Islay, Queen of the Hebrides. While we were planning the trip back in September 2023, we were checking to go to Skye, drive the NC500, do some exploring of cities and villages we had never visited and do some sightseeing of waterfalls, ruins, large standing stones and whatnot. For some reason though, we kept looking at Islay and found many reasons to do at least one week on our favourite island. Which quite easily became a couple of days more.

So, it became Islay again. Normally, there should be two ferries going to Islay, one to Port Ellen, the other to Port Askaig. The Port Ellen one went out of service because of a defective heater, so some rebooking had to be done as we mentioned in a couple of articles previously*. Fair to say Calmac arranged all of this for us and, after the one allowed full Scottish breakfast in Inveraray, we hit the A83, stopped for some E10 for our little car “Cliopatra” and, before we knew it – with a little single laned detour Google Maps decided we wanted to investigate, we were patiently waiting in line for the MV Finlaggan to get us over to Port Askaig. 

There is a lot of driving and even more waiting on a travel day like this, which may not be the most interesting thing to read about, but if we would have taken pictures along the way of the rain washing the car, you would have been able to enjoy the views between the raindrops.

Two short hours later, we disembarked and set foot (wheels, if you want to get semantic about it) on whisky holy ground. Although we have been here with only the number of fingers on one hand, Islay truly feels like home. Satnav off, cruising speed on, wipers on interval and onwards to Bowmore. A quick stop at the Coop for the bare essentials, we treated ourselves to a dinner at the world famous Peatzeria around the corner. Settled in the bothy, we found BBC iPlayer available and decided to continue Doctor Who from season 11, which is not available in the Netherlands for reasons unknown to mankind. Rainy evening at the bothy well spent.

*Caledonian Macbrayne are working on new ferries and terminal at Kennacraig, all of which should be operational starting later in 2024, so nothing to worry about for future planning.