ISLES OF SCILLY MOTORING TRAVEL STORY

What would a motoring holiday be like in a part of Britain where you can't take your car? Jonathan Crouch finds out on the Isles of Scilly

You've probably never thought to visit Scilly. I hadn't, until Covid. Everything changed of course, with the onset of Corona Virus - including my choice of holiday destination for my family. Before, the prospect of visiting a part of Britain a three hour choppy sea ride away where I couldn't take my car might not have been appealing. But Covid makes you think differently. Scilly makes you think differently.

Yes, these isles are a bit remote. But at least getting to them doesn't involve the need to stand in a sweaty airport check-in queue or breathe homogenised aircraft oxygen. A big advantage in an era where we're all forced to walk around in public places looking like touareg desert dwellers. Never have Scilly's pure air and clear, unspoilt waters seemed so tempting.

In case, like me, you know very little of what one ancient writer once described as this 'small sweet world of wave-encompassed wonder', I'll tell you that the Isles Of Scilly comprise a cluster of five inhabited islands and over a hundred islets some twenty five miles west south-west of Lands End. They are very small, the largest island, St Mary's, being only two miles across at its widest part. For the visitor in winter they offer a climate as mild as the warmest parts of the Mediterranean Riviera. In summer, visitors can enjoy the sea, the sun, the sand and the relative solitude.



And the lack of traffic. There are cars on Scilly's islands of course, but only for the use of the indigenous population. There isn't actually a law against transporting a motor vehicle to the islands on one of ...