We decided to catch some sunrise moments on the two remaining days of our visit to Oban. Even at this time of year that means a very early start, making it doubly important to get a good night’s sleep beforehand. That’s why I was so pleased when, at 3am, Biggles declared quite forcefully that he needed to go outside for a trip to the loo.

A nighttime toilet walk in a campsite full of dogs is no trivial undertaking; it requires a pocket full of poo bags, a torch (preferably head-mounted to allow hands-free operation), patience mixed with a sense of urgency, and a generous helping of luck. Why? Well, the need for the poo bags and a torch is obvious. Patience is required because even a desperate little Biggly boy can’t go just anywhere – he has to sniff around a bit to find exactly the right place. Sometimes a spot that seems OK for the first couple of solids turns out not to be suitable for the rest, and he has to waddle around a bit more until he hits the right position. However, said patience must be tempered by a sense of urgency, because (1) the longer he spends out there the more likely he is to spot another human, dog or rabbit (yes, the campsite is overrun by rabbits during the hours of darkness) and burst into a baying session, oh and (2) I WANT TO GO BACK TO BED! And finally a generous helping of luck is essential, because completing the dump and getting him back into the caravan without waking everyone on the site takes a bloody miracle.

Barely a couple of hours after that upheaval all four of us were out of bed again, preparing to go up a nearby hill by the name of Ben Lora. The starting point was only a short drive from the campsite, which was good, but the walk guide I’d printed out was almost useless, which wasn’t good at all. The very first turning on it was now barred to the public! Fortunately an alternate route was pretty clearly signposted, but it was also considerably longer than the one we were expecting and sunrise wasn’t going to wait for us. We made good progress for the first section of the walk, but missed an important diversion in the darkness which swallowed up a few more precious minutes. Speaking of things being swallowed up, one section of the route was so boggy it nearly took the boots off my feet. One of the drawbacks of having Beagles out in front is that you tend to assume that anything they can walk over without sinking, we humies can walk over too. Not so!

Despite all this we made it to the top before sunrise, and got the most amazing visual treat. For such a small hill, Ben Lora delivers some incredible views.

It’s official sunrise time, but for us the sun is still hiding behind a distant peak

Rolling mist still covers much of the low ground

Looking back, the summit marker is visible on the right

And finally the sun makes an appearance!

Curiously it grew noticeably colder the moment the sun appeared, and as the mist cleared the Beagle contingent spotted some sheep. Soon after that the baying started so we didn’t hang around up there for too long. I did get one more good shot before we headed back down though.

Back at the caravan we all had breakfast, then Biggles went for a top-up nap. Susan and I tried to follow suit but Beanie had other ideas and made several attempts at raiding the breakfast leftovers. I decided to have a man-to-Beagle talk with her about this, and suggested that she take all the energy she currently uses for scavenging and redirect it into something less bothersome, like philosophy. I mean she’s certainly a smart little girl, so why couldn’t she be the first Beagle philosopher? In response she scratched an ear with one of her rear feet, planted her bum hole on the carpet, lifted her rear paws off the ground slightly and scooted from one end of the caravan to the other. I didn’t pursue the philosopher Beagle angle any further after that.

Biggles’ post-breakfast nap. Getting up to go for a poo at 3am can really tire a boy out. Wasn’t so great for me either!

Very early on our final morning we headed straight for Oban’s signature feature: McCaig’s Tower. Sitting on a hill above Oban, the tower is modelled on the Colosseum in Rome. It was never completed and is now just an ornate shell surrounding a rather nice garden. I’d visited it briefly the previous evening to scout it out and somehow managed to get one shot that didn’t include the hordes of Japanese tourists taking group photos with their phones.

In the morning however- about half an hour before sunrise – there was scarcely anyone about and the views of Oban from the tower’s front platform were very nice indeed.

The ferry takes pride of place in the center of the photo

Beanie and Biggles didn’t bother much with the views because there were fast food debris inside the tower that urgently required their attention. As the sun rose and they explored the outside of the tower, they even found a bush with blackberries ripe for picking.

The first direct sunlight hits the tower’s grand entrance

More of the garden inside the tower

Beanie & Biggles’ explore the tower thoroughly..

..and Biggles raids the blackberries!

Once Biggles had finished off the blackberries he looked around for more natural snacks and discovered some rose hips. These demanded a more robust picking action than the blackberries, in fact he had to get so tough with them that he virtually uprooted the blummin’ plant. He spent the rest of the walk looking for more fruits which is a little worrying because not everything is dog friendly. If we don’t keep an eye on him there could be another trip to the vet in his future.

That visit to McCaig’s tower pretty much concluded our holiday. We’d all had a great time but judging by her reaction when we got home, I think Beanie may subscribe to Frank Sinatra’s point of view: it’s nice to go trav’ling, but it’s so much nicer to come home!

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.