Log Cabin Export – Islonia

The Journey Begins

I took a road trip for our family holiday this year. A road trip to Scotland taking a slow week to get there, and a quicker route to get back. There were ulterior motives though! Perhaps, rather sadly, they were Log Cabin and customer related (even on holiday!). The majority of our Log Cabin export we found were in Islonia (Dry Island).

We have been dealing with a lovely customer periodically over the last few years;

Mr McWhinney has been a customer since 2013 and he has ordered four log cabins from us over this time. Jos, my wife who looks after sales, was fascinated with his stories, where and what the log cabins were being used for, and had built up quite a rapport.

Jos suggested this should be at least one of the places we visit whilst in Scotland. We’re both clueless when it comes to our buildings and what finally happens to them after we have delivered them. We have the big build up, the delivery and then rarely hear anything again. As a result, it’s always nice to see what happens to them, the ongoing story of their life and the people behind them.

Unbeknown to Jos or I, we were actually visiting Royalty and another country even. So we had been exporting our log cabins all this time without knowing it! Whoops…

Our destination was Dry Island in Badachro, Scotland.

Exploring Dry Island… and Cabins

The story developed once we were there and discovered that in 2010 Dry Island was declared a Micronation and was now named Islonia, with Mr McWhinney and his wife the King and Queen of the nation!

Jos had been primarily fascinated with the Shellfish safaris that were run from the Island and she quickly booked this up when we arrived at our cottage in Badachro and after visiting our first Islonian log cabin known as the ‘Islonia Embassy’.

The Lennart Log Cabin is ideally suited as an ’embassy’ and somewhere for Islonia customers to book up their Shellfish Safari, strong and sturdy at 58mm and double glazed, it does make a rather splendid embassy!

I always like to check installations of log cabins when I see them just in case and although this one is perfect, I would prefer to see a storm kit applied to it. It is rather exposed on the quay side. Although fixed down to the base, the canopy at the front is rather large. So I will be sending out one for the Embassy.

Opposite the Islonia embassy was another cabin that looked suspiciously like one of our Clockhouse Log Cabin, it is the identical building but I didn’t get to speak to the owners to be sure.

Crossing the Border

Having booked our trip, we headed for the island across the incredible floating bridge. It’s known as the ‘bridge over the Atlantic’.

After the bridge we were met with our second log cabin:

Shellfish Safari

We boarded the Zephyr, one of Mr McWhinnie’ boats;

I highly recommend this tour if you are in the area, links to this are above. Mr McWhinnie was very welcoming and invited us to see the other two log cabins he had from us. One was being used for ‘Glamping‘. We had tried to book this for ourselves but was fully booked all year so get in early!

Coventry Log Cabin

The ‘Bothy’ as it was referred to (Bothies are to be found in remote, mountainous areas of Scotland, Northern England, Ireland and Wales.) was well hidden on the island, a gorgeous, hidden retreat and one I will stay in one day.

Our fourth and last log cabin was a little harder to see, we approached it from the water in a small boat.

This is my personal blog but I cannot bore you more with pictures of my holiday. Suffice to say Mr McWhinnie’s and Islonia is a lovely place to visit – if you are in the area please pop in or better still enjoy our cabin and the Islonia Experience

Isle of Skye

I had tried to visit other customers in Scotland while I was there but never want to intrude, I visited the Isle of Skye and saw our cabin at the Skye Shepherd Huts.

Mr McWhinnie and I agreed one of our Shepherd Huts would be great for Glamping on the islands…

We also agreed other plans for a year or two ahead. We will supply an Edelweiss as a bigger project for glamping and holiday lets in the area. I look forward to exporting an Edelweiss to the Island or surrounding areas:

Final Finds

Before I leave this post, Badachro showed up two other interesting things;

One … the timber frame base used on the Coventry log cabin but a better one locally which was amazing …

And lastly …… our Log Cabin Roof Shingles being used on several houses locally …… these are amazing shingles and often we offer free shingles with log cabins.

We rarely hear from customers once we have delivered the product. We love to hear the stories and adventures and to follow up with a story of what happens next and maybe even visit. If you would like to feature in my blog please let me know.