Walks Inveraray & South Argyll

Authors: Paul Williams & Richard Hallewell

Rewalked by: Richard & Maggie Legate

This is a gem of a book and we enjoyed exploring this fascinating part of Scotland, which we didn’t know at all prior to our visit. Our base for the week was a cottage was on the Crinan Canal at Bellanoch, and the only downside was that we unfortunately missed a superb evening of Northern Lights by having the curtains closed!

The area is rich in castles, neolithic and bronze age remains and superb cup and ring marked stones, and we could have happily spent much longer visiting the many archeological sites.

Stretching from the lighthouse at the southern tip of the Mull of Kintyre, to Inverary in the north, there’s much to see and admire. In addition, as you are never far from the sea, there are always great views.

For us, the most fascinating walk was the tidal visit to Davaar Island along a lengthy spit of land. We viewed the walk from a hill above Campbeltown later in the day, at high tide, and marvelled at the fact that we’d been able to walk to a what was a very obvious island, a feat that now seemed unthinkable!  Another highlight were the walks from Tarbert on the east coast of the peninsula.

A boat trip is always a treat, especially on a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry, and so the visit to the delightful Isle of Gigha, with it’s clear turquoise water and fine views across to The Paps of Jura to the west, and Northern Ireland to the south west, was particularly memorable.

Forestry and Land Scotland have been busy in this area, and we were pleased to find new and informative signage and interpretation boards on many of the walks. FLS have also been carrying out a lot of harvesting in the area and this meant that the walk up Beinn Ghuilean, south of Campbeltown, which had featured in the previous edition of the book, had to be dropped from this new edition. It has been replaced by a short walk from the village of Saddell which passes an historic abbey and castle before arriving at a fine sandy beach.

This is a fine and varied area and often quite a bit quieter than other areas of Scotland’s west coast, and although there are no mountain walks, there is a fine range of walks to choose from.

For more details or to buy a copy click here.

Photos: Tarbert Castle (centre left), beach on Gigha (bottom left)