Double island day

We started the day with a visit to one of the most recognisable features of Oban, the unfinished McCaig's Tower, which looms over the city on Battery Hill. It was based on the Colosseum and planned as a lasting monument to the builder and designer John McCaig, and his family. Unfortunately he died after only the outer shell was completed and his family refused to compete it, so it remains unfinished.

We drove a few miles south of Oban and visited our first island, Seil Island, via Clachan Bridge. Because the Clachan Sound connects at both ends to the Atlantic Ocean, and might therefore be considered part of that ocean, the bridge is known as the Bridge over the Atlantic.

The hotel next to the bridge is called Tigh an Truish (The House of the Trousers). It’s named this because several years after the Jacobite rebellion - when the British government tried to suppress Gaelic culture, banning kilts, tartan, bagpipes, and language - islanders heading for work on the mainland would change into trousers here and back into their kilts when returning home.

Our final stop, off the south western coast of Seil Island, is Easdale, one of the Slate Islands. Once the centre of the Scottish slate industry, it is dotted with disused quarries which filled up with water following a storm in 1850 and were abandoned. The island has no roads, and a population of 60 permanent residents, and has hosted the World Stone Skimming Championships since 1997. It is the smallest inhabited island of the Inner Hebrides.Read more