We had to go straight for a shower on coming back from the cave, as we were smeared with caked mud, having had a few more mud baths on our way back. But it was such a fantastic cave, and even the walk there, with the dark overhanging cliffs that looked like vultures ready to pounce on us, an awesome sight.
After we each had our shower we drove to the Mausoleum, where we spent some time and read all about the life of General-Major Lachlan MacQuearie , who used to be Governer of Australie, and who was, together with his wife, very sympathetic towards the criminals exported there. There are a lot of names still, of people from Mull, some of his own family, on the Western seaboard, and it is said that a lot of Brittain's miserable poor committed crimes in the hope of being sent to Australie in the hope of a better life.
As it was too late to go too far, we went on a little road to loch Ba, the second largest on Mull, that was apparently a fisherman's paradise. We drove on the small, muddy road starting at Knock farm for a while, but at a certain point we had to leave the car and walk, and as usual Lizzy moaned and groaned, said that she just did not need two mud baths in one day, but I have learned to to turn a deaf ear, and just kept up my what I reckoned was a bright and cheery monologue! I wanted to trudge further, as it was so beautiful, but Liz put up such a bally boo-hoo that I reluctantly agreed to go back.
There is a real sad story connected to loch Ba. Long, long ago, there lived on the island an old giantess witch, who was so tall that she could wade across the Sound of Mull without getting wet, as the water only came up to her knees. Her cattle used to graze on land to the West of Mull that is not visible anymore, as the sea had claimed them long ago, and the smaller islands around Mull was apparently formed by stones that she spilled from a creel she was carrying.
Loch Ba once had the magical power to restore youth to the aged, and this witch, called Caliach Bheur, restored her youth every morning of her hundredth birthaday, by emmersing herself in the waters of Loch Ba. But this had to be done before she heard any noise from a living soul, as then the spell would be broken. Then one morning, as the hundred year old Caliach made her precarious way down to Loch Ba, struggling over the sharp pebbles on the beach, a Collie dog started barking, and it came faintly to the poor old witch's ears, and there and then her bones started crumbling, and she expired just a few yards from the magical waters!
It is actually so sad that this old witch had to die, as she was extremely good natured, never putting bad spells on people or animals, and she even refused the calls of the jealous wife of the Chief of Douart, to sink the Spanish Galleon in the bay of Tobermory!
Liz wanted back, but I was still happy to sit on the beach and imagine the old witch coming down the mountain every hundred years to be made young again.