Isle of Jura – 1

The first item to mention about Jura is that the Jurassic period is not named after this island, but after the Jura Mountains that form part of the border between Switzerland and France. The name of the island is usually attributed to the Norse meaning ‘Deer Island’, although in Gaelic the word ‘diura’ means ‘tough or durable’. 

I caught the ferry from Port Askaig on Islay to Feolin on Jura. This is a local ferry that runs between just these two places. I believe the flat-bottomed boat I caught was a stand-in as the permanent one was undergoing maintenance. At Port Askaig, we pedestrians all had to wait until a large pantechnicon backed onto the ferry and then we all squeezed in around the edges. All the other vehicles had to wait for the next ferry. We chugged over the water and I admired the view of the Paps of Jura whose tops were covered in misty clouds. 

The bus was waiting to take any passengers to Craighouse, the main settlement on the island. Jura has around 200 permanent residents, a number that can be easily doubled and more by summer visitors. There is also a passenger ferry from Tayvallich on the Knapdale Peninsula to Craighouse. Buses do run to Tayvallich via Lochgilphead from Glasgow and meet up with the Jura ferry, a journey that takes less than 4 hours.

I stayed at the wonderful Jura Hotel with its bar and restaurant that seemed to be the centre of the island’s social life. My room overlooked the distillery so there was no excuse for me to miss visiting the place. There’s a rum distillery called Deer Island nearby and a gin distillery at Inverlussa on the way to Barnhill. 

The road from Feolin up the east coast of Jura is the only tarmac’ed road on the island. It’s about two cars wide, with passing places every few hundred yards, in case you meet the public bus or the lorry from the distillery. This road carries on through Craighouse up to Inverlussa. Just beyond, visitors can park and carry on walking up the coast towards Barnhill where George Orwell came to complete the first draft of the novel that would become 1984. Barnhill is a private house so visitors shouldn’t go into the property especially to admire the view Orwell would have had from an upstairs window, looking towards the Scottish mainland. Two miles further on, across some very boggy ground – you can sink up to your waist if you’re careless like I was – is a headland that overlooks the Corryvreckan whirlpool.