#17 Isle of Rum bothies with Chris and Callum

June 23rd – 26th 2024

This walk felt like a long time coming! We know the profile of Rum from Muck so well – from watching midsummer sunsets, and from seeing the peaks of Barkeval, Hallival, Askival, Trollaval, Ainshval and Sgurr nan Gillean appear and disappear as summer storms blow through. Rum sometimes disappears for days on end… It is a brooding, wet place, renounced for it’s clouds of vicious midges, vast numbers of deer and wet weather.

We first went to Rum in around 2003 when Callum was about 4 and stayed in the servants quarters of Kinloch Castle which was running as a hostel. It was an amazing place to stay and we went on a tour round the Castle and marvelled at all the extravagancies! We had to spend an extra couple of days there as the ferry was cancelled due to high winds and rain. We went on a couple of short walks, but Rum in the rain isn’t really designed for a 4 year old so we mostly played games with other families with young kids also stranded in the hostel – and went on a short walk to spot an otter! And we found loads of sundews – Callum had a book on carniverous plants out of the library so it was amazing to see them in real life.

We decided to come back when we could walk out into the wilds and really get a feel for this wild, majestic island. But even planning that was challenging. We had planned to go to Rum after our annual week on Muck in 2021, but I was struggling with nerve irritation and couldn’t walk far, so we postponed. Our plan to go this summer when Callum was over from New Zealand, as one of my 60 walks, looked like it might need to be postponed again as my nerve irritation returned and we faced a wet summer. But, with the help of a fabulous physio, I was walking well enough, and the weather looked just good enough – so on Sunday 23rd June we caught the 9am CalMac sailing from Mallaig and arrived in Kinloch.

Kinloch itself is astonishingly sheltered with lots of mature, tall trees – so different to Muck. The realtively new backpackers hostel looked an amazing place to stay, and we chatted to the warden for a while.  He told us that the Castle is now closed to the public, deemed to be unsafe, and that they are looking for a buyer who can do the necessary renovations. However, we soon left Kinloch behind and headed out along the Dibidil pony path towards Dibidil bothy. It was a wild and wet walk – lots of bog and a few river crossings – beneath the towering peaks of the Rum Cuillins. Great to be walking with a pack again. We crept carefully along the exposed section of cliff path before descending down to the spectacularly located Dibidil bothy. We were told it was rat infested so hung all of our food up – but didn’t actually see evidence of any rats!

The next day was overcast as we set off back to Kinloch, enjoyed some Indonesian soup at the shop and cafe and then continued along the landrover track to Kilmory. At Kilmory there is a research station run by the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. It is the longest continuous study of red deer in their natural habitat – since 1972. There were notices telling us where we could camp so as not to disturb the deer. We delighted in seeing them feeding on seaweed on the beach.

Day 3 we walked back up the landrover track and then took a right turn down the river valley towards Guirdil bothy, even more spectacularly located that Dibidil! We had the entire bothy to ourselves and Rum gave us a sunny midge free evening (in fact the whole trip was pretty much midge free thanks to the wind and sun) and a double sunset over Canna. Feral goats clattered along the pebbly beach and munched on the seaweed, and stags came right down to the bothy. We couldn’t believe our luck!

Day 4 we headed back to Kinloch as the rain came in and spent a lovely lunch chatting to Peter Edwards, author of the Cicerone Walking on Jura and Wild Country Backpacking books. He is a delightful man, a total fan of Rum and Jura (and Stewart Island in New Zealand which I have been to and Callum plans to go in Feb next year) and gave us some good advice about the Jura West Coast walk.

Thank you Rum!