Easdale Escape, Easdale Island

Argyll. Sleeps up to 4

For the ultimate in rural escapes, a stay in a holiday home on Scotland’s Easdale Island, seventeen miles from Oban, is a brilliant pick. With two bedrooms, delightful living spaces and a fantastic garden with phenomenal views, Easdale Escape is perfect for a family or two couples. The cottage is beautifully presented with modern furnishings, excellent fittings and a wonderful wood burning stove. Easdale Escape is a very old, cosy cottage built in 1800. It is perfect for a spot of switch off. Serenity awaits. It is a haven for hunkering down, relaxing and enjoying magical scenery. You will relish in the cottage’s charm and character which comes in abundance, marrying marvellously with a handpicked selection of modern furniture.

Easdale Island is the smallest permanently inhabited island of the Inner Hebrides. It covers an area less than ten hectares and has a permanent population of seventy. It is roughly two hundred metres from the Island of Seil which is connected to the mainland by the two-hundred-year-old Clachan Bridge, known as the ‘Bridge over the Atlantic’. Easdale Island is car free. Visitors Park on the mainland and arrive on a short ferry from Oban. A stroll to the top of the hill offers incredible views of the Firth of Lorn to the north and many islands to the south. The island enjoys a wide variety of flora and bird life that makes Easdale unique. You can take wildlife tours and boat trips to the Corryvreckan, the world’s third largest whirlpool and around the islands of Luing, Scarba, Shuna, Lunga and Jura. Easdale Island offers a tranquillity you will remember for a very long time. And of course, there is much to discover on the mainland and in Oban, ‘the Seafood Capital of Scotland’.

Easdale Escape is all on one level so offers easy holiday living for all ages, including guests with mobility issues. The open plan living, and dining room is delightful. At one end of the room, comfy modern sofas sit opposite each other and close the the atmospheric wood burning stove. As a rural chill descends, you can chuck a log on the fire and cosy up on the sofas watching a movie on the large television provided for your entertainment. At the far end of the room, you will find your dining table and chairs. A door opens from the living room to the garden and patio. The smart galley kitchen offers all the appliances that you need for your self-catering break.

This dreamy holiday home comes with two superbly comfortable bedrooms. Both boast beautifully dressed double beds and one offers characterful ceiling beams. There is a family bathroom to share.

Easdale Escape enjoys a large garden with exquisite panoramic sea views. It is a wonderful spot where you can relax on garden furniture, mesmerised by the views and enjoying a spot of alfresco dining or pre-dinner drinks watching the captivating sunsets.

Easdale Escape enjoys a wonderfully remote location on Easdale Island, just off the coast from Oban. The island is seventeen miles from Oban, the stop for catching the ferry to the island. The island is steeped in the history of the slate industry and enjoys scenery that will take your breath away. It is incredibly peaceful with no cars on the island.

The Easdale Island Museum is where you can learn about the slate quarry industry and the lives of the residents who lived and worked on the island through the years. The museum is open from April to the end of October.

Guests staying at the cottage enjoy guided seaweed foraging. You can explore the edible seashore on a fun foraging foray, finding out what seaweeds are good and tasty to eat. You will sample the seaweeds in season and get tips on how to cook with them. The trip is finished with a hot drink or warm soup and a snack.

One of the favourite activities is a Seafari Adventure. You will enjoy exceptional wildlife and nature boat trips to spot whales, porpoises, dolphins, seals, and sea birds. You will experience the Gulf of Corryvreckan, the home of the world’s third largest whirlpool. There are day tours to Iona, Staffa and the puffin colony and whale watching trips during June, July and August. Tours to the Corryvreckan take you into the Atlantic and around the islands of Luing, Scarba, Shuna, Lunga and Jura. The whirlpool is created when strong Atlantic currents and unusual underwater topography produce an intense tidal race in the channel. As the flood tide enters the narrow strait between Jura and Scarb, it speeds up to 8.5 knots.

Easdale Island is an excellent base for sea kayakers who want to explore the small islands of the Inner Hebrides and the rugged coast of Argyll. Sea Kayak Scotland, based in Balvicar five miles away offer hire equipment. Fishing is also popular in the island’s seven flooded quarries. One of the flooded quarries is a natural swimming pool, shallow at one end and deep at the other. It is very popular for outdoor swimming as it is reasonably warm in the summer.

Every year in late September, The World Stone Skimming Championships take place across the Skimming Quarry. It attracts roughly one thousand people from near and far for this fun activity.

Back on the mainland, Oban is a magnet for travellers from all over the world. It owes much to the Victorians. Back in 1812, the Comet steamship linked Oban with Glasgow. The town grew up around Oban Distillery. It once had the royal seal of approval with Queen Victoria calling it ‘one of the finest spots she had seen’. You will taste some of the best fish ever in Oban and can pick up supplies of freshly caught fish for the cottage. Beyond Oban lie the islands of the Inner Hebrides including Easdale. Kerrera protects the town from Atlantic storms. Others include the low green island of Lismore, majestic Mull, the sacred island of Iona plus Coll, Colonsay and Tiree. The granite mountains of the Morvern peninsula are spectacular. Oban offers panoramic views of the mountains, lochs and islands which have captivated artists, authors, composers, and poets for centuries.

The Crinan Canal is a great day out, an absolute gem stretching from Adrishaig on Loch Fyne for nine miles to Crinan on the banks of the South of Jura. You can visit by boat or stroll along the footbath, enjoying its beauty and watching the local fishermen landing prawns, crabs and lobsters in the basin. Watching the yachts and fishing boats passing through the fifteen locks is a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

NHS Arduaine Garden was conceived by J Arthur Campbell and is a wonderful tourist attraction with the intimacy of a private garden. You will enjoy rhododendrons, magnolias, azaleas, exotic palms and ferns. With lush lawns, colourful borders, a pretty walk, ponds and a wonderful variety of bird and wildlife, it is lovely. There are spectacular cliff-top views overlooking the Sound of Jura and its islands.

Carnasserie Castle boasts a 15th century tower house built by the reforming churchman John Carswell, the publisher of the first book printed in Scottish Gaelic. Positioned on a hill overlooking Kilmartin Glen, it is now under the care of historic Scotland.

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