Anyone from Britain who finds themselves longing to escape the drear for island life, somewhere with deserted beaches and turquoise shallows, would be well advised to look closer to home. Britain has more than 6,000 islands, and Lewis & Harris, in the Outer Hebrides, must be one of the loveliest of them all.
It is an island of two halves. The Isle of Harris is the southern part, narrowly joined to its northern neighbour and blessed with spectacular beaches, wildflower-carpeted moorlands, and mountainous lunar landscapes. Scarista Beach is one of its best beaches: an immense space, made up of miles of shell-scattered pale-gold sand, backed with dunes and lapped by waters that look decidedly un-Scottish (though a wetsuit might be advisable outside of summer months). Seals play in the waves; eagles can be spotted wheeling overhead; deer stroll down almost to the beach.
WHERE TO STAY NEAR SCARISTA BEACH
Blue Reef Cottages, at the back of the beach, are built to blend harmoniously in with the landscape: low and rocky and covered in grass and wildflowers, as though part of the scenery themselves. Inside they are stylish, decorated in natural wood and stone, with jacuzzis, saunas and log fires, and long windows to let the sweeping, dramatic outside in. Stay here and feel as though the beach is yours, barely another building to mar the view. And at night, the skies are bright with stars.
