My Own Private Island

"You're going south from Nottingham to London to get to Glasgow? And then taking a bus, two ferries and a final seven mile walk before you get to where you're staying? Remind me of the attraction again?"

The attraction is the remote Scottish island of Jura - a place of isolation, myth and devastating scenery. And of course, the bonus start to a journey of the Caledonia Sleeper from Euston, leaving behind London on a frantic Friday night, waking up nestled in Glasgow's Central Station. Another country for sure and still a day's further travel to get to Jura and its 150 residents.

Long known as the home of George Orwell when he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four and a land well suited to the creative imagination that novel represents, Jura is a location of contradictions that gets under your skin - hard to reach but feels immediately like home; far north but bathed in the Gulf Stream; a walkers' paradise with just one official footpath.

A brief trip up the main (only) road on the island away from the capital Craighouse, pass Three Arch Bridge and then a fingerpost clearly indicates "Evans Walk". The sign is about the only clear thing about the route for the next two days. Boggy and tussocky with plenty of false friends of 4x4 tracks you will slowly be able to make progress, little by little, with the horizon and the sea always ahead of you. An old crofter's fence is a good way-mark (or frustrating barrier according to which point you meet it) and as the sun is beginning to slip down from its apex you'll have the security of being able to navigate by the river to your right, only briefly impeded by shoulder high ferns.

The sight of Glenbatrick Bay will shortly appear on the horizon, an impressive family home with well tended lawns framed by the golden beach and calm sea ahead of you. The house is still owned by the Astor family and local legend has it that Mandy Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler were spirited away here during the height of the Profumo Affair.

As across all of Scotland, wild camping is permitted and in this location highly recommended.

As you set up your tent and start to think about something to eat, the political dramas of the 1960s will feel more than fifty years ago. As the sun starts to slip down behind the raised ice-age beaches behind you, work and family commitments will feel more than 400 miles away. And as the sound of the sea becomes the only reference point around you'll wish you could stay longer than one night.