Exploring Islay’s Wild Coastline // Secluded Beaches & Golden Sunsets

Welcome back to a new video. This week we're taking you along on a special journey to Islay, a stunning island off the west coast of Scotland. As you might know, Harvey and I have explored a few of Scotland's beautiful islands and it brings us so much joy to share these incredible places with our girls. Places that hold a special place in our hearts. There's something truly magical about starting a journey by boat. It's like stepping into an adventure, leaving the shore behind and watching the waves stretch into the horizon. The low hanging clouds added a perfect touch of atmosphere and as we saw the shore appear, we couldn't help but feel a growing sense of excitement for our week on Islay. Hello Islay, what do you want? What do you want? You can do another one. Oh is that yummy? Should we get it out? Hello and welcome back to another new video where we are still in beautiful Scotland. This week we are on Islay which is really exciting because I've never been here, Harvey has been here but only for like a very fleeting visit once a few years back and we're so excited to explore for the next week. We arrived here yesterday on the ferry and I've just had quite a slow morning and breakfast. I took us on a little walk down to the beach. Yeah we have all week so we're gonna do some hiking, Harvey's doing a wildlife tour, gonna take the kids to some beaches, gonna hopefully eat some nice seafood. So yeah that's our plan for this week really. What is that? It's a jellyfish. You want to show me? Yeah. Oh poor jellyfish. I know, he died. It's called a rock pool and sometimes there's crabs and shrimps and all kinds of things. And seahorses. And seahorses exactly that live in it. On our first day on Islay we decided to visit a few spots I'd read about. We started at Kilnorton Bay and walked out to Karikada Lighthouse which hopefully I'm pronouncing correctly. Fun fact it's actually Scotland's only square lighthouse. It's a really beautiful and easy place to visit and just beyond the lighthouse you can walk to the famous singing sands beach which gets its name because the sand literally sings or squeaks as you walk on it. The beach is secluded with rocky boulders that Aoife loved climbing on and it made the perfect spot to relax with a picnic for the afternoon. More jades! Good morning. We are here at the Macquarie and it's a beautiful day. We are slowly getting up. We're just about to head over for breakfast and then I think we're gonna head out for the day. It's another beautiful day and we've just got to make the most of it while it's here. So I think we're gonna walk over to Soldiers Rock which is about a 10k, 8k walk depending on where we start from. That should sort of take us the most of the day and then I think we'll come back to the hotel and and hang out with the kids. It was a really beautiful night last night. I ended up sneaking away after the kids went to bed. We got a sauna and they've also got a cold plunge pool so a couple of saunas, a couple of plunges then sit in the hot tub under a really really beautiful sky. It was pretty unreal actually. I haven't seen skies like that in ages. It's super clear and because there's hardly any light pollution out here then you can just see everything. Quite incredible. I didn't take a camera because there were a couple of other people around and it was a bit of a last minute dash. As you can imagine. So yeah I think head over, go get some breakfast, get ourselves sorted for the day and then make a move. Someone's ready for a walk. Someone else is ready for a walk. As Harvey mentioned briefly, we decided to do a hike to a place called Soldiers Rock on the Open Insula. We were able to start the hike right from the hotel but you can also begin it from Kintra Farm. Over about eight kilometers the trail crosses moorland and passes the remains of old crafting houses offering a glimpse into the island's past. So we're actually just walking through a scrub birch woodland at the moment. I haven't seen many woodlands like this kind of in the UK. I was reading a book recently which talked about when the Romans occupied the hillfort near the Howgill Fells which sits kind of in the dip where the M6 goes up and it talked about the local tribes would work their way through the scrub birch and attack the fort. It makes me wonder if woodland like this is what surrounded and covered the whole sort of Howgill Fells and parts of the Lake District at one point. How you getting on? As you can see here the path was pretty rough and got really boggy as well so we ended up taking quite a few detours and scrambling up a steep banking to get away from all of the bog. Eventually we did make it to Soldiers Rock and it was definitely worth it. A striking sea stack rising dramatically from the water surrounded by towering cliffs full of bird life and the wild seas crashing below. So we made it to Soldiers Rock and it is absolutely beautiful here. Definitely worth the hike but I have insisted to Harvey that we are not gonna have our lunch here because I don't want to let you throw out the backpack because there are just like steep drops into the ocean everywhere so we're gonna we've taken a load of pictures and enjoy the view and now we're gonna go have lunch somewhere a bit safer. We stopped for lunch at these interesting ruins. One thing we really loved about this hike was all the history along the way. We even took a small detour to visit a standing stone something we both agreed we've become more interested in as we've gotten older. Standing stones are ancient monuments often thousands of years old and they give such a powerful sense of connection to the people who once lived on this land. It also offered an incredible view down to the beach just below the hotel and the hotel itself where we'd walked from. Thank you Aoife. Well we got one for mummy, one for Aoife, one for daddy. Yay! Lyra can have milk. Lyra can have milk yeah. I'm going to have this one. That's as far as you fill it up. So we've come for dinner at the 18 restaurant at another place the hotel we're staying at tonight. It's really nice, the menu looks amazing, lots of seafood so very excited. Lyra's just gone to sleep so I am standing up rocking for the time being but hopefully we'll be able to sit down and enjoy my meal but just making sure she stays asleep and we've got the best table with this amazing view. Every moment I'm with you.