South of Campbeltown is the road to Southend and to the Mull of Kintyre. The direct road is about 8 miles to Southend with a further 8 miles of single track road out to the lighthouse on ‘the Mull’. It is well worth completing the circle and returning to Campbeltown by the coast road which gives superb views down the Firth of Clyde beyond the rocky hump of Ailsa Craig to Ayrshire and Galloway. The small island close inshore is Sanda.

Southend is a small village again with marvellous sandy beaches and an 18 hole golf course. Close to the village is Dunaverty rock, jutting up from the sea and scene of the infamous massacre in 1647 when the 300 strong garrison of the castle on the rock, surrendered to a Covenanting army and were then ‘put to the sword’ . The castle has long since disappeared but the rock is still a forbidding sight. It is also here that St Columba first landed in Scotland on his journey to Iona and close by are St Columba’s Chapel and cave as well as St Columba’s footprints carved in the rock.

The road from Southend out to the Mull of Kintyre is narrow and tortuous, but the journey is well worth the effort for the spectacular sea views and wild moorland (and possibly a Golden Eagle). Cars have to be left at the top of the cliffs above the lighthouse and the final part of the journey completed on foot; the walk is very steep. The views to Rathlin Island and the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland, across the vicious tide races close to the shore are quite splendid , as long as Sir Paul McCartney’s ‘mist rolling in from the sea’ is elsewhere at the time.

Several aircraft have met their ends on the hills above the lighthouse, mainly during World War Two, but also more recently in 1994, when a military Chinook helicopter, carrying senior army and police security personnel from Northern Ireland flew into the hill at full speed in thick fog. All 29 on board were killed and the spot is marked by a cairn.