Over the bridge to Skye

Thirty-five years ago we visited the Isle of Skye for the first time.

The Skye Bridge didn’t exist so we caught the ferry at Kyle of Lochalsh, stayed at Hotel Eilean Iarmain overlooking the Sound of Sleat on the south east side of the island, and returned to the mainland via the smaller Mallaig ferry that still operates today.

We’ve been back several times since, most notably on our wedding day in April 1992 when we were accompanied by a small convoy of family and friends, but last week was the first time we’ve been to the island for at least 25 years.

We booked a small cabin in Glendale, a community-owned estate on the north west corner of Skye, and drove up from Cambridgeshire via Glasgow and Fort William (where we stopped to buy supplies at the local M&S Foodhall).

To give you an idea of the distance, it took us six hours to drive from Cambridgeshire to Glasgow (366 miles), and a further six to drive from Glasgow to Glendale (234 miles), the last leg featuring a succession of increasingly narrow, and hilly, single track roads.

Our home for four nights was said to be ‘off the beaten track’, and it was. It was near the end of a rough single track ‘road’ dotted with homes, and homesteads, some more isolated than others.

It was also described as a ‘rustic dwelling’ and an ‘effortlessly modern homestay’, which wasn’t inaccurate.

There were several nice touches including some (complimentary) single malt Scotch whisky from Skye’s oldest licensed distillery. (Talisker, since you ask.)

I’ve never really liked whisky but this was very smooth and too good not to drink.

There was however a small mishap when the (very loud) smoke alarm went off shortly after we lit the logs in the wood burner.

There was no smoke inside the cabin so I’ve no idea why the alarm was triggered, but it was and it was a long 20 minutes before it finally went off.

A few minutes before that I rang the property agent (in Torbay!) who contacted the owner who rang back but thankfully the alarm had stopped by then.

“Never happened before,” she said.

Highlight of the week was dinner at The Three Chimneys, a small fine dining restaurant overlooking Loch Dunvegan. It was 15 minutes (by road) from where we were staying so we booked a taxi so I could drink.

Our elderly and extremely engaging driver told us he owned a croft which he shared with his wife and 22 sheep.

There was no money in wool, he said, so the sheep are kept to breed lambs. Some, we speculated, might even end up being served to customers at The Three Chimneys.

We discovered that he had once been a part-time fireman and had also been active in the campaign to abolish the tolls imposed on road users following the opening of the Skye Bridge in 1994.

(Fun fact: the Skye Bridge was officially opened by my old boss Michael Forsyth - now Lord Forsyth of Drumlean - who was then Secretary of State for Scotland. I worked for Michael when he was director of a PR company in the early Eighties.)

But I digress.

The Three Chimneys was a Michelin star restaurant until last year when the chef left to open his own restaurant, Loch Bay, on the west coast of the island, taking the accolade with him (which is how it works).

Even without their Michelin star chef it was a very enjoyable meal that, interestingly, featured three English wines and a red wine from Georgia on the wine flight.

The staff were lovely too. Our waiter, from Bahrain, seemed to know our taxi driver quite well. “He’s a better driver than he was last year,” he told us, which was reassuring.

Our driver, who had earlier claimed that The Three Chimneys had changed its menu and was now serving burgers and fried chicken, took this quite well when I relayed it to him after he returned to drive us back to our cabin in Glendale.

Another place we visited was Café Cùil. Fifteen miles from Portree, the capital of Skye, it was founded, strangely enough, in Hackney in east London in 2019.

The owner, award-winning chef Clare Coghill, subsequently returned to her native Skye and established Café Cùil in what appears to be the middle of nowhere.

Despite that, on the day we went for lunch, the place was so full we had to wait 30 minutes for a table.

You can’t really visit Skye without doing some walking, so on Thursday we joined other hikers - many of them from France and Scandinavia - and ambled our way to Neist Point Lighthouse.

Although the walk is only 1.3 miles, it’s quite steep in places and the return leg, which includes a tiring climb, was a good test of my (lack of) fitness.

On our final morning we visited Skye Weavers, also in Glendale, before revisiting Hotel Eilean Iarmain in Sleat.

Skye Weavers is a small weaving and sewing business run by Roger and Andrea, a husband and wife team who met on the Isle of Mull before moving to Skye 13 years ago.

Roger, who sounded English, came out to greet us and demonstrate one of his looms which are driven by peddle power.

He explained that his parents bought their house in Glendale as a holiday home in 1966. He subsequently inherited it and moved to Skye permanently.

Hotel Eilean Iarmain was much as we remembered it, although I had forgotten just how small it is.

The tiny wood panelled restaurant in which we had our wedding dinner has been extended so it now offers better views of the surrounding hills, but the look and feel of the place is still that of a small hunting lodge.

The location is wonderful but it doesn’t feel as remote as it did, the long single track road across the moor having been widened significantly to accommodate two lanes of traffic.

That minor disappointment aside, I can’t speak highly enough of Skye, with the exception of Portree which gets busy and is rather touristy.

Described by some as a ‘village’, it’s actually a small town that (in my view) is not representative of the rest of the island and should arguably be avoided unless you need to buy provisions. (There’s a large Co-Op on the edge of town.)

Then again, I would probably give the entire island a miss in the busy summer months when sharing single track roads with camper vans and caravans is likely to be tiresome, at best.

Overall though it has reawakened my interest in revisiting both the Inner and Outer Hebrides including North and South Uists, Benbecula, Harris and Lewis which I last visited 50 years ago.

Finally, I genuinely can’t believe our luck with the weather. Before we travelled north last weekend heavy or light rain was forecast for every day we were due to be on Skye.

Instead, we woke up each day to bright sunshine and blue skies and although there was the occasional shower the rain was fleeting.

On our way home, the hotel receptionist in Dundee was equally amazed. “I’ve been to Skye several times and it never stopped raining,” she said.

We’ll definitely go back but we won’t wait another 25 years because by then we might be dead!

Below: Our cabin in Glendale, Isle of Skye, and some nearby locations

Comments

[David Kerr]

It’s a lovely place, but the prices for accommodation are extortionate for what is on offer, I’ve found the same for Campbeltown and various other places on the mainland throughout Scotland. Apart from some b&bs which are run by families

[Simon]

Fair point, which probably explains all the camper vans. Ultimately, I imagine it’s down to supply and demand, and the only way that would change is with a lot of new accommodation being built for holiday lets and that might impact on the reason that many people go in the first place.

As an aside, I believe the Skye Bridge led to an immediate 30% increase in the number of vehicles crossing to the island. I don’t know the current figures but without significant investment the infrastructure would probably struggle if there were a great many more visitors.