Journey to Mull

 To use some holiday up, we decided on a winter break, I'd never been to Mull, so we decided to risk it, despite the fact that a mega storm seems to be hitting the west coast every three days😱. we set off with hope in our hearts, with the various ferry timings not being very cooperative we decided to break the journey, stopping at Glasgow on the Friday night before catching the ferry on Saturday. With large numbers of Waxwings in Scotland it seemed a no-brainer to try and find some on the way up, first stop was Carlisle where some had been reported on an industrial estate just a couple of miles from the Motorway. We arrived to find a couple of birders, staring at a berry bush, but no Waxwings😢 Numbers at this site had been dwindling all week so no real surprise, undeterred it  was back on the Birdguides, 150 seen at Wishaw yesterday, surely there would be a few still there and again just a couple of miles off our route!! We headed off stopping only at Cairn lodge services to buy some Gluten Free Brownies and Dark Chocolate Florentines, arriving at the location in good time , no sign, we drove around the area arriving back at location to find 60 plus Waxwings sat in the trees!!! Hurrah, they were arriving and leaving in small groups, flying over the parade of shops into the housing estate, we had a drive around but couldn't find where they were feeding, so had to take pics of em high in the trees and the light was terrible!! I feel you should just assume the light was terrible every time I post pics, to save me having to come up with different excuses!!! 😂😲

Quite a few Waxwings, Margie made a concerted effort to count em but lost count after 60, would say there was many more than that!!

Lovely to see and hear them in big numbers, shame about the light!! We continued our journey arriving at Premier Inn Glasgow Braehead. Very nice dinner at the adjacent hostelry with special praise for the Chocolate Praline Tart!

Chocolate Praline Tart, I would've taken a pic of Margie's Trifle Cheesecake but she'd eaten it before I could get the phone out, she's such a guts!!!😂

 Day 2, rained a lot!! The drive too Oban for the ferry along the banks of Loch Lomond was picturesque enough even in the rain, but with schedules running tight, couldn't stop for pics, the Ferry trip itself was nice and calm, I made the mistake of not putting the camera up, for fear of it getting wet, which was a shame as we had several close Great Northern Divers, a couple of winter plumage Black Guillemots, a few Guillemots, several Kittiwakes and a Seal and it wasn't even raining that hard!!😢 Also had a gull frenzy over a cetacean, I only got a glimpse of it's fin and bit of black body. Wondered if it might have been the back bit of a Minkie Whale but only got the briefest of looks !! Porpoise was suggested, but they usually jump around a bit more, so would of expected a few more views and seemed a lot of Gulls for one Porpoise!! Still the ferry wouldn't stop so we'll never know!!😢😂 I also got my first Shag of the trip Hurrah!!!😂

Leaving Oban behind! (Margie phone pic)

Through the porthole! (Margie phone pic)

By the time we arrived it was teeming down again, we drove up to Tobermory as we were early for checking in to our Apartment! Very picturesque, but was raining even harder now so didn't get out of the car!!!

Seems like a nice place

We headed to Dervaig, the roads are smaller than I expected and people drive way to fast for the size of em, mostly single track with passing places yet people come flying around blind corners!!! Nutters!!

We were still early for check in so had a little drive around finding a nice lookout where a river runs into the sea, where I was surprised to spot a Dipper!!! Again cursing myself for not setting up the camera, hopefully I will see it again over the next few days.!! Checked into our Apartment all very nice, with full mod cons and we closed the curtains on the still very dirty weather, fingers crossed for an improvement though the forecast is not brilliant for the next few days!!!