Jura

An overdue writeup : Jura was good, and thought provoking.

First, there was the travel. Weirdly, if you want to go via public transport, it is in some ways more convenient to go from London than Manchester. To go from Manchester and arrive on Jura in the same day is impossible via train, and requires a staggeringly early (1am) coach journey. Via London it's possible to take the overnight sleeper train , which leaves slightly earlier and arrives marginally later than a coach.

Anyway, I quickly dumped the idea of public transport and decided to drive up complete with mountain bike. If you go via the Jura Passenger Ferry (operates spring->summer) it's possible to do it in a day. There was a very fast drive up to Glasgow, and then a slightly more sedate drive to Tayvallich. Annoyingly, the drive along Loch Lomond is actually very boring (long road, lots of trees), but once you get beyond that there are some lovely mountains and lochs.

From Tayvallich I purchased a map of Jura and popped onto the Stormforce 11 power boat to dash over to Jura. This was fun, although I was slightly concerned over the bottles of wine I brought being affected by the jumping around of the boat.

My cousin was there to welcome me to Jura and the long weekend (Thu->Mon) began. This break featured :

A couple of meals at The Antlers including venison, unsurprisingly.
Lots of meat. My cousin's husband was running the burger van that weekend so various breakfasts and lunches ended up as bacon and egg innabun. nom.
A fair bit of wine, but not excessive amounts, surprisingly.

Good music - it was the Jura Music Festival after all. Starting off with music from all the community (Friday) and moving on to professional musicians including the winners of the traditional Scottish music competition (Saturday), pipers, running various workshops (I went to the Salsa - it was fun after I figured out some of the moves) and finishing off on Sunday with the children's play - a combination of costumes and shadow puppets.

There weren't really many low points. The pub was pretty busy, and the field next to the hotel was a bit loud (average thumpy music) for my liking. The ceilidh was lively, but I decided not to indulge due to lack of experience.

I also spent a fair bit of time on the island - both cycling up to Tarbert to see the inland Loch (this knackered me out on Friday - there were a number of hills in the way. As a result I had a pre midnight bedtime!) and cycling to the gardens at Cabrach, forgetting that the 'long walk' was supposed to double back and instead going on a detour cross country including neck high bracken.

Wildlife - there were plenty of deer, and I saw wild stags for what I think is the first time (I suppose Dunham Park might count). Seals, buzzards and Highland cattle were also in evidence.

Jura is an interesting contrast to other places. In terms of facilities it's pretty modern - there's no mains gas (and thus central heating in the houses. I'm don't think there was hot water either, but an electric shower solved that problem), but there is electricity, phone, broadband Internet and mobile phone access across a fair bit of the island. Not everyone delivers to Jura, but places like John Lewis and Amazon do, and there are specific delivery firms to get round other issues.

Craighouse is the main town on the island and has one shop and one pub, plus the distillery, Antlers restaurant, a school, village hall, petrol station and a community centre which also provides communication facilities I believe. Probably other places too, but I didn't ask! Islay is a short ferry ride (<1Km) away, and is a considerably larger island (3,200 people vs 200) with a number of extra facilities, but is not always loved by Jura residents (obviously.. otherwise they'd live on Islay).

People pop in to say hullo and there are plenty of community activities. Of course, there are some tensions and not everyone likes each other, but that's a fact when more than one person (and sometimes just even one) gets together. If this is the sort of life you're looking for, it is a deeply lovely place to be.

Car occupancy is quite high, as one is needed to get around Islay or take the ferry from Islay to the mainland and drive onwards. Craighouse itself is reasonably busy, although it was one of the busiest weekends of the year!

Once outside Craighouse things are somewhat more sparse; only five or six houses in clusters with a couple by themselves until you reach the north of the island I believe. The island is unsurprisingly quiet - it's a bit of a relief to get away from the sound of the motorway for a few days, even if Horwich is generally quite quiet. I did manage to see the Milky Way better than I have previously, I believe, although Jura isn't quite as dark as you'd expect - the glow from Glasgow is still visible at night.

It does make you think about just how much infrastructure is required for modern living, and the fall in living standards if you wanted to be truly self sufficient. I do, at times, think of buggering off and being a misanthrope on an island, but this is not really very realistic, owing to the fact I am quite social, need an income and require a fair bit of power for my computing kit, to name just three out of many factors.

Who knows, one day I might move to a (smaller) island, but I suspect I would have a somewhat different lifestyle and be in a stable longterm relationship. This also leads me to wonder on the cultural differences between islands and countries inside large continents, although technically I suppose it's possible to walk all the way from Lands End to Korea now.

It was a lovely experience and I will be back again sometime. Perhaps next time I will sea kayak around, and also visit Colonsay (West of Jura), Islay and others.

Pictures to follow