Cool place of the week: Ardnish, Scotland

Go off the grid in this secluded 3000-acre Scottish haven, complete with a cosy cottage and your own boat
Martin Dunford20 January 2017

Peter is a lucky man. Not so long ago he inherited 3000 acres or so of the remote Ardnish peninsula on the west coast of Scotland along with a house (Laggan) from which to enjoy it. It's an amazing place, as remote a spot as you'll find in the British Isles – and, as Peter says himself, not for everyone.

But its drawbacks may just be the things that draw you here. You can only get here by boat, and even then only when the tides allow; it has no electricity; there's a very limited mobile reception and of course no broadband or phone; and you're a half-day's walk from your nearest neighbour.

In short, a visit here has to be well planned. If this sort of thing appeals to you, however, you can be sure that there are few other such places available for rent in Britain, and almost none that deliver quite so much peace, space and solitude.

It's also not quite as primitive as you might expect: having no electricity simply means that you have to use the oil lamps for light; it has heating, there is a fridge, cooker, hot water – heated by a very efficient wood-burning stove – a radio for listening to the shipping forecast and two comfy bedrooms plus a box room that between them can sleep 5 people.

You obviously have to be very organised about provisions – no popping out for a pint of milk here, and it's a three-hour hike to borrow a cup of sugar – but the boat (with outboard) is there for your own private use and it's only a ten-minute journey across to the mainland.

As for the hinterland of Ardnish, it's pretty much yours to discover – almost entirely deserted, and populated mainly by herds of deer, who roam a landscape that's made up of bare hills, patches of forest, several lochs, a fabulous coastline and your own pure white sand beach.

A long day's walking (or just pottering about) without seeing a soul, before returning to your own cosy cottage is sometimes just what the soul needs.

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