Scottish anchorages

Jura

Kinuachdrachd Harbour, a lush bay on the northeast tip of Jura, is a lovely quiet spot. There is a small restored pier in the southern corner, for reasons I know not. The main and rather essential thing to do is to walk 30 minutes south to Barnhill. This is where George Orwell lived when he was writing Nineteen Eighty Four (it is now a holiday rental property). The book was actually written in 1948 and so Orwell set it in 1984 by changing around the last two digits. He surely can't have had the idea of the book here, about as far away as one can get from civilisation in the UK and still have a roof over your head - it is the last but one house on the island, surrounded by deciduous woods and fields. Mind you, Barnhill is a fairly substantial farmhouse, belonging at the time to David Astor who was a friend of Orwell's, but by all accounts it was not at all comfortable. There is no tarmac road so far north, just a cart track suitable for Land Rovers and the like.