Black Shed. Isle of Skye.

From the outside Black Shed is everything I hoped it would be. 

From the inside Black Shed is everything I hoped it would be.

This rather special house has been on my radar since we lived in Manchester a dozen years ago, but their no dog policy meant that it was out of bounds until now. 

Part of me wants to explore everything, everywhere. 

Part of me wants to sit on the step and stare at the hills. For the whole week.

The morning sit. Stare down to Loch Dunvegan from the front doorstep. 

The evening sit. Stare up towards Macleod’s Table from the back doorstep. 

The night sit. When Minty has showered and gone to bed I pull the  Breuer chair (so elegant in tan leather instead of the usual black) in front of the back door and watch as Macleod’s Table slowly loses definition. Bats flit. The moon climbs. The hill disappears. Time for bed.

I listen to the extreme quiet. Merlin app running identifying the birds nearby. Being able to hear the sheep ripping up their grassy dinner from 50 metres. No wind. As unusual here as it would be at home. 

A cuckoo harasses a kestrel mid flight. Cuckooing madly. 

Linguine, the house cat, stalks two greenfinches too busy scrapping to hear their danger. I clap, scaring the birds, saving the birds. 

At five in the morning a perfect dawn of heavy mist in the hollows. It’ll have to live in my mind. The camera can’t capture the feeling. 

 The Fruit and Nut Place.

Blair, our host, asked us not to go to the Co-op but to use their Dunvegan local shop instead. 

Their local is the most individual Fruit and Nut Place. 

If you didn’t know it, or weren’t looking for The Fruit and Nut Place you’d miss it. 

And you’d miss a treat. 

This tiny corrugated emporium has everything you need. Fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, all looking better than at most supermarkets. Crazy wild mushrooms. Pulses. Spices. Herbs. Breads. A fantastic range, and the prices don’t pull a sharp intake of breath. 

After our visit I pondered how somewhere so small could have so much, when suddenly it hit me. There was no crap. No ready meals.  No ice cream. No pizzas. No confectionery. No crisps (I love crips, but I know they’re crap).

I thought about how much rubbish I simply don’t see at our St Just Co-op, because it doesn’t matter to me. This is a place for people who want to make food. Real food. I love it. 

Dunvegan. 

There’s not much at Dunvegan. But you don’t need much more than they have. 

As well as The Fruit and Nut Place there are two other micro convenience shops, and a (new) book and coffee shop with the books an ideal outdoor visitor would want to read. 

There’s fuel, and the owners of the garage have now opened an Indian restaurant. Apparently the whole peninsula is excited by that. 

There are good restaurants, and up the road there’s a super fancy restaurant (The Three Chimneys). I feel slightly envious that St Just doesn’t cater as well for our visitors even though we’re more populous. 

All that. And a castle. AND. The Giant Angus MacAskill Museum!

Most surprising is that while accommodation and posh eating is insanely expensive everything else is priced similarly, or better, than home. 

Neist Point.

Look at photos from Skye and you’re likely to see stunning shots of Neist Point and its lighthouse. 

As we drove through the wide valley of Glendale, stopping to take a photo of its gorgeous post office, the cloud was dropping. 

By the time we got to the point where so many Instagram photos are taken the lighthouse was shrouded in cloud, invisible even to an iPhone’s penetrating stare. 

So we sat and waited. 

The clouds didn’t part for us, but the glimpses we were rewarded with were tantalising and so much better than instant gratification. 

Since the lighthouse’s automation in 1990 there hasn’t been anyone living there, but I’m sure in years to come some deep pocketed visionary will buy the buildings and create a hotel. Perhaps they’ll restore the cable car that used to transport supplies down the precipitous slope, or perhaps the heart pounding climb on foot will be part of the adventure. 

New island vernacular.

When we first visited Skye thirty years ago I remember being a little disappointed by the low white cottages that stud most of the island. 

I guess I hoped for the thatch of a hundred years ago. 

I now understand that they make sense. Uncomplicated to build, low to withstand the wind, with a steep roof to extend into should the need arise. 

There’s a new vernacular that’s fast gaining traction that retains the form, but built to today’s more efficient standards. These modern cottages are generally clad in timber that weathers quickly to a subtle silver allowing a new house to hide in plain sight. It scales well too. It’s hard to tell a big house from a small one when the basic shape is proportioned well. 

There are a few modern monsters that shout money but the majority of new properties sit well in their landscape. 

The dance of the single track road. 

Most roads on Skye are single track. With passing places. 

Progress is slow and takes practice. 

The car ahead stops at its nearest passing place. 

Or you do. 

And the other car proceeds. 

In theory. 

But look at the cars. Nearly every one is a 75 or 26 plate. New. Fresh out of the box. They’re all hire cars. 

The drivers flew into Inverness, they’re frightened to be driving on the left. 

They’re terrified by the crazy roads. 

Their passengers are jumpy and gasping at every surprise. 

Or their passengers are pointing out the view. The eagle. Or the angry local driver who is hammering towards them in his ancient Land Rover. 

The driver can see the open arms of the deep soft ditch at the roadside. 

The driver has experienced the pot holes deep enough to swallow a modest sized motor. It may be a hire car, but a cracked axle will be hard to explain, and will see them at the mercy of the clansmen.

The driver is desperate for another whisky tasting. “No, no, skip the story, just give me the drink!”

In reality the roads are easier to navigate than our Cornish lanes. There are no granite hedges to rip a wing from your car. There are almost no trees. You can see what’s coming. 

When the locals use the roads unhindered by us tourists it’s a dance. 

This dance, though it may have clumsy footwork when preformed by tourists, says something positive for humanity. It’s all about give and take. Few cars push through using intimidation, in fact we’ve only experienced that once after a week on the island.

In summer it must be hell. 

Daily I see parking spots where I’d love to stay in the van. Daily I feel gratitude for the agility of Minty’s car. 

The Fairy Pools. 

Like at Neist Point there’s a large car park for the Fairy Pools, but it’s a long way from the main event, and there are some big climbs in between. 

Skye generally feels empty. Until you arrive at one of the attractions, then suddenly there’s a huge car park full of cars. 

Returning to the car park, grateful, red faced, and half dead, there’s a stream of sweaty overweight souls who didn’t notice the BMI monitor which would have advised them to do a photo tour instead of trying the real thing. 

The route to The Fairy Pools is probably as close to a mountain hike as many visitors to Skye will get. It’s only a couple of miles, but being out of the car and moving slowly does wonders for anyone’s appreciation of the soaring volcanic scenery. 

To walk through such landscape in all its vastness can overcome. We face our insignificance and realise the pettiness of our earthly concerns. I wonder how many pause long enough to feel it. 

The pools themselves are formed of crystal clear water from the River Brittle that drains the Black Cullins. Thousands of years of erosion have created smooth sided pools with the river cascading down level after level. 

It was crowded in late April so it could be too busy deeper into the holiday season, but even then there’s the opportunity to leave the hordes by walking that bit further. 

Talisker. 

Last week I was somewhat disparaging towards the design over substance nature of some of Skye’s newer businesses. At that point I hadn’t seen the Skye Candle Company Visitor Centre (!), or Talisker Distillery. Oh how they shine!

At the candle shop I’m delighted to see that their super soft blankets are made by Atlantic in Cornwall. 

Talisker was a rough and ready place when we first visited. 

Today the outside remains unchanged beyond subtle landscaping and the smart Three Chimneys restaurant. 

Inside though you enter a world of whisky retailing that wouldn’t be out of place at Doha Airport. 

A whisky experience at £20 a head is a film with tastings.

There’s a whole branded wardrobe available. 

There’s a crazy device I should have photographed for freezing a 45 degree angled wedge of ice in your glass before you pour your spirit.

Oh god now I understand the emptiness of my life. 

I thought I’d found madness when I saw a bottle at £4700, but Minty took my hand and led me to one so much more expensive I could have bought a car with the difference. 

There is no doubt that all this is beautifully presented and I’m sure it makes an obscene revenue. For me it helped me appreciate wine maker Paul Jolly’s dusty Loire warehouse all the better (that reference might make sense to long time readers, we only have to be in France to make a crazy detour to get to Paul Jolly).

North. 

There’s always north. 

Right up until your feet are on the precious ice. 

Uig. A port village. 

Catching the ferry is always special. Whether you’re frightened by the sheer scale of a Mediterranean monster ship that swallows the largest lorries without a hiccup, or you’re one of just a few cars hopping from island to island in Scotland, Greece or Norway. 

Uig has a fine new ferry terminal, a smart layout and orderly queues, but it’s still very much a ferry port. Lines of vans, people hoping their dog will have a last wee, and everyone buying from the well placed Skye Brewery shop. 

The ferry leaves here for Tarbert on Harris, in the Outer Hebrides. A whole two hours away, but often in sight. 

North of Uig the magic happens. 

Again. 

You don’t have to travel far to find the magic here. 

Museum of Island Life.

We’re headed for the top, stopping on the way at the small but excellent Museum of Island Life. 

At the museum seven traditional cottages and a whole lot of reading give insight into island life before there was Amazon to deliver whatever before you even realised you wanted it. 

Apart from the (weighted) thatched roofs and peat cutting the stories don’t differ so much from my mum’s tales of her youth. Here though the crofting system spread people across considerable distances. A Skye village of a dozen houses might take up the area of a small town in Cornwall where the miners lived cheek by jowl. 

North. 

There are a few more miles to the top.

And from the car park there’s a long walk to the edge. 

And it’s absolutely worth it. 

The cliffs at Ruba Hunish are high. Very high indeed. They’re sheer. But what makes it memorably dramatic is the plateau 100 meters below, just before the sea. 

Walk to the edge and for just a few seconds your mind struggles with the perspective of two land masses over a hundred metres apart, seemingly unjoined. This is an experience to grasp. It won’t last. The sinking feeling in your gut is the stuff of nightmares, too intense to miss. 

Oh, and the view? Harris and Lewis. Gairloch. The Highlands of the mainland. Much of Skye. 

Stand at the bothy, smug in the knowledge that few people in the world will ever see anything like this. 

Too calm still?

Just in case your mind hasn’t been utterly blown by the sights of the day, if your nerves aren’t shattered by the single track mountain roads, take a right in Brogaig onto the Quiraing Road. 

Truly as mountain roads go this isn’t bad, but when you’re out of practice it can still come as a shock. 

At the top of a switchback climb swing into the ample parking and take a stroll to look over The Quiraing. 25 years ago foot and mouth was threatening the travel industry and we were gloriously alone here. Today we weren’t. But the crowds didn’t spoil the joy. 

A curious litter.

Skye is remarkably clean. Even though I have walked, and run, a long way on roadsides I haven’t seen much litter beyond the teenager’s Saturday night gin and tonic mixer cans thrown from speeding car windows.

But there is a curious recurring theme to the litter you do see. It’s unused tissues. Loads and loads of them.

We’ve pondered this over the week and have no suggestion beyond perhaps tour buses give packs of tissues to passengers who then accidentally pull them from their pockets as they walk to whatever beauty spot they’ve been sent to.

Shame no one carries £20 notes anymore.

One more climb. The Storr.

Our map of the island folds neatly at Sligachan. Once north of there last Saturday we decided we wouldn’t go south. The south is glorious, the mountains are higher, the sea lochs deeper, but we had no desire to spend hours driving every day. And there’s plenty to see and do in the north.

The thing everyone wants to see in the north is The Old Man of Storr, so we saved the best until last.

Up early(ish) and on the road.

Already the car park is full and the overflow up the road is filling too.

It’s only a 6km round hike to the main viewing point, but this isn’t for everyone. The gradient from the moment you leave the car park is enough to help people decide to keep walking, or drive back down towards Portree where there’s a wonderful viewing point that’ll give you the photo opportunity you need.

This hike is popular. Extremely popular. It’s a procession. But that doesn’t matter. The view is expansive in a way many of us might never experience again.

From the view point distant islands and the Highlands are clear, the lochs take the incredible view to another level, and the sheer drop ensures selfies are taken a fair distance from the edge.

Skye, an island jewel.

When talking about our long period on the road I’m often asked about which countries impressed me the most. Everywhere has something to offer, something to teach, but for sheer jaw dropping beauty I always list three – Norway, Greece and Scotland.

The Highlands and islands draw me. I’d be tempted to live here had I not experienced the horror of midges in the past.

Skye, Arran, Islay. They’re all incredible destinations. I hope to visit many more times in the future.

This time we seem to have hit the perfect week. Warm. We’ve had a second spring. It’s busy enough for everything to be open. Quiet enough to feel utterly alone when that’s what you want.

We have heard so many languages, seen so many overseas visitors this week. The most frequent language has been French.

The biggest surprises have been pricing. Most of life carries on as you’d expect. Overpriced coffee (but cheaper than at home), normal prices for food and fuel. Where it goes mad is for accommodation and smarter dining. Pubs are charging several hundred pounds a night to stay, hotels are asking as much for a night as we might spend on a whole holiday, and Minty reads menus at well over £100 per person, before you think of having a drink – and you’re going to need one.

Tomorrow we’ll head back to the mainland.

I hope we’ll be back before I’m too old to leap up the hills.

End note. As I drop the photos into the blog I fly around our huge photo library.

It takes ages, largely because I’m easily distracted, and I love our travel photos.

But I noticed something tonight.

Every time we’ve been away there are the expected lovely shots of wherever we have been.

And then when we get home we take loads of photos of where we live. Having been away, home hits us afresh. Its beauty revealed to eyes that haven’t seen it all for a short while.

How good is that?

“How come we haven’t seen any deer?”

“Perhaps they’re well disguised.”

There’s a huge red deer in the centre of this picture.