Where is it?
The Hebridean island of Coll.
Why do you go there?
Because every single time that ferry docks and I walk down the springing gangplank and breathe in the salt air, the seaweed and yes, the sheep s***, I think: “This was the right decision.” And it always is. I can’t think of anywhere else that happens.
How did you discover it?
Forced labour. My father has been building unusual things on the island since before I was born, so I first visited when I was tiny, pitching in with my bucket and spade.
But it was really only when I started going out there with him on work trips as a teenager that I began to fall under Coll’s spell. It has been drawing me back ever since.
What are your favourite memories?
Once I was walking along the road there with my wife Marisa, back when we first got together. It was a beautiful, golden summer evening, the kind that never really seems to end.
We were miles from the village, right out in the middle of nowhere, when a lad passing in a battered pick-up stopped to invite us to a party on the other side of the island. I know him a little now, but I didn’t then; he was just being friendly.
We hurried back to the cottage, grabbed a bottle and made our way there through the dunes (it’s not a very wide island), and bar the beasts we didn’t see another soul the whole way. The party went on and on, well into the wee small hours.
Eventually we staggered back hand in hand along the sand, the last of the midnight sun catching the waves frothing on the beach, so tired from laughing and dancing that we barely made it home. Just me and the girl I knew I was going to marry. That was special.
I’ve also worked there with my father, for weeks at a stretch sometimes, and often in the foulest weather imaginable. Getting soaked and chilled to the bone, chasing cartwheeling sheets of insulation across the saltmarsh, sliding around in wooden scaffolding.
There have been moments when we’ve laughed like fools because we were battling it together and there was almost nothing else that we could do. For me, those times are unforgettable too.
Who do you take?
The sun didn’t stop shining for a week the first time I took my wife and in 17 years her record remains unblemished. I’d be a fool not to take her.
What do you take?
Wellies, waterproofs, sunblock, single malt and cash for the lobsterman. Every single hat that I own.
Sum it up in five words.
Beautiful. Remote. Rugged. Soul cleansing.
What other travel spot is on your wish list?
Much as I love Coll, it is a little short on trees. So, if I’ve a wish to spend, perhaps I’d travel to the southwestern coast of Vancouver Island to see some of the largest living things in the world. Towering western red cedar, Douglas fir and Sitka spruce, many more than a thousand years old.
Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman by Callum Robinson (Doubleday, £22), is published on August 22
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