We woke up to brilliant sunshine, which I felt was an appropriate compensation for being delayed on Islay for an extra day! After a very nice breakfast using the ingredients provided in the luxury kitchen of the apartment, we packed up and headed to Machir Beach on the west coast of the island. We went on a circular walk recommended by the Walk Highlands website. This started at the ruined church with its intricately carved Celtic cross in its graveyard, and continued through a field with lots of sheep and lambs, whom we were careful not to disturb, then up the hill. Eventually we arrived at the beach. Oh boy was it beautiful, a long sandy beach and blue, blue sea, with waves lapping gently on the shore. We had a picnic sitting on the sand dunes with a flask of coffee. It really was idyllic. Then we went to the nearby Kilchoman Distillery, a modern and (to us) lesser known Islay distillery. What a find! It is the most nicely set up (for visitors) distillery that we have seen so far. It is really spacious and smartly decorated with a big circular fire and comfy armchairs, and tables made out of the tops of whisky barrels. It even has a wee restaurant with a lovely display of baking. We didn’t take a tour but James was given two wee complimentary drama of whisky which he drank before his tea and cake, and we had a good look round. And then it was time to make our way to the airport for our flight, which was initially delayed by 50 minutes, but the pilot made up some time so we arrived back to Glasgow less than half an hour late. Another bonus of our unplanned extra day on Islay was that the lovely weather today enabled us to see lots of islands and coast during our flight - yesterday would have been too cloudy.
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