Meet Report

16th to 19th June 2017 - Rum Bunkhouse, Rum

In spite of dangerous goods being transported on the ferry and restricted passenger numbers as a result, we arrived safely on Rum for the EMC’s first meet at the new community owned bunkhouse. Unfortunately while the rest of the country was experiencing a heatwave, the weather on Rum was not so kind which meant a lot of last minute changes to plans over the weekend.

On a cold, rainy Saturday with the cloud base less than 150m, Fiona C, Nigel, Tim, Marcus, Allan and Kate headed off on the ferry to Canna for the day. An enjoyable day was spent watching the puffins on Sanday, with two lunch stops in the shelter of the porch of an old church and very welcome beers and coffees in the lovely wee cafe on Canna. Nigel and Tim climbed the Marilyn on Canna (Carn a Ghaill), although there was no view from the top even though the summit was only 210m! The rest of the group stayed on Rum, with Tony & his two friends and Charles walking down to the mausoleum at Harris and Alan R taking a tour round Kinloch castle.

With an unexpected window of opportunity in the weather on Sunday morning, there was a quick break for the Rum Cuillin Ridge by Tim, Tony & friends, Fiona C, Chris and Katrina at various times although the weather closing in again later on meant that unfortunately some of the planned routes over Hallival and the two Corbetts Askival & Ainshval were curtailed. Nigel, Allan, Charles and Kate headed for Ard Nev and Orval (Marilyn), and Marcus walked down to Harris.

On Monday morning the weather unexpectedly cleared and Nigel, Katrina, Allan and Kate had great views from Mullach Mor (Marilyn) and were also lucky enough to get a fabulous view of a Red Throated Diver on one of the wee hill lochans. Charles headed up Hallival, Fiona C hired a bike and cycled down to Harris, and quite a few of the group took in a tour of the castle before we caught the ferry home.  

And as we sailed off into the distance, the Rum Cuillin gradually cleared behind us and looked magnificent in the late afternoon sunshine. Hey ho, you win some, you lose some on meets!! It was a packed ferry back to Mallaig as we were joined by large numbers of festival goers who had been celebrating the 20th anniversary of the community buy out of Eigg over the weekend.

Many thanks to everyone for their good company over the weekend which made for an enjoyable meet in spite of the weather.