October 2011
Skye, it’s a wonderfully evocative sort of name for a place. The name, however, is very misleading. It is an old Gaelic word translating into English as mist; there is, as you then might imagine, a very great deal of it. One imagines a great many Victorian travelers being rather bemused at the lack of visible sky on Skye. I’ve always really liked that about the place.
I spent my University years in Scotland, at St. Andrews; it truly is a very small place. It’s lovely in its own strange way but quickly becomes very dull, especially in the winter. As a result of that, I spent most of my spare time and most of my spare money, trying fitfully to escape. I wasn’t as diligent as I might have been (although who is in college) but I did manage to see a good bit of the countryside thereabouts from the backs of friends’ cars. I had once made it for a whole hour or so to Skye (about 8 hours’ drive away; the road maps in Scotland are also misleading). We had exactly enough time to snap four photographs, visit the local distillery for refreshment, and get silently back into the car for the return trip. It was brief, I’ll admit, but it was enough for me to fall in love with it. My fiancé Hayley and I decided that while we were young and have relatively few responsibilities we would take a nice long tour of Europe; not the back packing thingy so many American teens do but staying in B&B’s and driving around for the most part where we can. Our trip would take 100 days and I couldn’t resist including Scotland in general and Skye in particular (more on the rest presently). We hired a car in London and drove from there up to my Alma Mater to spend a couple of days being nostalgic. We took another couple of days to make the trip up and across staying in a small village on the Western edge of Loch Ness and made it to the Hebrides by midmorning of the Friday for our two night stay. Since the 1990’s there are two ways across to the island: there is an old ferry that runs across the Sound of Sleat from Kylerhea and a horrible, ugly, soulless new bridge from Klye of Localsh. The drive to and from the bridge is fairly tame by Scottish standards and the bridge itself is wonderfully free. Getting to the ferry, on the other hand, involves mountain passes and terrifyingly blind and precipitous hairpin turns, takes far longer than to Localsh, and costs a whopping £9, but it is unequivocally the way to go. You will be rewarded with amazing views and a genuinely unique experience (the ferry is also owned by the local community and operated as a sort of trust, so you will be doing a good thing as well). The Isle of Skye is known as “the crown jewel of the British Isles” and justly receives its fair share of tourism even given its relative remoteness. This means that if you go in August, when the weather is good and everyone in Europe is on holiday, you will have to book some weeks ahead. We stayed at a wonderful boutique hotel on the southern bit of the island called “The Duisdale”. They have four-poster canopy beds, a garden hot tub, and even a private yacht that you can take on day sails and go whale watching. The food at the restaurant is among the best you’ll find anywhere in Britain. The prices, including half board, range from £129–£179 per person per night for a room and £189 for a Suite. The day sails cost £125 per person and run from 10:30 until 4:30 and so really are all day affairs. The island itself is quite small; if you keep to the main roads you can cross it diagonally in a little over an hour and a half. The terrain varies quite a lot however: down where we stayed, on Sleat, it is very green and gently hilly with easy access to the sea and fairly rocky beaches. If you drive further north you first encounter the Red Cullin Hills and then the Black Cullin Hills, the island’s two mountain ranges; both are spectacular. As with much of Scotland there is an excellent network of walking trails in varying distances and difficulties and both ranges can be explored in good weather. Even further north (following signs for Portree .... |