Ballygrant - Islay
Circular walk: 6.2 miles
what3words address for parking:
///stuffing.badminton.infinite
There is a small car park for four vehicles just opposite the Mulindry Road which is where w3w address will take you. There is a very good cafe a few yards away.
We walked this anti-clockwise. Walk along Mulindry Road (the village hall is signposted just along this road and there is a lot more parking here:
///cafe.shepherds.backlog).
Carry on past where the road forks along a track and then turn left towards Loch Ballygrant. There is a picnic table by a jetty shortly after you get to the water. The track continues, mostly through the edge of woodland (some very gnarly trees!),  with occasional views of the loch.
Eventually you arrive at the northern end of Lily Loch, so called because of the number of water lilies here. There is another strategically placed picnic table here with a lovely view along the water. We stopped here for lunch.
The track to reach this point is not the most interesting. It is roughly surfaced, tree-lined and very straight in sections which gives the impression of walking through a tunnel. I’d guess that this was once a (or the) road from Port Askaig to Ballygrant and has been left to decay since the new road was built.
Behind the picnic table a footpath leads north to meet up with the main road. I wasn’t looking forward to the section beside the A846 but it is mostly well shielded from the road and the views were actually more interesting than the earlier part of the walk. There were also numerous heavily laden blackberry bushes that were significantly less well-laden after we had passed.
We detoured at Keills to visit the ruined chapel and burial ground. The chapel is associated with St Columba. The ruins sit on, probably,  an earlier site. There’s not much left but there were interesting gravestones and the site was very atmospheric.
The separated footpath continues along the south-eastern side of the main road until you reach Ballygrant – and a welcome break in the cafe!
A pleasant walk; the first half less interesting than we’d anticipated and the second half more interesting.
walking
PeterHadfield on scottexservices.com