The weather on day 3 was sunny and dry, but all that can change within a second, Steve had been checking the weather to see what it was going to be like day to day and he had noticed that the weather that night was for strong winds and rain, we needed to top the water up and empty the loo, so I booked Camping Skye in Broadford for the night and with the weather looking bad it is better to be on a site rather than wild camp, well we think so.
When in Scotland, it’s never just a simple “today we will drive to Broadford”, Scotland has loads of roads/lanes going of the main road, and you can discover the most gorgeous places with every turn of the road. That’s what happens to us, the place we are headed for can be five minutes down the road, but it takes us half a day to get there, as I’ve said before Evie is not a massive motorhome so we can get down most lanes and small roads and most of all of the roads in Scotland have passing places.
So this happened to us on the way to Broadford, we left Amardale after breakfast and took a road of the beaten track towards Tarskavaig, it was across moorland, very vast, this is where we would expect to see a deer or other wildlife, but no sign of any deer 🙂 but plenty of buzzards, I missed quite a few opportunities of buzzards sat on fence posts because I didn’t have my camera on my knee, I will never learn until I’ve missed what could have been the best photo of the day.
Anyway with camera on my knee we carried on passing a lovely loch called Loch Dhughaill, eventually we came to Tarskavaig, it was just a very small village right on the coast, from here you get a good view of The Cullins, we didn’t stop here but drove on to Tokavaig, this was another small village or crofts as they are called, it had a lovely shore line and some lovely places to stop and park up for a cuppa, but we passed them all, then decided to stop, by this time we were going out of the village and this is where we encountered a massively steep hill directly after a really sharp corner and gravel, it wasn’t a good combination for Evie and we started to slide back down the hill as Steve braked to try and get into first gear, the corner came on you so quick that there was no time to get into 1st gear
Luckily there was a house with a drive that we turned into and were able to turn round to take the hill again, but then we had to find another place to turn around again to take the hill, so we end up passing some of those lovely spots again, so we had the chance this time to pull over after we had turned round, so after finding somewhere to turn round we pulled over and had a coffee and a crumpet, the weather was lovely and really warm.
As we were sitting having our cuppa we could see a ruin castle in the distance, it turned out to be the Fort of Gloom the oldest on Skye and it is said that it was built in a single night built by the MacLeod clan, it was taken over by the MacDonald’s, but then taken back in 1495 by the MacLeod’s. You can walk to the ruin but the path was very muddy and I don’t think you can get very close to it as it is in dangerous state of disrepair. It was time to get back on the road and tackle the hill, Steve did it so easy this time as he knew what to expect this time. We passed through another little croft called Ord, we didn’t stop here, and the views of the Cullins were still amazing from here. The road now lead back onto the main road, we drove to the Isle Ornsay which was once the centre of Skye’s fishing industry, it’s a tiny place and you wouldn’t think it was so busy years ago, it has a few claims to fame, one being the islands first public toilet flushed by the tide and number two (sorry for the pun J, is that Gavin Maxwell who wrote Ring Of Bright Water once lived in one of the cottages there. We called in the small gallery that is there which sells different types of paintings of the surrounding area and wildlife. It also has a small distillery there which wasn’t open while we were there, a couple of hotels and a gift shop that sells Harris Tweed.
We drove on to Broadford passing more beautiful places, lochs and mountains, Broadford is Skye’s second largest town and is a very busy place, it is a place where most holidaymakers and travellers stop to get provisions and fill up with petrol, motor homers, walkers, hikers, etc. The car park is big and is right next to a large supermarket, so it’s an ideal place to stop. I popped into the co-op for some bits, we had dinner and then had a look around.
I had read in my book that there is a short walk from the car park called a Heritage Trail, a bird hide is in the grounds of a park area which has seating and overlooks the bay of Broadford , sometimes otters are spotted here also spotted here in the winter months are red throated divers, also in the grounds is a monument which commemorates James Ross who was the first man to patent Drambuie.
As we walked through the park and over a lovely bridge were Broadford river flows into the sea, the path took us though a bit of woodland and onto a pier, the fishermen must do a lot of lobster fishing as there were loads of lobster pots all stacked up. After taking some photos of the pier and pots we left the pier to carry on the walk, but there was a sign saying private property and a small sign pointing to a very rocky drop (very small drop) down onto a stony beach, we presumed this was the way so we carried on but then there didn’t seem anyway to go at all, it was all very strange, so we turned round and went back the way we came, but this time walking on the quiet road which ran alongside the woody path. Eventually we arrived back at Evie and discussed what to do next.
A few weeks before the holiday started I had booked a sea cruise with Misty Isle Boat Trips for the Thursday, which is in Elgol, the trip goes to Loch Coruisk, which is Loch you can only get to by boat, it is separated from the sea by narrow band of rock, we were really looking forward to this trip so thought we would take a run there to see what the parking etc. was like. It was about 15 miles away so it wasn’t far, we set off and straight away the views were again amazing, Elgol is on the tip of the Strathaird Peninsula, there is a lot of history on this road, from a deserted village were the occupants were evicted and forced to move to Australia to the remains of church that was washed away by storms in the 1920’s, they used to quarry marble here since 1703 and in one of the 2 quarries here they still do.
We passed an old church and graveyard which we thought we would call on the way back. The road into Elgol was windy and steep and the road to the actual jetty was soooo steep, so steep that I really didn’t want to drive down to it, there was 2 car parks a top car park which had a ticket machine, the one nearer the jetty didn’t have a machine, both car parks had signs for no overnight parking, the café there also had a car park, so there was quite a bit of parking. We drove down to the jetty and I just held my breath and shut my eyes, but Evie did it well, well Steve did it well, then we had to drive back up, phew, we made it.
The old church we stopped at on the way back was Cill Chriosd (christs church), it was the local church up until 1840 when the new church was built in Broadford, the weather was getting windy whilst we were looking round the ruins and it was getting really cold, it was a wind that cut though you, the church was very exposed and you can imagine it must have been so cold in the winter back in its day to attend a funeral there, also it was a good few miles from Broadford and for the people with no horses and carts they would have had to walk, then stand in a freezing cold graveyard, not a nice thought at all. Anyway we jumped back in Evie put the heater on full blast and made our way to the camp site.
Camping Skye is a new site and is a community run site, it was opened in 2018 and is a five minute walk from the centre of Broadford, where there are plenty of places to eat and shops. When I phoned to book the lady I spoke to was very helpful and friendly. We pulled into the site and stopped at the reception, it is not a huge site, but has great views, it has hard standing pitches and the tenting pitches are what they have called tent terraces, these terraces were named in a competition they ran and the new sign, will be ready for the 2020 season. And are closer to the facilities, but they also have wild camping pitches which are quieter and more secluded.
The motorhome and caravan pitches are all hard standing with 240v 16a electric hook up and individual barbeque/awning pitches .The facilities are top quality and have toilets, showers, wash up/laundry drying room, chemical toilet disposal, grey water disposal, free Wi-Fi and a 24hr warden. I can vouch for the showers, they were lovely and warm and worked on a touch button with a good length of time before you had to touch it again, most showers on sites are fixed at the same temperature which you can’t change, I like this idea as you’re not fighting getting the water to the right temp, starting of freezing and end up being boiling hot and if it is on a push button method you only have a certain length of time before it stops and you have to push it again, you just get it to the right temperature and it stops and you have to start all over again, you can end up having a freezing cold shower. The toilets and shower area was clean and tidy.
I had a nosy at the washing up area and washing/drying room which were all very tidy even though it was full of tents and clothes drying on racks, the weather had been awful if you were camping. The site has a very good website which tells you a bit more than I have said. It cost us £25 for a one night stay, that is £20.00 for one adult and hook up and £5 for an additional adult. We paid and told which pitch number we were on, parked up, hooked up and settled down for the afternoon. The view we had was of the mountains, not sure the name of it.
The weather had already started to get really rough, so after we had both been for a shower we hunkered down and watched the world go by and the weather get worse, and discussed the next day. The rain came down like mad and was so heavy, we could see the car parking for the tents from where we were and noticed people getting into their cars, it was obviously getting to bad for them to stay in their tents, Evie was rocking like mad and the rain was very loud on her roof. Despite the weather we slept well, we were shattered.
No comments:
Post a Comment