From Skye to the Outer Hebrides
Skye is the largest island of the Inner Hebrides and the most heavily populated, and touristed. It is actually connected to the mainland by a bridge and I think it is this convenience, along with the scenery of course, that makes it the second most visited place in Scotland after Edinburgh.
The views as you drive towards Skye are pretty special and just before reaching the bridge it’s worth stopping if only to take a photo of the famous island castle, Eilean Donan. The entrance fee, which felt a little high, gives you access to the island and entrance into the castle itself but the best views of the castle are actually from outside the pay area.
The castle is a 20th century reconstruction of the original which was destroyed in 1719 by the Royal Navy as part of putting down the Jacobite rebellions. The fortress was originally the stronghold of Clan Mackenzie and was originally built in the 13th century. For film fans it has featured in many films including Highlander and Braveheart.
Leaving Eilean Donan behind we drove across the bridge, which is relatively new having only been finished in 1995, to the Isle of Skye.
On arrival we had some fairly bad weather with very strong winds, so we sought somewhere to stay with good shelter. The place we found was in the South of Skye on the shores of Loch Slapin. This was way off the tourist trail in Torrin and the site of a good hike up to Bla Bheinn, a Munro. I hiked part of the way up to some waterfalls but the weather was very changeable so I decided against doing the full hike.
The next day we drove to the Fairy Pools, which are very much back on the tourist trail. This involves an uphill walk next to a river with a number of waterfalls along the way. It is a pretty hike, and I am sure in better weather it looks amazing but unfortunately we had a lot of low cloud and got thoroughly drenched in a heavy down pour not long after setting out.
Heading to this part of Skye however did give us the opportunity to visit the Cuil Café, which we highly recommend. This is an exceptionally popular café that serves Scottish cuisine and was originally based in London before moving to Skye. I had the beef brisket Rarebit which was really good.
Having dried off and refueled, feeling much better we moved onto the North of Skye, stopping off for a night in Portree, the Capital of Skye, on our way up to the infamous Old Man of Storr.
Getting close up to the Old Man itself is a short uphill hike from the (incredibly busy) car park. Motorhomes aren’t actually allowed in the car park so you have to find space alongside the road which fortunately we managed to do but I imagine this would be a nightmare in high season. As it was, the hike was very busy with lots of Japanese and French tourists.
Along the East side of Skye are some lovely waterfalls that are worth stopping to see and are accessible via very short walks.
My favourite was the Kilt Rock Waterfall which cascades over the cliff face into the sea, although Lealt falls which has a number of different waterfalls is also nice.
On the North of the island one of the most famous hikes is the Quiraing, which is a hike around a rock landform with some steep cliffs stretching down into a hollow. We started it from a small car park on the coast which makes the hike a bit longer.
The first half of the hike is pretty with some jagged rock forms, however upon reaching one end of the Quiraing you have to climb up to the top of the landform to move back along it. This started off with a great path but then became a slog up a boggy slope where each step left me sinking into the waterlogged peat – unpleasant. On reaching the top it was incredibly windy but fortunately the wind was blowing me back onto the cliffs otherwise it would have been quite dangerous. Definitely a recommended hike for the views but perhaps when its not quite so wet and windy !
From the Quiraing, a narrow single track road runs across a pass in the mountainous central part of Skye over to the West Coast. This is a lovely drive and well worth doing but despite this we encountered very little traffic.
We were travelling to the West side of the island in order to take the ferry from Uig to the Outer Hebrides, but before crossing we stopped for a lovely walk at the Fairy Glen, which is nearby. This is an aptly named other-worldly landscape of dips, rock formations and cone-shaped mounds, and perhaps the fairies had sprinkled a little of their fairy dust because the clouds parted and we enjoyed a rare glimpse of blue sky and sunshine which made it all the more endearing.
The ferry crossing from Uig was our longest yet at two hours. Fortunately it was nice and calm which was a pleasant surprise. Unfortunately the brief spell of fine weather proved to be very brief indeed.
North Uist, situated in the middle of the Outer Hebrides island chain, was our landing point. It is a very flat island with no mountains and consequently when it is windy it is very difficult to find anywhere sheltered to park – and when we were there it was very windy.
From North Uist we initially travelled South to visit South Uist, Benbecula and the Island of Eriskay, which is connected to South Uist by a causeway. This is a beautiful area but you need to get away from the main road to see it at its best. There are a couple of attractive RSPB reserves and while we didn’t catch a glimpse of any birds of prey we did see the very cute wild ponies.
On yet another very wet and windy day we elected to do an indoor activity, not easy at this time of year when many of the museums are closed for the season, but there is a new distillery on Benbecula, aptly named the Benbecula Distillery, so we decided to take a tour. The ‘private’ tour (as there was no-one else around) of the distillery, explanation of the distillation process followed by a tasting was a fun diversion on a fairly miserable day.
Our final day on the Uists saw a slight improvement in the weather so we decided to check out the beaches on North Uist, which were big, beautiful and sandy. If they were somewhere with better weather they would probably be world famous but in the North of Scotland, not so much.
From North Uist we caught the ferry to the Isle of Lewis and Harris, whose route weaves its way cautiously through a shallow rocky channel.
Lewis and Harris (the North and South of the same island) feels very different from the Uists as it’s very mountainous in the centre and has some beautiful beaches on the Atlantic side. In fact having spent the summer months travelling through Norway, the East side of Harris has a real Norwegian feel.
Lewis and Harris is the most populated of the Scottish islands with 20,000 people but it is also the biggest one and 30% bigger than Skye. Half of the population live in the capital of the island – Stornoway, and it certainly doesn’t feel over crowded.
We started by visiting the beaches on the West coast but it was really windy and not really beach weather to say the least so we looped round to the other side of the island.
This really does feels like Iceland or Norway and is a rocky alien landscape that is really beautiful. We found ourselves a lovely park-up for the night, which was high on an outcrop but somehow sheltered from the wind.
Most of the roads in the Outer Hebrides and in fact on most of the islands we’ve visited, are single track roads with passing spaces. These are actually great to drive as you don’t have trucks whizzing past inches away from you as you do on the narrow two lane roads. Instead, everyone has to be considerate and look ahead to gauge the best passing space to use whenever you meet another vehicle. This is really easy and I don’t think we had to reverse once.
After driving up the east coast and stopping for an excellent hot chocolate and cake at a small café /art gallery that was only open on Thursdays (and felt like being in someone’s living room), we headed North up into Lewis. There really isn’t any obvious distinction as to the split between Lewis and Harris, other than a sign but we drove past this marker and headed North to the Callanish Standing Stones.
This is one of the best sets of standing stones in Scotland. They were erected around 5,000 years ago making them older than both the Pyramids and Stonehenge. They are in a cruciform arrangement with a central stone circle and placed at the top of a hill.
There are actually a number of stone circles in the area and although the Callanish Stones can get quite busy the others are generally deserted. We visited another set and only had some cute hairy coos for company.
From Callanish we drove down to Bosta Beach where we spent the night and had a lovely walk around the beach and a reconstructed iron age hut.
A few Km’s down the coast from Bosta is a beautiful set of Sea Stacks called Mangersta Stacks. There is no parking and no tourist infrastructure at all other than a hand written sign at the side of the road with an arrow pointing across a field to the stacks which are invisible from the road. If this was on the mainland it would be one of the most famous tourist sites in Scotland !
Along this coast almost every beach is beautiful and worth stopping off at for a walk and we visited a few as we made out way towards the Northern tip of Lewis.
We also stopped for a beautiful sunset at Dan Carloway Broch which is a clan tower from the 1st Century AD. It is mostly collapsed now but there are still some stairs that you can climb which give an insight into what it would have looked like when intact.
Our final stop for the night was at Shawbost beach where we were treated to an amazing sunset. The weather in Scotland at this time of year doesn’t often oblige with a sunset but when it does they are generally pretty good !
We carried on heading north in the morning, after a quick trip across the island to the capital, Stornaway for some provisions, and a trip to Garry beach on the East Coast, where we had another beautiful walk.
We also visited the Clach An Truishal standing stone which is the largest in Scotland. It’s quite weird because it’s just next to someone’s house. They must get quite annoyed with tourists walking up past their house all the time.
One of the things we loved about the Outer Hebrides were the Honesty Boxes outside people’s houses with a variety of items for sale from smoked salmon to baked goodies. I think we discovered the best in the North of Lewis, Niseach Bakes, which had some fantastic brownies, brookies and more. We ended up buying quite a few!
We stayed the night, all alone, with a fantastic beach and sea view at Port Stoth beach where we were a few hundred metres from the Butt of Lewis lighthouse on the most Northerly point.
We had really enjoyed our time in the Outer Hebrides but sadly we were due to get the ferry back to the mainland in the morning, so we drove back South to Harris and spent our last night on the coast a short walk from a Golden Eagle observatory. We did see golden eagles flying high above our heads but nothing from the actual hide ! This seems to be about standard for our visits to hides.
Our ferry was from Tarbert (on Harris) to Uig on Skye but instead of going direct it was rerouted to carry livestock and sailed to North Uist first and then across to Skye so our two hour crossing turned into four hours. It was a calm crossing though, so we sat back, relaxed and settled down with a good book.