Island Hopping Scotland - Day Trip to Gigha

The small island of Gigha - not pronounced Gig-Hah, but Gee-ahh, (not to rhyme with pier) is well worth a trip. Five minutes drive up the road from Muasdale is the tiny hamlet of Tayinloan, where the ferry departs every day to Gigha. We discovered that this runs every hour, except between 12 noon and 2 pm, when we turned up at 12:05 pm to see the ferry hairing off at high speed. Never mind, instead of having lunch on Gigha as anticipate, we had a very pleasant meal at the MacDonald Arms Hotel just down the road from the ferry port.

It’s really not worth taking the car over to Gigha. It costs about £36 and there is only one road of approx 5 miles. It’s best to take bikes, but we weren’t sufficiently well organised to do that, however going as a foot passenger (approx £5.00) is a good alternative. We only had 2 hours there, because the last ferry back on a Sunday departs at 4:30 pm, and we didn’t want to be stranded overnight, but still had a good stroll round and got a feel for this lovely island.

The Isle of Gigha has a total population of approx 150 people, and has been community-owned since 2002. One of the must-see attractions is the Achamore Gardens (honesty box entry) and we had plenty of time to walk to and have a look round the beautiful gardens – and dogs are allowed!

We’d just missed a music festival which was finishing as we arrived on the island, as evidenced by dead tents, sleeping bags, bin liners and other detritus scattered around. Camping is possible on Gigha – there is a field in front of the Gigha Hotel, but pre-booking is required with the Hotel. As we waited for the last ferry to arrive, the heavens opened and we took shelter in a very, er, basic waiting room in a shed. Meanwhile, our ‘van was back at Muasdale and a bottle of wine was chilling in the fridge.