When we disembarked, we were greeted by several red deer grazing the shore. The crossing between Islay and Jura takes just five minutes. The ferry journey to Islay takes just under two hours and is a chance to view the land and seascape from a different vantage-point.ĭuring our outward and return voyages, we saw dolphins, a minke whale, divers, guillemots and armadas of livid jellyfish, all framed within a vista of scrolling mountain coastline. Getting to Jura was the first revelatory part of our holiday. The road then follows the shoreline of Loch Fyne and Loch Tarbert, eventually leading to the ferry at Kennacraig. It took just over four hours to get to Glasgow, where we stocked up on a week's food.īeyond Glasgow, the landscape soon intensified at Loch Lomond, engulfing us within jaw-dropping mountain ranges and immense lochs. We had investigated travelling by air and by train, but calculated that, between the three of us, the car was the most affordable, efficient means of getting there. I finally journeyed from Bristol to Jura this August by car with two friends. With Orwell's house circled in pencil, my map of Jura has been on the bedroom wall for two years as a pledge that I would go. Isolated on the north west coast, he wrote 1984 as his health deteriorated toward an untimely death. After the sudden death of his wife at the end of the second world war, Orwell left London and travelled to Jura with his adopted son. Roger Deakin's excellent Waterlog contains a chapter focussed on his attempt to swim the whirlpool of Corryvreckan - from the moment I read the Gaelic name of this place, I knew I had to go there.ĭeakin's book was also the first place that I learned of George Orwell's connection to the island. Being drawn to a place is often a subtle, instinctive experience, but what took me to the Isle of Jura in Scotland's Western Isles was a particular mix of literary influence and geographic fascination.
0 kommentar(er)
