The lodge opened a year ago, and among the first visitors were Edinburgh novelist Alexander McCall Smith and his family, watching the island sports in relentless rain, then meeting the same crowd at a ceilidh in the village hall two nights later. He records how the island’s champion shotputter kept his title for the 11th year running.

This month, Scottish writer Janice Galloway is in residence, following Will Self and American Philip Gourevitch who both spent a month each at the lodge earlier this year. At other times, it is hired out for £5,000 a week, or £2,500 for weekends.

"It is just perfect," Gourevitch told me. "The landscape and scale of skies are what makes the island: there is a feeling of immensity and it is a place without distractions."

They were the characteristics which attracted Jura's most famous resident writer, George Orwell, who arrived in 1946 to write 1984, living at Barnhill in the remote nothern tip of Jura. We walked there one day from the point where the road runs out and tried to image Orwell in his pony and trap barrelling along the track, whisky and foolscap to hand to the house, nestled in its own valley and looking out over the Jura Firth.

On another drizzly afternoon we drove the mile or two to Jura House and its remarkable gardens, past seals basking on the rocks. Which is about all there is to do on the island: you walk, drink whisky, go fishing and retire to the lodge. And write, because the island inspires you to.

ISLAY

We stayed a couple of nights on the island on the way back from Jura, and should have spent longer. One night was spent at the island's most fashionable hotel, the Port Charlotte Hotel, the other at the excellent Kilmeny guesthouse on a working farm (£50pp).

Co-incidentally, the owner of Kilmeny was named Blair after Orwell (Orwell's real name was Eric Blair) as he spent his childhood on Jura when the author was in residence and the family became friends. One of Orwell's chairs sits in Kilmeny now.

After Jura, Islay's networks of good roads and an airport was a marked change. The island is predominantly agriculture based but is diversifying and looking more to tourism. There is plenty to commend. We spent a happy hour or two at the Islay Wildlife Information Centre: Islay is renowned for its spectacle of migrating bird arrivals.

After lunch at The Coach House next door, we drove to Portnhaven, and stopped for coffee at the An Tigh Seinnse pub - which has a frightening hot chocolate with marshmallows. This is the far western end of the island, so remote that I got a "Welcome to Ireland" text message from T-Mobile. Like Port Charlotte, it is a model village, all slate roofs, white walls and coloured doors and frames.

We also called in at Islay House, where outbuildings have been given over to local businesses. The Islay Brewery is there and, heathen that I am, bought some fine bitter and didn't visit any of the island's distilleries. The kitchen gardens at Islay House are run by volunteers who sell their produce: now they have their eyes on taking over Islay House itself, which is for sale.

Everyone we met was chatty and hospitable - "you can tell the tourists because they don't wave back," said our host at Kilmeny. We ate well on scallops and langoustines at the Harbour Inn in the island's capital, Bowmore, and tried and failed to get into the recommended Loch Side Hotel for a meal but it was full. If we'd only had a third night....

NEED TO KNOW

Information: There is a walking festival on Islay and Jura in April. Reading: Jura, a guide for walkers by Gordon Wright (Dolphin Press, £2.75).

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