16th to 20th May
Campbeltown-Gigha Is.-L.Caolisport-Jura (W. Loch Tarbert)
Route and pics
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| Paps of Jura |
Once round the Mull of Kintyre, the most beautiful and gently magnificent parts of Scotland’s coastline start to appear. It’s not yet as rugged and awe-inspiring as north of Ardnamurchan, but there’re green forests and rolling foothills here, as well as high peaks.
Gigha isn’t especially inspiring, I think, and it rained a lot. But I hired a bike and did visit Achamore Gardens, which are fabulous – really wonderful and, at this time of year, awash with vivid colourful rhododendrons, camellias etc.
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| Bike tour of Gigha (in the rain) |
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| Wonderful colour..... |
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| ....everywhere... |
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| Canal-like entrance to inner Loch Tarbert, Jura |
L. Caolisport is a less-visited Loch, and I had all of it just for me and Misty. (Where is everyone?).
Then, over to my favourite of Inner Hebrides islands: Jura. Jura’s West Loch Tarbert has a series of fine views of the Paps, lots of raised beaches, and a series of lochs, each with plenty of rocky hazards! Approaching the Top Pool, you go through Cumhann Beag, which has no charts. It is as narrow as a canal and currents up to 8 knots if timed wrong. (Did me good to dispense with I-phone navigation and use the two sets of three transit lines – phew!)
Among so much beauty it is shocking and sad though to see so much plastic rubbish on scarcely visited beaches. It is mainly discarded fishing gear: large masses of stout net, bits of fading polypropylene rope, pot marker buoys, and plastic bottles, a decaying shoe, broken pink dustpan. Scattered along pure deserted beaches, it’ll be there for at least a generation; and that’s after thousands of years when the beaches will have been totally unblemished. Modern humans are a messy bunch.
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| Top Pool, W. Loch Tarbert (rowed the last bit!) |
