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 Dunvegan Castle |
 Waternish |
 Portree |
You'll know when you're in North Skye. At the head of Loch Sligachan the main road leads you round to the right and heads north towards Portree. As the Sligachan Hotel slips past to your left and the mighty Cuillin fill your rear view mirror, you've arrived.
Portree is a busy tourist resort and the main town on Skye. It is built around a natural harbour and the town's brightly painted houses rise steeply from the water's edge. The harbour is overlooked by The Lump, a peninsula of land that was once the site of public hangings on the island. The pier, built by Thomas Telford in the early 1800s, still provides a safe haven for the fishing and other vessels using the harbour.
Up above the harbour is the town centre and Somerled Square, built in the late 18th Century as the island's administrative and commercial centre. Today you'll find the bus station and car park here. Nearby is the Royal Hotel, on the site of McNab's Inn, the place where Bonnie Prince Charlie is said to have taken leave of Flora MacDonald. Portree is home to a number of churches, including the Parish Church overlooking Somerled Square.
Extending some twenty miles north from Portree is the Trotternish peninsula, where the bizarre landscape is the result of volcanic activity overlying soft sandstone bedrock. The coast is marked by sheer cliffs and there are pinnacles and pillars strewn along its length.
Other features on the peninsula include, just six miles north of Portree, a distinctive column of rock named The Old Man of Storr. At 165ft it presents something of a challenge for those who choose to climb it, whilst a walk to its base is a more straightforward undertaking. A good, if occasionally muddy, path runs up through woodland from the car park below. Staffin has a museum with fossil finds from the area and a dinosaur bone discovered in 1994. In 1996 several dinosaur footprints were also discovered here. The village itself has a thriving Gaelic speaking community.
From Staffin a single-track road cuts across the peninsula allowing access to the Quirang, a spectacular forest of pinnacles and fierce rock formations. Some have been named: the Needle rises a full 120ft, there is the Prison and the Table, the latter being a great sunken platform of rock where the locals are once said to have played Shinty.
At the tip of the Trotternish peninsula lies Duntulm and the remains of the headland fortress of Duntulm Castle. Heading down the west shore from here is the excellent Skye Museum of Highland Life, the best visitor attraction in northern Skye. Hal a mile east of the museum Kilmuir Graveyard, home to some fascinating graves, including that of Flora MacDonald.
South of here is Kilmuir in an area once called the Granary of Skye because it was so heavily cultivated: today it is home to the intriguing Kilvaxter Souterrain. Four miles further is the ferry port of Uig. From here ferries make the journey to Tarbert on Harris and Lochmaddy on North Uist.
The journey from Uig to Dunvegan takes you past one of Western Scotland's very few Pictish stones, Clach Ard, and close to the attractive little village of Edinbane, now bypassed by the main road. North western Skye's main settlement is Dunvegan. The village itself spreads attractively along the shore of the sea loch and makes a good base for exploring the area. It is home to the Angus MacAskill Museum. A mile north of Dunvegan is Dunvegan Castle, the magnificent ancestral home of the Chiefs of Clan MacLeod.
The north west of Skye has two further peninsulas: Duirinish and Waternish. Waternish lies north east of Dunvegan and is the central of Skye's three north western peninsulas, and amply repays exploration. The village of Stein is especially pretty, while the ruin of Trumpan Church, near the far end of the peninsula, is the site of one of the worst atrocities committed during centuries of Clan warfare. The Duirinish peninsula, to the west of Dunvegan, is the unlikely home to a trio of fascinating museums. They are Borreraig Park Museum, the Colbost Croft Museum and the Glendale Toy Museum. Together they form a triangle that gives good reason to head west from Dunvegan, even on a driech day.
South of Dunvegan, a series of side roads give access to a scattering of small settlements such as Orbost, Roag, Harlosh and Ullinish. As you approach Bracadale, you pass the well preserved Dun Beag Broch.
The island of Raasay lies to the east of Skye, between it and the Applecross peninsula on the mainland. It is only a 20 minute journey by the Raasay Ferry from Sconser on Skye. The main settlement is at Inverarish, and the harbour is at Clachan, close to Raasay House. Near Raasay House is the Raasay Pictish Stone. At the north end of Raasay is Calum's Road, a 1¾ mile stretch of road build by an individual crofter between the mid 1960s and the mid 1970s.
