Seven Days on the Isle of Coll, Scotland

By Paul Bryers, June 10, 2026

Days 1–3: The Annual Pilgrimage, The Attrition, The Disaster and The Recovery

The annual family pilgrimage to the Isle of Coll is upon us. A little earlier in the season than usual. That’s fine. Coll will be Coll regardless of date: windswept, beautiful, and entirely indifferent to our scheduling preferences.

Pre-booking, we were looking at approximately eight participants. Not a bad turnout for a family of 18.75 people. (I acknowledge the 0.75. There is context. There is always context. We shall leave it there.)

18.75 became 8 fairly on; Humphhhhh….

Eight became five as departure approached, family duties having intervened in the way they do – silently, inevitably, and with impeccable timing.

Five felt manageable. Five is a solid number for Coll. Five can occupy a beach, navigate a ferry, and reach consensus on dinner.

Then came Day One.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sunday evening was spent in Oban, which is to say it was spent correctly. Oban in the evening is a particular pleasure – the bay, the distillery, the McCaig’s Folly brooding on the hill like a Roman emperor who took a wrong turn somewhere north of Stirling. We were refreshed and optimistic. We had no idea what was coming.

Monday. Six o’clock. The alarm. The ferry departs at 7:15 am, and CalMac waits for no one – not even a family reduced from 18.75 to 5 who have been awake since the middle of the night rehearsing their packing.

We arrived at Coll at ~ 9:55 am, as scheduled, as civilised, as calm as five people can be after a ferry crossing.

Straight to Arrol House, where we stayed last year, and which remains a genuinely lovely place to be – beautiful setting, comfortable rooms, and a proprietorial warmth that the island seems to breed.

We headed to Wall Beach at noon.

And here we must pause.

Here we must observe a moment of quiet respect for the remainder of the group, because what happened next – what happened at Wall Beach on a sunny Monday lunchtime on the Isle of Coll – changed the arithmetic of the holiday irrevocably.

One of our party fell.

Several loud cracks were heard.

Not good cracks. Not the crack of, say, a twiglet, it indeed a twig underfoot, or a sharp breeze off the Atlantic, or the particular percussion of a windbreak being erected.

Oh no.

A crack of the variety that causes everyone present to look at each other with an expression that means: that sounded expensive.

The next boat back to Oban. X-rays. Inverness. The full procedure. A boy is now on and recovery has started.

And so, then there were three.

Mum, Paul, and Niall — the survivors, the remnant, the hardened core of a once-mighty expedition of 18.75 / regarded one another across the sands of Wall Beach and silently agreed: we carry on. We are Scottish and we carry on until the end! Freedom!

We stayed for another three hours at Wall Beach. Lunch was produced. It was windy, not the lunch, but the weather.

Coll windy, which is a category of its own – and the windbreaks went up with the practised speed of people who have done this before and know better than to argue with the elements.

The sky was bright; the air was cool; and then, with the inevitability of all Hebridean afternoons, came the drip.

Then drop. Then drip.

We retreated under the rock face and stood there like a small, resolute geological feature ourselves, watching the rain, eating our sandwiches, and declining to be defeated.

Eventually we returned to Arrol House.

Pre-drinks were taken. A lasagne of genuine distinction appeared, as if by consolatory magic. We retired to the lounge, found the whisky, and reminisced. The evening, against all odds, was excellent.

Tuesday was a late start, which was the very least Tuesday owed us.

Feall Bay.

A long, sweeping stretch of Atlantic beach at the west end of the island – the kind of beach that makes you understand why people become obsessed with the Hebrides and start googling building plots.

Oops, awwwww….

We walked it end to end, which is the only right way to walk it, and lounged for a while in that restorative manner only available to people who have recently survived personal catastrophe and are owed a sit-down.

Lunch was had.

Then a further walk along the three-quarter mile beach, exposed to the elements in every meaningful sense.

The stingers were out. Dead.

The shells were remarkable.

Niall and Mum looked quite yachty on the beach…

The small ground flowers that push up through the machair – technically sea rocket and bird’s-foot trefoil, but I prefer to think of them simply as the island’s way of showing off — were enchanting.

I love them. I cannot explain this. I simply love them.

Then there were some magic mushrooms in a cow pat – nope!

In the evening we went to the Isle of Coll Hotel.

The Isle of Coll Hotel is, under normal circumstances, a place of good cheer, reliable food, and the kind of atmosphere that makes you forgive the weather.

These were not normal circumstances.

The venison was dry. The venison was chewy. The venison had, at some earlier point in its existence, presumably been quite good, but whatever had happened to it in the intervening period was a matter between the kitchen and its conscience.

The staff, it must be noted, had left their personalities elsewhere. Perhaps in storage. Perhaps lending them to another establishment.

We ate, we paid, we left, and we resolved — with a unanimity that required no discussion — that Saturday’s dinner at The Urchin, the new restaurant we had heard encouraging things about, would be better. It could not be worse.

Wednesday brought Struan Beach and a return to form.

The beach was magnificent, the weather was bright in that bracing Hebridean way that puts colour in your cheeks and sand in places you won’t discover until Thursday, and the mood was restored.