Scotland 2005 -- Iona, Mull, Edinburgh

Hello there!

This is a photoblog with pictures taken on a one-week visit to Iona in early April 05, followed by about a week of touring around Mull and the Highlands and a quick visit to Edinburgh. I took hundreds of photos but won't impose them all on you. Upload is pretty slow at times, so this is going to be very much a work in progress.
Some 'artistic' images first -- thank you for indulging me ... :)
(Iona sky)
(Iona's pink granite)
(Iona colours)
(Gift of the Sea, 1 -- a crab creel. How long has it been there?)
(pebbles and some glass on Iona's North Beach)
(wind-scoured sand dotted with heavier pebbles)
(pebbly sand with a speck of turquoise glass)
(pebbles dry and wet)
(pebbles -- every beach on Iona is different; not all of them have pebbles, actually. This photo was taken at St. Columba's bay, on the south end of Iona.)
(looking inland from St. Columba's Bay onto multicolour rock and a stream of pebbles)
(Gift of the Sea, 2 -- netting emerging from sand overgrown with machair on the north-eastern shore of Iona)
(seaweeds, shells and shards on Iona's north beach -- I was actually dismayed to find that beach full of junk rusting away, some of it rather dangerous to bare feet, or cows and other creatures wandering there)
(hoary lichen on the pink granite at Cnoc Nam Bradhan Mor, near the so-called Hermit's Cell in the heart of Iona)
One of the nicer surprises as one reaches St. Columba's Bay is a labyrinth made of large round stones set into the machair. Sheep and people's feet as well as storm tides in winter occasionally dislodge the rocks but someone always puts them back, or adds new ones:
The beaches also change constantly -- the light, the clouds, the weather, my own mood always affects how I see them.
(St. Columba's Bay at a brighter moment)
(seascape -- rough waters in the Bay at the Back of the Ocean)
(the Sound of Iona, from Traigh Mor = the big beach if my Gaelic serves)
(view from Dun I of Lagandoran and Ardionra, on the north-west end of Iona)
Probably my favourite place on Iona -- the Bay at the Back of the Ocean, gradually transforming itself into machair cropped short by the ubiquitous sheep. The machair at the Bay is Iona's golf course, incidentally.

Thank you for your time. Watch this space for more. -- Your comments are very welcome!