Running Islay (6): Port Ellen to Kilnaughton and Singing Sands (10k there & back)

The bay at Kilnaughton has one of the finest beaches on the south of Islay, and also includes historic cemeteries, a lighthouse and the hidden 'Singing Sands' beach. And its an easy run from Port Ellen.

Heading out from Port Ellen towards Bowmore there is a side road going off to the left towards the Port Ellen Maltings. Take this road and follow it as goes out of town and towards the Oa, basically just taking the left turns which keep you closest to the coast.

After about two miles you will see a number of cemeteries on the left side of the road, run past the last one and take the track to the left down to the sea.  

After passing the Kilnaughton Old Churchyard with its ruined chapel (above), you will come to the beach. This is worth exploring as is the churchyard and the adjacent Kilnaughton Military Cemetery

 This was made to bury the dead of the SS Tuscania, a ship sunk off Islay by a German torpedo in 1918 with more than 200 deaths - though most of the American dead buried there were later removed to the USA.

The beach at Kilnaughton

Running round to the right you come to the 1830s Carraig Fhada Lighthouse. You can go right up to it via a footbridge. I have seen seals there, others have seen sea otters, so look out for wildlife.

Doubling back, near to the lighthouse you will see a sign to the Singing Sands. If you follow this short path behind the houses and over the hill you will come to the secluded beach of this name (known in Gaelic though as Traigh Bhan = white beach).

Singing Sands

From Port Ellen to here and back is around 10k, mostly on road (strava of my run here)

This area has a special significance to me, having spent many happy hours on the beach from childhood. My grandparents Neil Orr (1906-1980) and Janet MacTaggart (d.1990) are buried in the Churchyard, and you can also take a rest there on a bench dedicated to my dad, Dugald Orr (1935-1997).

My grandparents with my dad and my auntie Jessie,
this must have been taken in Islay in late 1930s

See other Islay runs:

Running Islay: Bridgend Woods

Running Islay: Bowmore to Gartbreck
Running Islay: Bowmore to Cruach and beyond
Running Islay - The Big Strand

Running Islay - Three standing stones in three miles from Port Ellen

Cycling on Islay

Walking Beinn Bheigier: Islay's highest point

Running Islay (5): Three standing stones in three miles from Port Ellen

The Isle of Islay landscape features numerous standing stones and other archaeological sites, many of them fairly inaccessible by car, so running can be a good way of seeing some of them if you like combining your exercise with some antiquarian sightseeing.

 

This short three mile run loop from Port Ellen takes in three standing stones, and indeed some other sites along the way. 

I started in Port Ellen in Lennox Street near to the Primary School. Heading out of town towards  Lagavulin the second turning on the left is a one lane road that heads towards Kilbride farm

Detail from OS Map of area

 

The first standing stone is in a field on the right, very close to the road and shortly after the junction. It is next to a mound.

 

Shortly after this the map shows Cill Tobar Lasrach (church of the well of Lasrach), indicating the remains of an ancient chapel.

 

Further along the road crosses the Kilbride river and there are the remains of a more recent church nearby (Cill Bhride means Bride's church - presumably St Brigit of Ireland)

 

River Kilbride

 

If you follow the road up to Kilbride farm, the second standing stone is visible in a field on the right.

 

 

After visiting the stone, double back on yourself and head back along the road in the direction you came from. Shortly after the river there is a road/track heading off to the left.

 

 

Just keep following this road and you will eventually come across the third stone in a field on the left - leaning as if it has been imbibing the produce of the nearby Laphroiag distillery.

  

If you keep going the track rejoins the main Port Ellen to Lagavulin road opposite a small bay. Cross over and turn right and you can follow the recently-built path alongside the road back into Port Ellen. 

 

 

map of my route from Strava

See other Islay runs:


Running Islay: Bridgend Woods

Running Islay: Bowmore to Gartbreck
Running Islay: Bowmore to Cruach and beyond
Running Islay - The Big Strand
Running Islay: Port Ellen to Kilnaughton and Singing Sands

Cycling on Islay


Walking Beinn Bheigier: Islay's highest point



Burns Night Running Thoughts

I've had the (vegetarian) haggis and have the bottle of Bruichladdich ready to tuck into for Burns Night. Don't think I'll be doing any running, but pleased to see that in Westbrook, Maine (USA) they held a Robert Burns 10k Road Race  in the snow last night with more than 100 runners, some  kilt clad, raising money for a local school:

'"I like Robert Burns a lot," co-director of the 10k, Ned Swain, said as he explained why he chose to name the race after the late poet. "It's a holiday that doesn't have much associated with it aside from haggis and kilts and his poetry. How can you hate that?" (Runners don kilts for Robert Burns 10k)

Not aware of any Burns running poems as such, but I think these lines are inspirational enough for all those who 'drudge an' drive thro' wet and dry': 

'What tho', like commoners of air, 

We wander out, we know not where, 

But either house or hal', 

Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods, 

The sweeping vales, and foaming floods, 

Are free alike to all. 

In days when daisies deck the ground, 

And blackbirds whistle clear, 

With honest joy our hearts will bound, 

To see the coming year...


Think ye, that sic as you and I,
Wha drudge and drive thro' wet and dry,
Wi' never ceasing toil;
Think ye, are we less blest than they,
Wha scarcely tent us in their way,
As hardly worth their while?'

(Epistle to Davie, a Brother Poet) 

Bagpipes at the finish line (photo from Robert Burns 10k facebook page)

More running related literature:

Jack Kerouac running down a mountain

'These forms who hasten by' - runners on the Pilgrims Way, 1920s

'You just had to run' - Karl Ove Knausgaard

Morrissey - List of the Lost

Running in the Railway Children

A Midsummer Night's Running

Running to Paradise - W B Yeats

The Sky of a Saturday Morning - John Updike

The Road is a Strange Country - Rebecca Solnit

The Runner - W H Auden

Once a Runner - John L Parker jr

Louisa May Alcott - 'A Joy to Run'

Running Islay (4): The Big Strand

The Big Strand on the Isle of Islay is just what it says - a continous sandy beach stretching for six miles from Laggan to Kintra, with the sea on one side and sand dunes, then peat bog, on the other.

There are several places from where you can readily access the beach - from Kintra at its southern end, via Laggan Estate at its north (as explained at Islay Info), or by the airport. I did the latter - heading south on the main road from Bowmore to Port Ellen there's a track immediately before the airport on the right. If you go down to the end you come to grassy dunes and the beach beyond (if driving go slow, the surface is very uneven but passable).

I ran south (left) from this point, down to the end of the bay at Kintra and back - a 5 mile run. Apart from one dog walker I didn't see another soul until I got to Kintra where some children were playing on the beach by the campsite there.

It's a great place for a beach run, with the sand generally fairly firm. There are a few points where shallow streams run in to sea, so you will need to get your feet wet  - I ran barefoot for a while.

There was one hazard I hadn't expected - being dive bombed by terns! Like other birds they nest on the shore and they clearly don't like you getting too near. None of them actually made physical contact with me, though they came close, but I did hear that a walker recently received a head cut from terns on that stretch.

This house is at the southern end of the bay at Kintra. I think this is where my grandad Neil Orr was born in 1906. That's me and him at the bottom.

See also:

Running Islay: Bridgend Woods

Running Islay: Bowmore to Gartbreck
Running Islay: Bowmore to Cruach and beyond
Running Islay - The Big Strand

Running Islay - three standing stones in three miles from Port Ellen

Cycling on Islay
Running Islay: Port Ellen to Kilnaughton and Singing Sands


Walking Beinn Bheigier: Islay's highest point

Running Islay (3) : Bowmore to Cruach and beyond (12k)

This road run follows the beginning of the Islay half marathon course, but instead of heading  on down towards the airport it loops back to Bowmore with a distance of just over 12k (7.5 miles).

The run starts off in the centre of Bowmore, heading up Main Street, and then following the road round to the right as it passes the famous round church on the left. But immediately past the church, instead of continuing on the main road, there is a road on the left signposted to Cruach. Takes this undulating road as it passes the cemetery and heads out into open country.

The first four and a half km follows this quiet single track road, passing just a few houses and farm buildings at Cruach. I couldn't resist briefly coming off my route to run to the top of this little hill which you pass on your left as you come up to the 3 km mark - the hill is marked on the detailed OS map as 'Sithean Mor' ('the big fairy knoll'). I just ran up the track pictured and then back down again on to the road.

Sithean Mor

The road continues past Loch Tallant on the left (pictured below), before coming to an end where it meets the high road from Bowmore to Port Ellen (B8016). This single lane road is nowhere near as busy as the main road (the A486) but it has been resurfaced in recent years so does attract some traffic. As elsewhere on Islay narrow roads, keep your wits about you and your headphones off if you don't want to have to jump out of the way of a distillery lorry or other vehicle. At the junction turn left (as opposed to the Islay half marathon route which turns right here).

Loch Tallant

Stay on this road for another 4 km or so, until it meets the main road between Bowmore and Bridgend. At this point turn left and follow the road back into Bowmore, with Lochindaal on your right.

Back in Bowmore, if you are in need of post-run refreshment I recommend the excellent coffee and cake upstairs in the Celtic House on the corner of Shore Street and Main Street.

For zoomable map, see this route at mapmyrun

See also:

Running Islay: Bridgend Woods

Running Islay: Bowmore to Gartbreck
Running Islay - The Big Strand

Running Islay - three standing stones in three miles from Port Ellen
Running Islay: Port Ellen to Kilnaughton and Singing Sands

Cycling on Islay


Walking Beinn Bheigier: Islay's highest point

Running Islay (2): Bowmore to Gartbreck (8k)

This is a run along the coast to the south west of Bowmore, about 8k (5 miles) there and back - though it might feel like longer as you have to watch your footing for rocks and pebbles.

Starting off in the centre of Bowmore, head up School Street alongside the distillery (the road to the left in picture below).

As you pass the distillery buildings you will see a patch of grass on the right, head diagonally across it and you will join the path along the coast. Just outside Bowmore you will come to what is known as the Battery (below) so called because it was once the site of an armed lookout point to defend Islay from seaborne attack. It is said that John Paul Jones, the Scottish-born American Revolutionary War sailor, menaced the seas around Islay in 1778.

Following the track beyond here there is a narrow section (watch out for brambles etc.) which brings you out at the edge of a pebble beach:

The rest of the outward run consists of following the shore, in most cases on the edges of the beach but on occasions following the trail over grass toward the next bit of shoreline. 

There is lots of wildlife to see, including geese and oyster catchers galore and on the rocks off the coast you may spot seals (I did).

Keep following the coast until you come close to Gartbreck Farm, there is a path leading up from the shore to the buildings.

Head through the gate at the side of Gartbreck and follow the track from there. Gartbreck is currently quiet with some derelict buildings, but planning permission has been granted to develop a new whisky distillery on site

After a while the track becomes a narrow road all the way back to Bowmore, though I didn't see any vehicles on it on my run.

Map of route with KM markers - for zoomable map go of route go to mapmyrun

When I finished my run I put my feet up and watched the Commonwealth Games marathons from Glasgow, including a good performance from Susan Partridge (6th in the women's race). Susan started out running on similar terrain to Islay around Oban on the mainland.

Susan Partridge (left) in Glasgow 2014

see also:

Running Islay: Bridgend Woods
Running Islay - Bowmore to Cruach and beyond
Running Islay - The Big Strand

Running Islay - three standing stones in three miles from Port Ellen
Running Islay: Port Ellen to Kilnaughton and Singing Sands

Cycling on Islay


Walking Beinn Bheigier: Islay's highest point

Running Barmore Island, Loch Fyne

I stayed in Tarbert, Loch Fyne, earlier this week waiting to get the ferry to Islay next day, and managed to get in a short early morning run around Barmore Island. 

Barmore Island

It's not strictly an island, as its joined by a causeway to the land, but apart from that it is surrounded by the Loch.

Causeway from the Island, with Stonefield Castle Hotel in the woods

A track runs all the way round the island, which makes it ideal for running, though you really need to pause to admire some of the views and perhaps observe the wildlife, such as gannets diving into the Loch.

sunrise from Barmore Island

The trail is mainly flat with a short hilly section. I just turned left when I got on to the island, and followed the track round. There is a short rocky section that involves cutting across the shore that looks like it might be more difficult at high tide.

hilly bit of the trail

 The distance round the island is probably about 1200m, you could run as many laps as you like or extend the run as I did by taking in the wooded grounds of the adjacent Stonefield Castle Hotel.If you were staying in Tarbert you could add in a run from the town turning off the main road where the Hotel is signposted and heading down to the Loch (see Walkhighlands for map)

The snooker table in the Stonefield Castle Hotel, made by H.Nelmes & Co. of Glasgow
(the food at the Hotel restaurant is excellent by the way)