Skye, Western Scotland
Yesterday our intrepid crew of 32 shipmates all made it to this remote corner of the Western Highlands. Our ship, the gleaming Lord of the Glens, was at the dockside in the tiny village of Kyle of Lochalsh, along the gateway to the island of Skye, most rugged and romantic of the Inner Hebrides. Late beams of golden sunlight last night spotlit ruined castles and heatherclad hills on the opposite shore. This morning was better: blue sky and a gentle breeze from the south. Torn between the temptations of Castles and Cuillins, we divided into two parties, one travelling to the head of Lochalsh to visit the Castle of Eilean Donan, the others crossing to the Isle of Skye. Castle Donan is among the most famous of all Scottish castles, perfectly posed on a tiny islet in a sheltered loch with a backdrop of mountains. The group stopped for the bonus of a roadside field full of Highland cattle, all horns and hair before reaching the castle. The 13th century stronghold of the clan Macrae, it was restored in the 1930s and its pixel perfect portrait now adorns postcards, chocolate boxes and biscuit tins throughout the Highlands. Meanwhile the Cuillin Corps crossed the bridge to Skye and followed the sunlit coast round to Sligachan, a beautiful valley in the heart of the island. Following a stony path up beside a deep stream gorge, we negotiated peaty puddles and bottomless bogs to reach a green knoll with a spectacular view of the Cuillin mountain amphitheater. Behind us the conical granite domes of the Red Cuillins, before us across the snaking Sligachan River the jagged black gabbro peaks of the Black Cuillins, some of the most daunting climbing crags in Scotland.
During lunch the ship set off round the eastern shore of Skye, entering the narrows at Kylerea, where the surging tide race had attracted a score of common seals, plus gulls and shags, all taking advantage of the good fishing. The Sound opened out to the south; it was warm enough to sit on deck and marvel at the reflections of green hills, white lighthouses, distant blue peaks, surfacing porpoise and small flotillas of razorbills, guillemots and puffins on the calm waters. Our afternoon destination was Armadale at the southern tip of Skye. From the quay we walked up to the Clan Donald centre, set in magnificent gardens of ornamental shrubs, huge conifer trees and vivid beds of candelabra primulas. There is a superb museum here that charts the alliance between Irish chieftains and Viking warriors that led to the powerful clan Macdonald, once “Lord of the Isles” over the entire western seaboard of Scotland. It also charts the Scottish emigration from 1730 to late 1860s which led Scots to settle in disparate colonies in South Carolina, Nova Scotia, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Before supper we crossed the Sound to the Knoydart peninsula, toured the wild shores of Loch Nevis, and finally moored off Inverie, a hamlet famous for having the most remote pub in Britain. The only way here is either by sea or by walking 16 miles over hill and dale from the nearest road. Let this be our epitaph: that we reached those parts of Scotland that others only dream of!
