Four lochs and two distilleries from Ballygrant

Wednesday 19th April 2017

While planning this holiday on the island of Islay, I realised that I would have an ideal opportunity to do a walk up the Paps of Jura, the three dome-shaped quartzite hills on the neighbouring island of Jura, however this thought didn’t excite me. Nevertheless, I did plan to do the walk up the Paps of Jura during this holiday even though my heart was never in it. Good weather is essential for a walk up the Paps of Jura, so I also planned an alternative bad weather walk and secretly I wanted to do that walk instead of the mountain walk. Ralph Storer describes the walk up the Paps of Jura as “exhausting, sometimes frustrating” and that the Paps are “defended by miles of boggy moorland and require a determined assault”. I don’t enjoy bog-trotting and prefer a good footpath underfoot, particularly in ascent, so even though I had kept my options open to the idea of going up the Paps, I was always veering towards doing the bad weather alternative. In the event the weather wasn’t too bad with some sunshine during the middle of the day, but my decision was really made when I decided to do the Laphroaig Distillery tour the previous afternoon.

After my tour of Laphroaig I caught a bus from Port Ellen to the village of Ballygrant in the east of Islay, where I headed into the woods around Loch Ballygrant and camped at a spot just outside the woods to the west of the loch. My inspiration for this walk is to be found on the walkhighlands.co.uk website although I had decided to reverse the direction, so after overnight rain I set off back into Ballygrant. The footpath that follows the road east from Ballygrant is a lot better than the Three Distilleries Pathway on the south coast of Islay that I had been on the day before, as this was narrower and more undulating because it wasn’t designed to be used by wheelchairs and pushchairs, which also made it much more fun to walk. Already I could see the Paps of Jura on the horizon, the tops partially obscured by cloud, taunting me for taking the easy option, but they were not my goal on this walk as I took the left turning road signposted Finlaggan. Walking along the minor road I came to the visitor centre at Finlaggan where the MacDonald Lords of the Isles had their base in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

There didn’t seem to be much to see except for some ruins on an island in the nearby loch so I turned around and followed the road heading north past the ruins of Mulreesh and just before I reached Balulive Farm I turned left onto a muddy track into an increasingly wild terrain. At one point I even saw a couple of young deer before plunging into a dark conifer plantation that was not nearly as bad as it sounds. The track is lined with young deciduous trees and around the ruins of Staoisha there were loads of celandines and primroses with even a few daffodils decorating the scene. I could imagine this being a delightful location before the conifers came and ruined everything. Beyond the ruin rhododendrons lined the track so that in a few months there will be a blaze of colour from this invasive, troublesome plant. After a sizable walk through the wood I suddenly came out to a view of the sea, and across the narrow straits the Paps of Jura stood strikingly close mocking me for what could have been. I had an enjoyable walk through the unspoilt landscape with the distinctive mountains ahead of me while around me lay heather and small rhododendron bushes.

Slowly I made my way down to the sea at Bunnahabhain where the next tour of the distillery was in an hour’s time, which was all the excuse I needed to wander around the coast of Bunnahabhain Bay clambering over quartzite rocks and gazing out across the Sound of Islay to the Paps of Jura. After eating my lunch I returned to the Bunnahabhain Distillery where I took the tour of this small distillery where they work to a traditional, manual ethos producing an unusually, for Islay, unpeated whisky. Although not to my taste, this is not a bad whisky and I left happy to have visited this tiny, isolated distillery. My next destination was the Caol Ila Distillery, which is some way south along a quiet road that rushed along as I was worried that I wouldn’t get there in time for the next tour only to arrive with half an hour to spare. This distillery at Caol Ila was rebuilt in the early seventies so it now looks ugly and utilitarian while inside there is a lot of automation, which is in stark contrast to Bunnahabhain that looks at least a hundred years old.

During the afternoon the fantastic weather that I had been enjoying with stunning views across the Sound of Isla towards the Paps of Jura deteriorated, so by the time I left Caol Ila it was starting to rain. This made for a depressing end to the day through what in better weather must be a lovely route as it follows tracks through woodland all the way back to my tent near Loch Ballygrant. Despite the rain at the end I had enjoyed this walk including the tours of the two very different distilleries in the afternoon, and even the extended road walking had failed to ruin my enthusiasm. I felt that the deterioration in the weather late in the day had justified my decision not to go up the Paps of Jura, while allowing me to visit two very special distilleries, which had been the main reason for my coming to Islay, although ultimately I didn’t feel as if I’d stay on this island long enough. The following morning I retraced my steps along the fabulous path that runs from the gorgeous woods of Ballygrant where bluebells were beginning to appear and promisrf a stunning display in the weeks to come, to the eastern end near Port Askaig where a Lily Pond was sadly devoid of lilies because it was the wrong time of year.

Despite it being the wrong time of year for bluebells, lilies or rhododendrons I had really enjoyed my brief couple of days on Islay. There is so much to this island that I have not seen on this visit, especially as I had taken the tour of only four of the distilleries on an island that has eight. The weather was great when I arrived on Islay, but it quickly deteriorated so that by the time I left it was cold, wet and windy even though this hasn’t prevented me from wanting to return. There is so much more to Islay than whisky as the walk on this day shows, and there are many more that I could have done. From the bus I had been impressed by the view of the extensive sands near Bridgend called Tràigh Cill an Rubha, where a great walk must be possible from Bowmore all the way around the northern bay of Loch Indaal, while the great sweep of Laggan Bay must also make for an awesome beach walk. These options are all in addition to the mountain walk up the Paps of Jura that will still be waiting for me when I finally decide to do it. As the ferry pulled away from Port Ellen it may have been the distilleries that I was looking at, but there is so much more to come back for.