The Isle of Skye

I resisted a sky related pun for the title of this because surely they’ve all been done already at this point. Also, this is the first post I’ve done mainly focusing on a specific location so I should probably leave it clear as to what it is I’m on about before trying to get too clever. And no, that’s never stopped me before.

We arrived in Armadale on the ferry from Mallaig rather than driving across the bridge from Kyle of Lochalsh and I think there’s always something more exotic about arriving somewhere on a boat. The ceremony of queueing and being guided into your little spot on the ferry and then leaving your vehicle to go and explore the different decks and viewpoints and check out the facilities on offer feels fun and exciting. It’s like a mini-adventure.

Skye is an altogether bigger adventure. From the moment you drive out of the ferry port it feels different to the mainland so far. It feels wild and untamed. The midges are certainly at their wildest and most untamed yet. For only the second time I find myself reaching for the insect repellent. The first time was more of a test really, in which I discovered that it smelled so bad I repelled myself never mind the midges. I think maybe it is just ‘repellent’ and works on everything; insects, mammals, humans… Anyway I put in on my exposed bits, which wasn’t much because it was rather cold, then later take off my jacket and the damn things feast on my bare arms. Live and learn as they say.

Things start off well from the beginning here. As we drive north towards the centre of the island the road starts to climb uphill. At the same time it starts to rain. This may not sound like an ideal combination of circumstances but the sun is still out and that means there’s a rainbow. Rainbows are quite a regular feature of the island it seems to me, the consequence of somewhere with such changeable weather I suppose, and there have been several already in the few days we’ve been here. Now I don’t really know how rainbows work exactly but it was minding its multi-coloured business over the water and as we climbed up the hill next to it we found ourselves driving alongside the top part of the rainbow! An event which filled me with child-like pleasure.

Another new experience for us here has been single-track road driving. This, if I’m honest, was something that I had been feeling a bit apprehensive about. Travis is all muscle of course but he’s still a fairly large proposition and I hadn’t been looking forward to my imagined scenarios of stand-offs with angry locals as we blocked everyone’s passage. Eventually I had to bite the bullet because if I wanted to get to the Fairy Pools I had no choice.

We had a fairly gentle introduction following a large motorhome who was, entirely reasonably, taking it pretty slowly so I had plenty of time to get used to it. However, this did also mean that quite a queue of cars built up behind and when the motorhome considerately pulled over to let us through I now found myself leading the line! That did bestow a certain amount of pressure not to mess it up and cause twenty cars to have to reverse.

Turns out single-track driving is really good fun! Or at least it is here, and I think a lot of credit is due to how many passing places have been created and how well signposted they are. I think I love it because it feels like a kind of real-time spatial puzzle, and puzzles are one of my favourite things. You’re constantly evaluating how much clear road you have in front of you, and how many cars there are ahead and behind and who’s going to fit into which space. In my experience so far everyone has been very courteous, doing their best to let others go and waving thanks to each other. There’s a feeling of teamwork that you don’t get with ordinary driving and I like it very much.

It doesn’t hurt of course that those type of roads seem to come with stunning views as standard. Driving up to the start point of the Quiraing walk culminating in a single-track hairpin zigzag incline felt almost as much as an accomplishment as the hike itself. Travis is surprisingly nimble for a van of his stature. He was up there like a mountain goat.

I was less goat-like in my own subsequent ascent but made it around and back to the car park unscathed, mainly thanks to a lovely Canadian couple who I met on the way around and were, how should I say, a little more navigationally prepared than I was. It made the walk really fun to keep meeting them on the way around, then they saved me from wandering off track, then we all wandered off track together, then found our way again, took each other’s pictures, learned each other’s names and parted as friends. I love it when that kind of thing happens spontaneously on the trail. I’ve met so many great people already.

I was supposed to be talking about the Isle of Skye but as ever I have, both figuratively and actually, wandered off track. In body as in mind, or something. So to recap and summarise, Skye is awesome. The light here is phenomenal, the views from The Old Man of Storr are almost unbelievably beautiful, Fairy Glen is as magical as the name suggests and if you’re in Portree there’s even a pizza food truck called Pizza in the Skye which is brilliant and run by a great guy called Mark who’s entertaining to chat to whilst he’s cooking your dinner. The only thing that isn’t brilliant here is the phone signal, but maybe that is no bad thing either.