The first signs of human civilization on Jura dates back to around 11000-8000BC to the Mesolothic age just after the last ice-age. ![]() Jura is best described by the famous words of the novelist George Orwell who stayed on the island at Barnhill during the 1940s, who chose to describe it as an "extremely un-getatable place"!, so in case you are looking to be amidst the last remaining traces of wilderness in Scotland, do not look beyond Jura! but there are miles of superb beaches, wild mountain scenery, numerous archeological treasures and long hours of summer day light in whcih to appreciate it all! ![]() Much of the interior is bleak peat bog, rocks and endless tiny lochs and the long struggling crofting communities only add to the feeling of desolution. Relentlessly battered by fierce Atlantic winds, the islands can seem a hostile environment and an unappealing proposition,particularly if you happen to be stuck there on a wet Sunday without your own means of transport. The short ferry crossing from neighbouring Islay takes you into another world, pervaded by an almost haunting silence. Rather appropriately, the name Jura derives from the Norse 'dyr-ey', meaning deer island. ![]() The words 'wild' and 'remote' tend to get overused in describing the many Hebridean islands, but in the case of Jura they are, if anything, an understatement.One of Scotland's last wildernesses, Jura has one road, one hotel, six sporting estates and 5,000 red deer, which outnumber the 200 people by 25:1, the human population having been cleared to turn the island into a huge deer forest.
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