42. Twin Beaches

Gigha’s famous Twin Beaches sit either side of a tombolo, a thin strip of land which connects the main island from the tiny outcrop of Eileen Garbh. To be formal, we have Bagh na Doirlinne facing north, and Bagh na Rubha Ruaidh facing south. The north beach is the most impressive. On a summer’s day like this, I couldn’t think of anywhere better to be. Some campers at the far end of the beach had obviously felt the same way. To get the iconic shot of both beaches I had to scramble up an almost vertical rock face, covered with thorns until surprisingly coming across a 6-rung metal ladder which someone had helpfully lodged against a large slab of rock to enable the climber to get to the ledge high enough to capture the view. That was handy. A lone camper at the foot of the cliff was looking for somewhere to pitch for the night (clearly a little peeved that the other campers had nabbed the best spots on the north beach). I told him about Palm Tree beach and he set off in that direction. For me, it was back to the main (only) road, and a lovely 4 mile walk down to the Gigha Hotel for haddock and chips.