We lived in relative luxury for our two nights on Skye, in a little AirBnB granny flat. Great views that we didn’t get to appreciate that first day, because it was still reasonably dark when we left. If you wait for the sun to get up in Scotland in winter, you lose half the light to frivolous activities. So we got up in the dark and aimed to be at our first stop as the sun rose. There is no moral attachment around this as can often appear with self-professed “early risers” – sunrise is at eight thirty, if not a little later. The days are short, so you must be both an ‘early riser’ and a ‘night owl’, but that’s easily done.
Day 1 – An Island Loop
So we began our journey in the dark, pulling over after a while to get some beautiful shots of the sunrise. You’d think this wouldn’t be so special. When the sun gets up that late, you can see it every day. But when there’s so much cloud, it’s often not that impressive – but that morning was perfect.
Our first stop was the Old Man of Storr – a large rock. Next to it, another big rock: the Needlepoint. And I don’t mean that unenthusiastically – they were good rocks and it was a good walk. We saw very interesting ice formations along the way as well. This was a popular walk, lots of company there and back, even though it was incredibly windy and there was a real risk, once again, of us getting blown off yet another mountain. There was a close call with my beanie, but I was able to save it. We took the easier but longer path on the way up, and the shorter but more strenuous path on the way back. Regardless of fitness level, I recommend the longer path. Unless you really, really like mud, because that’s all there was to experience on the fast path. All the interesting signage – in fact, all the signage – is on the other route.
Continuing to make our way around the island on a loop, we went to Kilt Rock. Actually, there is another rock formation that you drive past on the way between the two that I thought was rather impressive. Both of these rock formations have a sheer drop with lines naturally worn into the rock, which makes the pleated look of a kilt. However, the sheer drop that forms Kilt Rock is coastal, and there is a waterfall next to it – Mealt Waterfall. Standing there, when the wind blows (it’s hard to imagine that it is not always blowing), you can here a musical ringing – in true Scottish fashion, referred to as a ‘siren’ song. (Apparently this can be difficult to hear in popular summer months, but there’s not as much company in winter).
All the parking on Isle of Skye is paid it seems, and it feel a bit unreasonable at stops where there is little to do and they still want a few pound (I forget how much exactly).
From there we went on to Corran Beach. There are dinosaur footprints here, fossilised into the rock. There is at least one that is really quite clear – but they don’t keep them well-signed, presumably for the same reason that they keep the location of the world’s oldest tree hidden. So we traipsed back and forth over the rocky beach in the pouring rain for quite a while. We believe we definitely found one, though not the best one, and some that you could argue were partials but not what you’d bet on. In the end, we decided to content ourselves with that – at about the time that the rain had fully soaked our gloves and our fingers had gone numb. It’s amazing what the thought of frostbite can do to your acceptance in abandoning actual dinosaur footprints.
The next stop was a waterfall near Uig. The joy of having your own car is that when you see an interesting sign, or something pops up on your GPS, you can pull over and have a look, so that’s what we did. It was a little short walk, but quite pretty.
Our last stop for the day was the Fairy Glens. These are pretty famous – most places with ‘fairy’ in the name will draw out the more romantic travellers. And you know, I’m sure I would have thought them very pretty, except we met with a curse. I had heard of this curse before and never given it much thought, but being in the Northern Hemisphere creates all sorts of things that are not possible in the south. So it was at the Fairy Glens where I discovered the horror of “wintery mix”. No one had sufficiently described it to me before, and yet the explanation seems so simple. Wintery mix is cursed weather where you are frozen cold while small shards of ice are violently whipped into your face and any other available exposed skin. Whipped with ice shards. I feel like that’s a form of medieval torture. Anyway, somehow in the face of all that… enduring the glens just didn’t seem quite so worthwhile. I did manage to take a lot of photos in those two or three minutes – getting out of the car at all had been an insane decision, I felt I had to make it worthwhile. The wind was very directional, so it was possible to shield the camera for photos.
With the weather as it was by then, we had basically lost the light, so we made tracks for our temporary home, and got fish and chips for dinner. It felt like a tourist requirement.
Day 2 – The Fairy Pools
For day 2 of Skye, we explored the small beach we could see from our window. Let me tell you, I could definitely live there. I have probably said that about every seaside town I have ever breathed near, but it was just so pretty. And lots of good places to walk!
We stopped at Kinloch Forest or Leitur Fura first, for a forest walk. It was nice, but it was a little repetitive, and I had a top priority for the day, so we only did part of the loop before coming back to the car and continuing on.
The Fairy Pools was one of the few places that I knew I definitely wanted to do. When you go somewhere new, there are so many possible places to visit, usually more than is realistic or enjoyable for the time frame you have. I generally combat this with a top three list – for this trip I let K, who had already travelled in the area, take the lead, but I still knew I was very keen on this stop. It was more of a singular river when we saw it – perhaps in dryer weather, the rock formations separate the areas off into pools, but it quite full for our visit. The water is a beautiful jewel green in many places, which is where I think it gets its magical name from. There are multicoloured rocks over all the path. There was so much to be curious about, geological and botanical questions abounding, and I’m sure I took several hundred photos just at that one stop. (My total photo count for Scotland is close to 4000 altogether!) We spent more than double the suggested time there, and no regrets.
Then it was time to make the drive to Inverness, the final leg of our trip, just in time for New Year’s Eve, or as the Scots call it, Hogmanay.
P.S. As a complete aside – I have been on a Terry Pratchett deep dive for months now, and this trip to Scotland has made me realise how many additional jokes he’s been making that I didn’t have enough British knowledge to understand, and even a few that I had thought were a reference to something else completely. Travel: it makes your books better! 😉