Tangasdale Beach Cottages (IOB Cottage)

Oct 2nd, 2020

May 20th, 2019

I'll start with the good points, the location is amazing, such a beautiful view of the Atlantic ocean as far as the eye can see, within spitting distance of the beautiful Tangasdale beach. Both cottages were clean and comfortable, the best bed I've slept in, in a long while. They are also dog friendly without a huge list of rules and regulations you get with other "dog friendly" cottages. Now sadly, there were issues when we arrived. Firstly, and as we were there out of season, it was very quiet. Nothing was open at all quite. So having a Wi-Fi connection would have been very useful as the whole island only has 2G (that's phone calls and texts only) Somalia has better communications network than Barra! During the daylight hours, there were plenty of beautiful beaches and locations to explore (not the castle, that was closed in November), but when night sets in we only had a few kids dvds and about 6 channels that worked on the tv. The cottage was dated and draughty, we had to take up the back door of our cottage with masking tape as it was facing the Atlantic ocean and let in an arctic gale through a 1mm gap all the way round the door. The oven didn't work properly and ruined a few meals. Having a working oven is kinda essential to self catering and as there are no takeaways on the island, you are limited with what to make. There was also a terrible smell coming from the bathroom, it permeated through the whole cottage and did not know what was causing it. To be fair, when I called the owner of the cottage, she did offer to move us to number two next door. That one was not so draughty, did not smell at all but also did not have a working oven. As we only had a few nights left, we decided to rough it out in cottage number one and use a can of air freshener on a regular basis. Barra is a beautiful island, but it is remote, the people and scenery are what make it so great, such a shame these cottages aren't just a little bit better, they could be truly special with a very small amount of effort.
Mar 15th, 2018