Skye day 4

Walk today was Scorrybreac, a short walk of 3.1km

We woke up to awful wind again (not us, the weather) 🙂 it was still strong, the rain wasn’t quite as bad, but it was still raining. We had a bit of a decision to make and we weren’t sure what to do, as I have said we had pre booked the sea trip in Elgol for the Thursday (day 5), looking at the weather for the Thursday it was looking bad too, which meant us staying around the same area with the prospect of the trip not going ahead. I went on to their website and could see that the trip was definitely not going ahead today so we couldn’t change the trip for today, I decided to send Misty Isle a message to ask if they thought the trip would go ahead in the morning. While we waited for a reply, I tided and put stuff away ready for the off while Steve did the dreaded toilet empty, unhooked us from the electric and turned the gas off.

We were ready for the off but still hadn’t had a reply, we had two more things to do before leaving the site which was fill up with water and empty the grey water tank, we drove to the point where you do all this, by the time we were ready to leave the site we still had no answer so I decided to send them another message just explain what we had decide to do, I feel as though it only courteous to let someone know your change of plan if you have booked something even though we hadn’t paid so I sent them a quick message just saying that as the weather was going to be bad for the Thursday we had decided to carry on with our journey further up Skye and hopefully we might catch them on the way back down. That put my mind at rest and we had a look at the map to see where we were going to head for next.

We headed out on the A87 towards Portree which means “Kings Harbour” in Gaelic, it is the biggest town on Skye. There is a walk there that was on our list to do, so Portree it was, we knew we were in for more dramatic scenery as we had heard that the mountains get higher and the lochs get larger, if they can get any larger. For a few miles of the trip we are alongside 2 Lochs, one is Loch na Cairidh and the other is Loch Ainort, I’m not sure what defines the 2 lochs as they are both connected also as they are both sea lochs im not sure what defines the difference between the sea and a loch. I will definitely do some research into that. Both Lochs are surrounded by the Black Cullin mountains.

 The road was getting busier with cars, caravans and motorhomes, it is one of the main roads to Portree, but also some of the popular tourist sites on Skye, The Old Man of Storr, Lealt Falls, Kilt Rock and the Museum of Island Life. As we followed the windy road ahead we could see quite a sharp corner and on that corner was a massive waterfall, it ran down the mountain under the road into Loch Ainort, we could see a layby just up the road from the falls, the trouble was this was a busy road and most people do stop to take the photos, we were so lucky as there was space for Evie. We pulled up, jumped out and walked down to the fall, you cannot get right upto it, and you can cross the road and get nearer to it, but you put your life into your hands as like I said it’s a busy road and on a bend. We stayed on the same side of the layby and behind the barrier to take the photos, it is a very fast flowing waterfall and with all the rain we had had it was a fantastic sight and sound to see and hear. With photos done we jumped back in Evie again and set off.

The weather had started to improve slightly and the sun did try and get through, without loads of success, the wind had dropped a bit, but was still very blowy. We drove a few miles before we came to Sconser, Sconser is a small ferry port where you can get a ferry to Raasey, it is only a small village or croft, it has a nine hole golf course which the holes have been named in Gaelic. We carried on deciding not to stop.

As I have said before Scotland is full of small roads coming off main roads and then roads coming off them, so after passing Loch Sligachan and a sign for Sligachan we came across a road off the A87 we didn’t hesitate to shoot down it. The signpost said Peinchorran so off we went down these narrow lanes with passing places, the road went though some moorland then you could see the coast below the road, we passed though a few lovely crofts, the road was very windy and in places very hilly, all of a sudden the road came to the place that was on the signpost, but the road changed to a rough track which was a bit baffling, but just a couple of 100 yards there was a turning which took us on a road under the road we had come on, so it was closer to the coast in some places very close to the coast, it was a lovely little detour and we were glad we did it, the views were spectacular There was no places to stop and have a coffee so we carried on and eventually it bought us back on to the main road.

As we carried on to Portree I read the print out about parking at the beginning of the walk, it mentioned about the limited parking, it only parked about 2/3 cars at a push so we would definitely be struggling with Evie. As we pulled into Portree we saw a sign for a free car park, we turned in and omg it was a huge car park but absolutely packed, there were cars everywhere looking for a space to park, it looked like we were out of luck, but we went through  a gap in a wall, a biggish gap of course, and there on the right were a lot of motorhomes and just as we thought we were going to have to find somewhere else a motorhome pulled out, phew, so lucky. After parking up we decided to have some dinner before the walk.

Sometimes we can read all about the walk, where it starts, how long it is, etc. etc. but sometimes just sometimes we glance over it and think we know where we are supposed to be starting or just presume this is where we should be. On this occasion it was a presume, we took the paper with the instructions and with cameras round necks but no rucksacks as the walk was classed as short and medium in difficulty we decided to go light, this time we left the car park and virtually straight away we were in the hustle and bustle off Portree, it was really busy.

There was a sign for the pier which was down some steps, when we had had a glance at the instructions there was a mention of a jetty, so we presumed the jetty would be down by the harbour, wrong, as we got to the bottom of the steps, we could see the harbour and the colourful building that Portree is famous for, it’s like Tobermory on Mull, it was a lovely sight so we stopped to take some photos and started walking towards the pier looking for the jetty as we walked, a lot of the colourful buildings are restaurants, cafes and fish and chip shops and they were really busy, a couple of them had queues outside. I noticed that there was a lot of youngsters around and a lot of them queuing outside the cafes, I have read since that Portree has the only Secondary School on the island, it takes from 15 primary schools across Skye and island of Raasay, it has a hostel for some pupils who live in the remotest areas, so that explained all the youngsters.

As we got nearer to the pier we had a look around for the jetty, but just couldn’t see one and the pier came to an end, so we turned round and headed back the way we came, then the rain started and of course we didn’t have our wet walking stuff with us as it was lovely when we left Evie, blue skies and quite warm, still slightly windy but we were in Scotland the weather changes like the weather 🙂 you think we have learnt by now. Steve got the paper out and it said that as you stand by the jetty and look across you can see the colourful buildings so we knew then that we were wrong, we looked across the water and could see the jetty, plus the boat house it mentioned, so we walked around passed the steps and headed in the right direction, well we thought it was the right direction, but we went a few 100 yds and couldn’t get any further, so ended up turning round again, going back up the steps and hopefully heading in the right direction, by this time we were a bit wet and the paper was soggy, but still readable thank goodness, we didn’t stand a chance if we couldn’t read it.

It wasn’t long before we reached the start, yyyaayyyy, at last, there was a signpost for the Scorrybreac Circuit. The road lead passed the boathouse and slipway where there are great views of Portree. It continued along a gravel path, there was a memorial up a grassy bank, but as it looked slippy we didn’t go up to it. The memorial is for the Nicolson Clan. We followed the main path which followed the shore line, the path passed a bench and turned around the headland then started to get quite rocky and narrow and you had to watch your footing.

By now the weather had started to close in and the wind had started to get worse, the cliffs above were very steep and there is a good chance of seeing sea eagles, we stood and watched for a while but didn’t see any. The path eventually came to an area with large boulders and rocks some partly on the path, as you look up towards the mountain you could see where they had broken away and flattened the shrubs and undergrowth recently on the way down towards the sea.

We decided to carry on despite the weather, the path started to get very narrow and quite muddy, the path started to climb quite steeply after a while and although we hate turning around on a walk we made a decision to head back the way we came, the wind was getting worse and we didn’t fancy getting blown off those cliffs into the sea, well who would. We had walked a fair way so we didn’t feel too bad about turning around.

We got back to Evie, put our stuff in the bathroom to dry off a bit and set off this time on the A855, not long after leaving Portree we noticed a lot of vehicles parked all on the side of the road, cars, motorhomes, coaches, motorbikes and realised it was the Old Man of Storr, as I looked up I saw all these strange rocks that sort of looked they had shot out of the ground, This was a walk on our list, but there was no way we were going to be able to park as there was just no room to park, we carried on and came to another tourist site on our list to see which was Kilt Rock, it is an area of coastline where cliffs of basalt columns give the coastline a pleated kilt like appearance.

We came to the turning into the car park and could see it was really busy again and it was very big, we went in just to see if we could park but no luck. We pulled out of the car park and headed towards Staffin, we didn’t quite get into Staffin when we came across a layby and a very nice layby it was too, we stopped here to discuss the plan and have a coffee. The plan now was to do the Old Man of Storr early the next morning before the crowds, so where to stay the night was the next discussion, we hadn’t really passed anywhere and we had noticed that the Kilt Rock car park was no overnight stopping even if it did empty later on. So what better place to stop was where we were in the layby, the views were nice, not spectacular but ok, the road was fairly busy, but most of the roads tend to quieten down as the evening goes on, so this was our stop for the night.  We still had no signal for the telly, nothing new there then, so we watched the Shape of Water, I can’t name all the films we watched but I remember this one as it was a strange film. Before it started to go dark there were quite a few birds of prey flying above the mountain that we could see, but couldn’t really make out what they were, it seemed to be their territory though as we noticed them around  a lot and also could hear them calling. The evening was peaceful and we had a good night’s sleep.