From a search I have just done ... I have learned than "Iona" may be found within "exceptional". And Iona is, truly an exceptional place to visit. I visited Iona in - it must have been - the early 1970s - a day trip from Oban as a late teenager, taking my Grandmother on
The King George V from Oban, sailing around Mull into the bay at
Balamory, close to Staffa to see
Fingal'a Cave and then to be landed by tender onto
Iona where we had a brief couple of hours to see the Abbey and enjoy the gentleness / quietness / atmosphere of the island.
A much more recent visit, taking Waverley from Oban, was a lovely day out ... but we were frustrated from landing because the swell meant that they wouldn't risk the transfer into the tenders to get ashore. Ruefully I though back 30 or 40 years; there was a swell then too, but a more relaxed attitude. I remember saying to Gran (in the 80s at the time, but game for an outing) "don't worry - there will be a couple of burley sailors to help you down" and her repost afterwards of "the one on the left wasn't all that burley".
Iona is one of those places on my "bucket list" to get back to.
Researching something else, I came across a proposal from early 2016
in the Oban Times for a railway to link Craignure (where the Isle of Mull railway once terminated) to Fionnphort for the Ferry to Iona:
Following the simple survey on which the route above is based it is expected that landowners will be approached for a more formal survey in the summer of this year with the intention of applying for a Light Railway Order over the winter of 2016/17. Subject to approval construction work should start in the summer of 2017 with a planned completion date and introduction of service for the season of 2020.
More a dream than anything that was ever likely to become reality, but I would love to take a ride on that train. And yet - many a word written in jest has a seed or three of sense.
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