You can join a distillery tour when you visit (around £10 per person) which is well worth taking the time for, but note that booking is essential so don’t get there and expect to immediately join the tour. I tried a few samples during my visit and I can totally recommend both ‘Origin’ (honey finish) and ‘Prophecy’ (peat finish) if you’re after a decent dram or three. Isle of Jura whisky ranges in flavours from non-peated to heavily peated so it manages to bridge the gap between the sweet floral notes of mainland whisky and the often medicinal whisky produced on Islay. Heading back to land you might be surprised to discover there’s a distillery on Jura but it has been producing casks of their incredibly tasty single-malt since the distillery was founded all the way back in 1810. You can take boat tours to the whirlpool from both Islay and Jura, but I recommend Jura Boat Tours who have a fast (and great fun) RIB to get you there and back in double-quick time. It’s a spectacular sight that’s also surprisingly noisy so it’s quite an exciting thing to watch, but I certainly wouldn’t advise going out there on your own.ĭivers frequently cite the Corryvreckan as one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the British Isles, and having witnessed it myself I can see why. The whirlpool is a natural phenomenon caused by strong tidal flows washing between the islands of Jura and Scarba and as the water speeds over a deep hole in the seabed it creates a roaring whirlpool on the surface which is the 3rd-largest in the world. Other attractions include the famous Corryvreckan whirlpool which can be found a short boat ride away to the north. That plants it firmly in Corbett territory (a mountain between 2,500 and 3,000 feet) so if you’re a ‘Corbett bagger’ a trip to Jura might be worth it for that fact alone. Tourist InformationĬhief amongst the attractions on Jura is The Paps – three iconic mountains that dominate the vista for miles around.Īlthough they’re not quite Munro status (a Scottish mountain over 3,000 feet), The Paps are certainly impressive and it would be a fair trek to get to their respective summits, especially the tallest of the three – Beinn an Oir – which stands tall at 2,576 feet. Wear waterproof boots (link to my recommended boots) or your feet will quickly get cold. I took a Berghaus backpack filled with travel essentials and it served me amazingly well.ģ: Watch out for that blanket bog. Visiting Tipsġ: Check the ferry timetable page for timing revisions before setting out.Ģ: Facilities are very limited on Jura so I suggest packing a lunchbox and water bottles if you’re going for a day trip. Stunning in fact, and as the island is so quiet you can visit many of them in total peace. The Highlightsġ: The scenery on Jura is amazing – as is the amount of wildlife so try to pack a pair of binoculars in your bag (see my guide to recommended binoculars).Ģ: The distillery offers a very good tour that’s a good price considering they throw a couple of drams in, and the shop is pretty good too.ģ: Jura has some beautiful sandy bays. If you would like to join a tour of Scotland’s west coast islands take a look at this selection from Get Your Guide. Not quite the eyeball-popping landscape you’ll find on Skye, but wild, open, and atmospheric all the same. That’s pretty impressive when you consider that deer on Jura outnumber humans 25 to 1!īut it’s not just the animals that make Jura worthy of a visit as the scenery is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. Not that Craighouse is a large village (it’s actually tiny) but there’s a distillery sited in the centre of it along with a hotel that overlooks a very picturesque beach, so it’s certainly worth visiting if you ever decide to take the ferry from Port Askaig to explore the remarkable landscape.Īlthough Jura is quite small at 142 square miles it’s absolutely full of wildlife and a visit will almost certainly guarantee sightings of herds of red deer, whose numbers currently hover around the 5000 mark. Just 200 people live on this impossibly pretty isle – many of them employed in the fishing industry – with the village of Craighouse housing a large percentage of the Isle of Jura population. This remote dot of land in the Inner Hebrides is a mere 10-minute ferry ride from the tourist hotspot Isle of Islay, yet it seems to be frequently missed by visitors who are more concerned with taking selfies than experiencing the delights of one of Scotland’s most remote islands.Īnd Jura is certainly remote. Just like the Isle of Eigg, the Isle of Jura is often considered to be one of the wildest and hardest-to-reach places on the west coast of Scotland – even though it’s only 60 miles from Glasgow as the crow flies.
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