Craighouse and Keils - Islay Walking Week April 2004


We met early in the morning in Port Askaig, from where we took the ferry over to Jura. While driving on to Craighouse we saw some deer, unfortunately we were too far back in the convoy to take any pictures. Having arrived in Craighouse we were met by Mike Richardson, who was going to be our guide for the day. After living on Jura for more than 20 years Mike knows the island and its history extremely well and was able to tell us a lot about Jura. Soon we were on our way through Craighouse, walking north along the shore. The sun came through more and more and we had very nice views over Small Isles Bay and the pier.

	After a stop at Craighouse Church (unfortunately I don't have a good picture), where we visited the excellent picture exhibition and Mike told us about the history of the Campbells of Jura, we continued to Keils. Keils once was a vibrant community and a conservation village. Nowadays not much is left of it, in particular none of the thatched cottages remains.
	Our next stop was Kilearnadail cemetery, which has a lot of very old graves. It also has the grave of Mr MacCrain who apparently lived to a very old age. There was some debate if he really was that old or if he just counted Christmas twice every year (Scottish Christmas was later than "normal" Christmas). We also looked at the Campbell mausoleum (sorry, no picture).

	For lunch we returned to the Jura Hotel, by now it was warm enough to sit outside and even change into shorts (or zip off the legs). From the hotel we had a nice view north, over to the Paps of Jura From the lawn of the hotel I also had a nice view of the hotel and the neighbouring Isle of Jura distillery. The distillery had to wait for a while though, first we left for the second walk on Jura.