Last week, I opened my front door to find couple of surprised Rams sitting outside—thinking they had the place to themselves.

Out in the bay, a skein of honking Geese took to the air over three Seals basking on a tiny island in the first light of morning.

As the first visitor to stay at Cragaig Bothy on the Island of Ulva this year, I was news to the wild congregation of animals who had inhabited this rugged stretch of Scottish coastline over the winter.

During a week of unseasonably warm weather, I had the entire south side of the island to myself, except for a couple of hikers, who I invited in for tea.

I ate breakfast while watching Sea Eagles hunt, read by the light of a Candelabra in the evening, and gazed at dark skies from my hammock in the attic at night.

I felt like Sam Gribley in the Children's book My Side of the Mountain—I just needed to befriend a Sea Eagle, and my escape from the grown-up world would be complete.

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Of course, these wild escapes come at a price: a two-hour hike carrying a week's worth of food and supplies over the hill from the ferry quay.

To help transport my food, I bought a lightweight festival trolley, which I struggled to drag along the muddy and rutted track (Ulva has no paved roads).

I must have looked more like a medieval peasant than a modern sojourner in nature.

I shouldered my Lidl bag and stashed the trolley behind a rock to collect on the way back.

Once at the Bothy, I lived without electricity, boiled all my water to make it safe to drink, and mastered the eccentricities of the wood burner to keep warm at night.

Of course, stripping back the luxuries of life is entirely the point of an escape like this. It provides perspective on modern life and leaves us open to receive what the writer Thoreau describes as ‘the tonic of wildness’.

While I’ve always escaped to deserts or mountains to get my fix of wildness, a retreat is different—once you have arrived, there is no physical effort required, only the invitation to drop familiar habits and urgencies to experience the stillness and silence of nature.

As the days of silence mounted and distractions faded, I tuned in to the wildness around me and let peace, stillness, and mystery in.

Walden, Thoreau’s book about living a simple life in a cabin in the woods, is still relevant to anyone taking a retreat in nature today.

I wonder what Thoreau would make of the digital noise and ‘AI slop' that we are subjected to today?

I would wager he might write ‘Let us live deliberately in nature, lest we fritter our time doom scrolling on illuminated screens’.

On Ulva, the daily scroll was replaced by the daily seal watch, and news updates were where the resident flock of Sheep had wandered off to that day.

I came away from the island reset–with a profound sense of peace.

I stayed at Cragaig Bothy, an off-grid property on the South side of Ulva.

How to go

Getting to Ulva

Take the Ulva Ferry–a 5 minute crossing on demand 9-5 April to October.

There are no ferries on Saturdays, Sunday ferries only June–August. As there are no cars allowed on Ulva, vehicles must be left on Mull. There is daytime parking at Ulva Ferry.