neVenEvEneveNeveNeven: Tiree (google it) Music Festival

Magical Isle of Tiree

Sunshine. Swimming in the sea. Yoga on the beach. SUPing. Scottish folk music. Kite flying. Beer drinking. Hill scrambling. Laughing and giggling. Sunshine. Whisky. Bonfires on the beach. Pipes, fiddles, and accordions. Sunsets. Sunrises. Jelly fish. Crepes. Ceilidhs. Singing and dancing. Ferry rides. Great weekend with a great friend!

Our island fun taxi

Last weekend, I joined my friend Ailsa on a wee adventure to the tiny island of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides. I saw a very cool program on the amazing islands that are off of the Scottish coast a few years ago, and ever since then I've wanted to explore as many as I can. To be fair, I haven't been doing so hot as I've only made it to Lewis, Harris, and now Tiree, but each and every one has been well worth the journey to get to it!

There is a lot of wine in those heavy bags!

Hello, Mother Nature? Yes? Could we order
up a weekend full of beautiful sunshine?

Stunning girl loving up the delivered sunshine!

Something not many people know is that many of these islands have some of the prettiest, white sand, turquoise blue water beaches in the world! Albeit, they are often too cold to go swimming in, but they are very beautiful. This weekend, however, we were lucky enough to have hot (Scottish hot, that is) temperatures which made it tolerable to be in the water for nearly an hour without a wetsuit!

Seriously?? Wow!

The reason for our journey to Tiree was the Tiree Music Festival, which is a small (~1500 people) Scottish folk music festival. There were a few bands on the line up that I was very excited to see and then a few others that I'm now in love with!

Sheer comedy watching this ensue

Being a small festival on a remote secluded island meant that several of the bands actually played 2x, which was a huge bonus for getting to hear more of the music from the ones that were really good!

Pimms o'clock!

Good acting!

Any weekend that involves kite flying is a good one!

Aside from listening to amazing music in the beautiful sunshine, we also managed to do some "hill" walking (highest point on the island is 141m) and scrambling, as we decided to bushwhack our way around the bottom tip of the island.

Life is good

The map showed it to be quite "craggy", and we thought, how bad could it be? Well, the craggy rocks turned out to be cliffs in some places and rocks all the way to the sea in other places, so it was a bit slow going, for sure.

Way heavier than it looks!

Beautifully "sculpted" rock gardens

I just wanted to do yoga all weekend...
some places just inspire the yogi within!

We often had to call upon our well honed rock climbing skills to get us out of a few precarious situations, but in the end it was totally worth it, as we didn't see anyone else all afternoon, and we got to experience these amazing stone beaches that looked like they had been artfully manicured by someone!

Time to SUP!

Wheeeeeee! So much fun! :)

Additionally, Wild Diamond, one of the outdoor adventure activity providing companies on the island were offering introduction SUP (stand up paddle boarding) lessons for a tenner on the beach that was 5 minutes away from the campsite. It was so much fun that we had to go back for a second go on the Sunday as well! The conditions weren't easy, but I did manage to catch a few waves all the way back to shore. Success!

Love these little guys and their fringes

All in all, we had a fantastic weekend full of sunshine, good music, and lots of laughs and giggles. If you ever find yourself in Scotland, definitely add the Hebridean Islands to your to do list...you won't be sorry!