ISLAND HOPPING Day - Three
After a wonderful meal the previous evening at the Jura Hotel, which included Venison Pie with a thick chocolate and chilli gravy, fabulous, I woke to a glorious sunny morning. Up and out early, I walked out to a pier which I had found, that gave views back into Craighouse, the main village on the island of Jura.
To the left and bottom is the Jura Hotel, behind and to the centre is the Jura Distillery, making the famous whiskey. On the right of the shot, next to the red roofed building is the island shop. The reason I walked out on the pier was that I had spotted that to the right of this shot, you had wonderful views of the Paps of Jura, three large mountains. I had imagined that they would look great with the early morning sun shining down on them, maybe they do, however, like my last visit, they were shrouded in thick cloud. Oh well, another excuse to go back.
Jura, over 30 miles long, has only one road, which is 26 miles long, if you wish to reach the north of the island you have a bit of a walk. George Orwell was living beyond the End of the Road, as it's called when he wrote his famous Nineteen Eighty Four.
However I had a plan and headed south towards the ferry over to the Isle of Islay.
After yesterdays queue to get to Jura, I decided to go early, as I had to check in before 9.30 to get the ferry over to Colonsay. When I got to the little ferry for Islay, I was surprised that the normal ferry was there, drove straight on and it promptly left with me, my car and one other foot passenger. No squeezing on today. Turns out they were running both the regular and replacement ferries.
Having got over earlier than planned I took the time to have a quick look at some of Islay and then back to Port Askaig for the big ferry over to Colonsay.
Queuing at Port Askaig is always interesting, it is only small but handles a relatively a large volume of traffic.
Imagine looking from the ferry coming over from Jura, it looks like a huge bowl carved out of the rock face. A long twisting road leads down to a very big car park which has long curved parking lines. The one on the far right is the queue for Jura, the next is for through traffic not using the ferries, then about 6 lanes for the big Calmac ferries which go to Oban, Colonsay, or Kennicraig on Kintyre.
In front of this, from left to right, you have the Askraig Hotel, the Lifeboat pier, a small fishing harbour, the slipway for the Jura ferry, the shop and garage, bus stops, the exits from the car parks, the Calmac ferry office, the entrance to a dock area, and finally the slipway to the main Calmac ferries.
Right add to this the fact that the traffic to or from the Jura or Calmac ferries have to criss cross each other as they try to board or leave their ships. Yesterday most of the traffic for Jura was forced to turn around and reverse onto the ferry, and very often if the large ferry is calling at multiple ports some of that traffic, including the very large lorries have to reverse on too. Add in the buses and traffic not using the ferries, tourists just looking around, and the fact that a lot of the lorries seem to swop full and empty trailers with each other to save going on the ferries. Really surprised there are not accidents or that the whole place does not just seize up.
Anyway I got on the ferry with no problems and had a lovely trip over to the peace and quiet of Colonsay.
I think Colonsay is one of my favourite islands and I enjoyed returning.
Islands visited; Three
Total Different; Four
Ferries Used; Two
Total Used; Eight
Ports Used; Three
Total Different; Ten
To see the rest of todays shots just follow the link.....
http://365project.org/markp/Alternatively/13-05-2015
