Due to the vagaries of the Small Isles ferry, we spent a bit longer on Rum than we anticipated. You might think that eight days would be too long to stay on an island that only supports a handful of houses and a shop in a shed. But the longer we stayed, the more we came to love the place.
It certainly helped that we were staying in one of the oak panelled rooms at Kinloch Castle. Considering the remoteness of the island, the accommodation was amazing. Instead of the usual spartan hostel experience, it was more like staying in a millionaire's mansion, albeit one with a hint of The Shining as the place wound down for the end of the season.
The real pleasure of Rum though, is in it's wildness. A single track, only suitable for off-road vehicles, runs from Kinloch and splits in two near the centre of the island. One track heads for Harris in the southwest and the Bullough Mausoleum. The other to Kilmory in the north, where you will find red deer on the beach. That's it. To see anywhere else you have to venture into the wild. And the best place to go is up into the Rum Cuillin. It's a long trudge up, of course, but the double horseshoe of peaks surrounded by water is truly spectacular, rivalling any landscape you will see in Britain.
Rum is in the top 10... for its awesome wildness and spectacular Cuillin
