The white-sand beaches of Inner Hebridean Colonsay are hardly crowded, even in summer, but Tràigh Bàn or Balnahard, being a sheltered bay that little bit further from the beaten track, is very special.
The 3½-mile walk across the machair from An Crosan takes you past a healing well used by 6th-century St Columba, a Gruagach Stone (leave an offering of milk and the ancient fairy queen will watch over your cattle), a Bronze Age house and Iron Age fort.
Time your arrival at beautiful Balnahard to low tide for a glimpse of the remains of wooden steamship SS Wasa, which was beached in 1920 after a fire. Its timbers and cast-iron hull still jut dramatically from the sand. The view past Mull and the Firth of Lorne to Jura is equally impressive.
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