially

After a few days he gained confidence and started picking his own, but it still took a while longer before he learned to go for the black ones and leave the red.

Eventually he caught up with Beanie and this point I’d have to rate them both as expert pickers – so much so that I considered hiring their services out to local farmers. Unfortunately my latest dreams of wage-earning Beagles have been scuppered due to one small but important technicality: apparently fruit pickers are not supposed to eat everything they collect.