Getting thereTo go from Folkestone to Boulogne, take the hovercraft from Dover to Calais. Hoverspeed (0870 5240241; www.hoverspeed. co.uk) runs crossings daily. A five-day return ticket costs from £147 for a car with up to nine passengers. Or you can go via Eurotunnel (0870 535 3535; www.eurotunnel ). A weekend break costs from £99.A return train ticket from Boulogne to Paris with SNCF (00 33 1 53 25 60 00; www.sncf ) costs from £40..
On the ferry to Islay I met Peter Youngson, who was travelling there to promote his new book, Jura: Isle Of Deer, and was due to make the short ferry journey on to Jura the following day. Formerly a minister on the island, he described the hubbub back in 1984 when journalists and tourists from around the world descended on the island in search of Barnhill, the isolated farmhouse where, in 1948, George Orwell completed his novel 1984.It takes a 30-odd mile journey by road followed by a six-mile walk along a track – generally closed to vehicles – to reach Barnhill. This bears out Orwell's assertion that Jura, and especially Barnhill, are "extremely un-getatable". The island, which measures about 29 miles by seven, does not give up its secrets easily. After Arran and Islay, its wildness is striking, the landscape dominated by the Paps of Jura, three stark, scree-covered peaks more than 700 metres (2,300ft) high. Its one main road hugs the eastern coast, while the spectacular caves and raised beaches of the uninhabited west coast are accessible only by foot or boat.Eight miles from the ferry landing at Feolin lies Craighouse, the only settlement of any size and home to Jura Stores, the island's only shop, and Jura Hotel. Its extensive lawn borders the sea and includes an area for campers – for which a donation is requested – with facilities in a block situated behind the hotel. The bar here is the island's social centre, a relaxed place frequented by locals, hotel guests and campers.Across the road, Jura Distillery offers visitors a taste of the 21-year-old Jura single malt.
The light, aromatic 10-year-old is a popular choice, but the 21-year-old, an extraordinary concoction with hints of bitter orange and chocolate, is not commercially available elsewhere.Walking is an essential means of exploration on Jura and the late Gordon Wright's Walker's Guide To Jura, on sale at the hotel, is indispensable. Included are strolls and lengthy walks to the white sands of Glenbatrick on the west coast. Don't question the advice within: the sea loch, Loch Tarbert, cuts the island almost in two and its Narrows are described as "almost inaccessible" It looked perfectly straightforward on the map. Once off the path, stumbling over basketball-sized clumps of tussock grass and sinking up to my calves in bog, I decided to head up to a low ridge. This involved crashing through neck-high ferns like something from an antediluvian forest.
