Isle of Arran

Arran is called Scotland in miniature because the Highland Boundary Fault runs across it: north of the line is granite mountain, with Goat Fell at 874 metres and a ridge of rough peaks, and south is rolling lowland farm country, so the two halves look like different countries. That geology made the island a teaching ground; James Hutton found an unconformity on the north coast in 1787 that supported his argument about geological time, and Hutton's Unconformity at Lochranza is still visited by student parties. A single road of about ninety kilometres runs round the island. Brodick Castle sits under Goat Fell with woodland gardens. The Machrie Moor standing stones, six circles on a moor with a Bronze Age landscape around them, are a walk in from the west coast road.

What you actually see

• The fault line - mountain to the north and farmland to the south of one boundary.
• Hutton's Unconformity - the rock contact at Lochranza that helped prove deep time.
• Machrie Moor - six stone circles on a Bronze Age moorland landscape.
• Goat Fell - a granite peak of 874 metres above Brodick.

When to go

April to October; ferries run year-round but cancel in weather and reduce in winter. The island is busy in July and August, and accommodation books ahead. Spring is good for the gardens and the hills.

Honest expectations

Ferry cancellations are common and can strand visitors on either side. The round-island road is single carriageway and slow. Goat Fell is a proper hill climb of nearly nine hundred metres. Accommodation and eating options are limited outside Brodick and Lamlash.

Nearby

The Kintyre peninsula lies west across Kilbrannan Sound; Ayrshire is east.