“Three quartzite peaks across the water, pale enough to catch the light from miles off — the view that gave Ardnahoe's own café its reputation as much as the whisky does.”
From beside Ardnahoe's visitor centre, the Sound of Islay opens out to Jura's three Paps: Beinn an Òir, Beinn Shiantaidh, and Beinn a' Chaolais, rising to 785, 757, and 734 metres. Quartzite scree gives them their pale, conical shape — visible on a clear day from as far as the Mull of Kintyre and Skye, let alone from here. No walk required: just stand at the car park, or better, take it in from Ardnahoe's own glass-fronted café upstairs.
- Uninterrupted view of all three Paps of Jura across the Sound of Islay
- Beinn an Òir, Beinn Shiantaidh, and Beinn a' Chaolais, rising to 785m, 757m, and 734m
- Sgriob na Caillich, a two-mile Ice Age moraine, visible on Beinn an Òir's flank
- No walk required — view it from the car park or Ardnahoe's own café upstairs
Look along Beinn an Òir's flank and you can make out Sgriob na Caillich — "the old woman's slide" — a two-mile streak of parallel boulder ridges left behind as the ice sheet retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, reckoned the finest example of its kind in Britain and best seen from along this stretch of Islay's coast. The "old woman" is the Cailleach, Scotland's hag-goddess of winter — the same figure behind a separate, older legend just up the coast, where she's said to wash her great plaid each year in the Corryvreckan whirlpool between Jura and Scarba to bring in the new season.