It's a mini adventure in Arran

“This is a great place for spotting wildlife,” he says, wide eyes scanning the shoreline, like a sniper searching for his target.

“It’s brilliant for birds, and there are always seals – though mostly grey ones. The common seals are less, err ... common, but there are still more in these waters than anywhere else in the country.”

I join the search, paddling lightly as I glide across the still waters of this protected marine reserve. And while the seals are, on this occasion, either absent, or doing a good trick at masquerading as rocks, the birds are indeed everywhere.

I spy an oystercatcher, strutting along the beach, as if showing off its comically overgrown scarlet beak to the assembled feathered talent.

I paddle lightly to the shore for a closer look, only for an enormous seagull to whistle past my left ear and torpedo into the sea just inches away, disappearing in an explosion of foam.

I flinch, fearing a Hitchcockian aerial attack, only for the gull to emerge empty-beaked, heading straight for me, arcing over my head at the last second and disappearing into the clear blue sky.

Excitement over, silence returns. Utter silence.

If there’s one thing Arran does well, it’s silence. From the sheltered bays of the south to the towering highlands of the north there is a palpable sense of calm.

Among the most southerly of Scotland’s isles, Arran – Gaelic for ‘peaked island’ – is also one of the easiest, and most rewarding to visit. The old cliché, uttered like a mantra, is that this is ‘Scotland in miniature’. That means it has a taste of everything you can find in the rest of the country – a kind of Scottish Greatest Hits, if you will.

So it has some flat bits, some hilly bits, a lot of rocky bits, a few soggy bits and one or two dizzyingly terrifying bits. It also has sandy beaches, prehistoric standing stones (older than Stonehenge, don’t you know), towering cliffs, thick forests, waterfalls and a couple of suitably romantic castles – one intact, one ruined.

The only thing it doesn’t have is a town of any size. Indeed there is a distinct lack of any of the trappings of 21st century urban culture – fine by me.

More surprisingly, on my visit, it also lacked something else – rain. And, if the locals are to be believed, this is not unusual.

Yep, grit your teeth, because while England has suffered a depressing summer of rain and overcast skies, the good people of Arran, have enjoyed a heatwave. No, really.

Now, no one is claiming this is the Corfu of the north, but this island in the Gulf Stream does have a knack of dodging the showers.

“It can be lashing it down on the mainland, but beautifully sunny here,” says my taxi driver George Lammie – a man who prides himself on his local knowledge – and is keen to spread it.

(I mean, where else would a cabbie order you out of his car on a remote hilltop, only to point out a Neolithic burial site, a patch of wild foxgloves, or a herd of deer?).

George is passionate about his home, “It really is a beautiful place,” he says while climbing along the String Road which crosses the island’s rugged interior.” I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I mean… just look at it!”

The reason for this amalgamation of all that is good about ‘Alba’ is pure geology. Put simply, the northern part of the island is a chunk of the volcanic crags of the Scottish Highlands, while the south is a chip off the Lowlands - all green, mellow and pastoral, and studded with picture perfect villages.

Arriving on the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry from Ardrossan on the mainland, you are confronted by the most muscular chunk of the island - the dramatic 2,867ft summit of Goat Fell, and its slightly lower, but more entertainingly named, sister peak Cioch na h Oighe – The Virgin’s Breast.

The peaks tower over the pretty town of Brodick, and its fairytale castle – a treasure-stuffed gothic mansion, which stands as a testament to the hedonism and vulgar, if expensive, taste of the eccentric, gambling-mad Dukes of Hamilton. (whose ghosts you can almost hear uttering those immortal words: “Pass the solid-silver lizard-shaped cigar lighter, will ye, laddie?”).

This schizophrenic island is separated by the Highland Boundary Fault, a great crack in the earth’s crust, which skirts around the remains of a volcano.

“Don’t worry,” says George.

“It’s been quiet for a while.”

He’s right. Sixty million years, to be exact. Though they do have long memories up here.

All that complicated geology makes for some pretty dramatic scenery.

And there is no better place to appreciate it than the coast. For the hardened hiker, it’s possible to traipse around the whole 56-mile shoreline. I preferred just to dip into the best bits though.

And they don’t get any better than the western coast at Blackwater Foot. Here Arran’s geology is on show in all its breathtaking glory – with bare sills of igneous rock towering over sheltered bays, and caves which are said to have sheltered Robert The Bruce and his inspirational spider.

Remember the story? The King of the Scots is holed up in a cave where he watches a determined arachnid attempting to reach the roof, before tumbling off. Predictably, it eventually makes it – and, in the process, gives rise to the saying “if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.” Or so they say. So it must be true.

Blackwater Foot itself is a fabulous spot for exploring the island, and boasts one of the best hotels, the Best Western Kinloch, which perches on the beach overlooking Paul McCartney’s geographical muse, the Mull of Kintyre – the southern tip of a long peninsula which dangles down from the mainland.

Boasting a good restaurant and one of the most popular bars on the island, the Kinloch is also western Arran’s social hub – pulling in a good-natured mix of islanders and trippers, the more discerning of whom can, and should, make use of the barman’s encyclopaedic knowledge of single malts.

For an even more romantic scene, or to shake off the remnants of a hangover brought on by too much whisky research, head up to Lochranza – an unfeasibly scenic spot on the island’s northern tip, crowned by a ruined castle which was used by illustrator Hergé as the inspiration for Tin Tin’s Black Island.

It’s certainly a wild and lovely spot – a haunting wreck of a tower perched on a spit of land, backed by the blue, misty hills of Kintyre. And while there was no sign of the boy detective and his dog Snowy, there was no shortage of wildlife - with sheep and wild deer grazing the lush marsh grass, and seals sunning themselves on rocks along the shore.

A short walk inland lies one of the jewels in the island’s crown, yet, surprisingly, one of its newest – the Arran island Distillery.

They’ve been making whisky on this island for thousands of years. Yet, until the gleaming new distillery opened in 1995, most of them were illegal (…the tales of illicit bootlegging, smuggling and run-ins with officious revenue officers are the stuff of local legend).

“The quality comes from the water, which runs down to us in a stream from Loch na Davie, high in the hills,” says enthusiast Campbell Laing, a retired Strathclyde police inspector, who now enjoys showing curious visitors around the distillery’s gleaming copper stills and pungent mash barrels.

“The water is the purest in Scotland, and no matter how dry it is, the loch never runs dry.”

The results are a lovingly made selection of malts – ranging from the flagship 10 year-old, to whiskies aged in sherry, bourbon and fine wine casks, and a 6,000-bottle limited edition Robbie Burns malt – commemorating the famous poet from the Ayrshire mainland, and named tipple of choice by Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond.

And, it has to be said, they do make a good dram. Lacking the complex peaty smokiness of the malts of Islay and Jura, it’s a clean, drinkable whisky, which, says the kilted Campbell, is designed to appeal to even non-whisky drinkers.

“Even if you think you don’t like whisky, you’ll love Arran,” he says proudly.

“You’ll hear a lot of people tell you things about whisky. Some say don’t put ice in it, and some say don’t mix it. But remember, it’s here to be enjoyed, and you should enjoy it in any way you like. Just like the island.”